Chapter 8 Rook
The clubhouse smells like bacon, strong coffee, and whatever the hell Wren is trying to pass off as toast. It’s loud, chaotic, and everything Beau should’ve grown up with.
He’s still rubbing the sleep from his eyes when we walk into the dining room—him clinging to my hand like it’s second nature, me doing everything I can not to let my whole damn soul crack open.
“Morning, princess,” Wren shouts from across the room, nearly dropping his plate when he sees us. “Wait—hold up. Are you two—? No, shut the fuck up. Did you finally—"
“Wren.”
I cut him off with a look sharp enough to slice bacon.
He shuts his mouth, grinning around a mouthful of food like the chaos gremlin he is.
Calla shoots him a glare too, but Beau’s already yanking her toward the bench at one of the long tables, claiming the seat between us like he’s done it his whole life.
We sit. Plates appear. Coffee gets poured. The room buzzes around us, boots scuffing floors, cutlery clinking against chipped plates, voices overlapping like static. Chaos and comfort all at once. I’m halfway through a bite of sausage when Beau pipes up, loud and proud.
“Rook kissed my mama this morning.”
Forks freeze midair. Calla chokes on her coffee.
Wren slaps the table so hard the salt shaker topples. “You dog. You absolute fucking legend.”
Calla’s face is scarlet. She makes a strangled noise and practically dives into her coffee like it’s a damn life raft. I just smirk and take another bite of bacon. Wren howls. Actually howls.
Slaps the table again like he’s trying to beat it into submission. “No fucking way. You kissed Calla Blake? This morning? Like, today? Right in front of Jesus and the coffee maker?”
“She kissed me back,” I mutter around my food, casual as hell.
Calla glares at me so hard I’m shocked my eyebrows don’t catch fire.
Beau beams, clearly proud. “They were whisper-fighting, and then he just grabbed her.”
I nearly choke on my eggs.
“Jesus Christ,” Calla mutters under her breath, face buried in her hands. “Can we not?”
But it’s too late. The room’s gone full feral.
Ridge shakes his head, fighting a grin as he pours more coffee. “Well, damn. Thought it’d take you another month, Rook.”
Bear snorts. “We had a bet. I said two weeks. Wren owes me twenty.”
“You fucking cheated,” Wren hisses. “You saw them yesterday after they stormed off. She was already looking at him like he invented orgasms.”
“Wren!” Calla whips her head toward him, scandalized.
“Relax, sunshine.” He grins. “We’re all adults here. Besides, we all knew it’d happen, eventually. It happened in the past… many times. Hell, most of us thought it already had last night.”
“It did,” I mutter.
Everyone loses it.
“Get out!” Wren screams like he just won the damn lottery.
Bear’s wheezing. Ridge just chuckles. Even Frost looks up from his damn eggs with an impressed arch of his brow.
Beau blinks between all of us. “So wait. Does that mean Mama’s your girlfriend now?”
Calla opens her mouth. Closes it. Looks at me like you answer that, or I will burn this place to the ground.
I just smirk, lean back in my chair, and wrap an arm over the back of her seat. “Something like that, kid.”
I kiss her forehead before she can squirm away again, just to watch her flush all over. Still mine.
“Bathroom,” I mutter as I stand and stretch, neck cracking. “Don’t burn the house down while I’m gone.”
She flips me off without looking. God, I missed her.
I tug on a shirt as I step into the hallway, rubbing at the ache in my lower back with one hand. Some prospect hovers near the stairs like he’s been working up the nerve to speak to me all morning.
“Rook,” he says under his breath. “You got a sec?”
I glance toward the bathroom, then back to him. “Make it quick.”
He shifts on his feet like a damn toddler about to confess to spilling juice on a rug. “It’s uh—It’s Calla.”
That gets my full attention.
“What about her?” I ask, tone sharpening fast.
“I just…” He lowers his voice even more, like someone might be listening.
“Something’s off. She was in the kitchen before you got up.
Dropped a glass when I came in. Looked like she’d seen a ghost. Wouldn’t meet my eye.
Real twitchy. Then I saw her try to rub something off her wrist before she pulled her sleeve down. ”
I narrow my eyes. “You sure?”
He nods. “Yeah. Not like normal morning nerves. Like… she was hiding something.”
I process that for a beat. Every instinct I’ve got prickles. I’ve seen her scared before. I’ve seen her furious, too. But hiding? That’s a different flavor of wrong.
Grimm passes behind us mid-conversation, then halts and backs up like a feral cat smelling drama.
“What’s this?” he drawls, cocking his head. “You makin’ trouble, or just tryin’ real hard to piss me off first thing?”
The kid stiffens, caught between fear and guilt. I toss Grimm a look. “Relax. He’s just runnin’ his mouth.”
Grimm snorts. “Then run it somewhere useful. Clubhouse toilet’s clogged again. Been stewin’ since last night. Grab a plunger and a pair of gloves unless you want pinkeye.”
The prospect visibly pales. “Seriously?”
“Do I look like I’m jokin’, Prospect?” Grimm’s smile is pure wolf. “Go make yourself useful before I start thinkin’ you need a different kind of initiation.”
The kid mutters something under his breath and takes off toward the back hall, dragging his boots like a man on death row. Grimm lingers after the kid disappears, arms crossed and mouth twisted in that way that usually means he’s seen something he doesn’t like.
“You ain’t gonna ask me what that was about?” I ask, tilting my head.
He shrugs. “Not my business what whispers get traded in dark corners… unless they start smelling like bullshit.”
I narrow my eyes. “You think the kid’s full of it?”
“Not sayin’ that.” He scratches his beard. “But I will say this—he rolled up last night, soaked through and full of goddamn leaves. Said he went for a drive to clear his head.”
I blink. “In the middle of a storm?”
“Yup. Looked like he crawled through a fuckin’ ditch. Didn’t have nothin’ to show for it but mud on his boots and a twitch in his eye. Then your kid shows up, not even a few minutes later.”
I go still. Not the kind that shows, not enough to notice. But inside? My gut cinches tight, a low hum starting in my spine, vibrating like it knows something I don’t yet.
Beau. My son—my fuckin’ son—shows up not five minutes after some jittery little prospect stumbles in lookin’ like he wrestled a tornado, and Grimm’s just now tellin’ me this?
Something about that timing don’t sit right. Like a puzzle piece dropped in the wrong damn box. Could be coincidence. Sure. But I don’t believe in those anymore. Not after Calla. Not after five years of silence and buried truths.
I drag a hand down my face and nod slowly, eyes still locked on the hallway where she disappeared with him. “You tell anyone else?”
Grimm snorts. “Ain’t exactly got a bulletin board, brother. Thought you oughta know.”
“Yeah.” My voice is rough. “Appreciate it.”
He claps me on the shoulder and walks off, and I stand there for a second, heart doing that uneven thud like it’s caught between memory and murder.
Mud on his boots. Leaves in his hair. A twitch in his eye.
Storm or not, that ain't right. And if he laid so much as a fuckin’ finger on Beau—or on her—
No. Don’t jump. Don’t swing without proof.
But my knuckles itch anyway. I turn on my heel and head for the dining hall. Time to keep my eyes open. I lost five years. I ain’t losin’ another second.
I can’t stop looking at him. Beau’s got syrup on his cheek and a dimple that digs in every time he laughs at Grimm’s stupid pancake face impression. He’s got her eyes, my smile, and a grip on my heart that should terrify me, but doesn’t. Not in the way it should.
It’s the other shit that’s setting me on edge. He knew how to get here. From that goddamn cabin, through woods thick with brush and ankle-snapping roots, past the firebreak trail, across two damn access roads. And he walked it. Alone.
I rake a hand through my hair and force a breath through my nose. Grimm’s still chuckling, ruffling Beau’s curls, and Calla’s got that half-smile on her lips like she’s pretending not to be proud. She’s calm. Too calm. I can’t ignore it anymore.
I lean over behind her chair and murmur, low and rough, “We need to talk.”
She stiffens for a second. Not like she’s scared, like she’s bracing for a blow that isn’t coming.
Then she wipes Beau’s cheek with a napkin, stands, and follows me without a word.
I take her down the hall past the chapel room, through the supply door, and out back toward the smokers’ stoop.
It’s quiet here. No eyes, no ears. Just me and her, and the heavy thump in my chest I can’t seem to slow.
I turn to face her. “How’d he know?”
Her brow furrows. “What?”
“Beau.” I cross my arms. “How’d he know where to go? How’d he get from your place to here? That’s not a walk you stumble into, Calla.”
She presses her lips together. Tight. Defensive. But not guilty.
“I didn’t tell him,” she says after a beat. “Not directly.”
My jaw ticks. “Not directly isn’t the same as not at all.”
“I followed his tracks,” she snaps back. “Little boot prints in the dirt. Led from the back of the cabin through the trees. Motorcycle tracks beside them, too. Fresh ones. Deep enough to guide a four-year-old with too much of your goddamn stubborn in him.”
I blink. “Motorcycle tracks?”
She nods. “Rutted the path up from the rain.”
I nod, slow. “Fresh ones, huh?”
She eyes me. “You think I made that up?”
“No,” I murmur, running a hand over the back of my neck. “I believe you.”
I just wish I didn’t. I know exactly who left those damn tracks. Prospect or not, I’ll string him up if anything had happened to Beau. And I’ll hang myself right beside him for letting it happen in the first place.
“You should’ve called me,” I grit out. “The second you saw he was gone, you should’ve picked up the damn phone.”
She recoils like I slapped her. “Oh, I’m sorry. Were you gonna rush to help the woman you haven’t seen in five years? For the kid you didn’t even know you had?”
“That’s not—”
“No. Don’t you dare say it’s not fair,” she hisses. “You don’t get to pull the father card now, not when you left me holding the damn deck.”
My hands curl into fists. “He walked here, Calla. In a storm. Through the woods. Do you know what could’ve happened? What if he’d fallen? What if he’d wandered off the trail?”
“And what?” she snaps. “You think I haven’t pictured every awful thing since the second I realized he was gone? I nearly lost my goddamn mind. But he came here, Rook. He came to you. So maybe ask yourself why.”
That hits harder than any punch I’ve taken in the ring. She doesn’t wait for my reply. Just turns on her heel, marches back into the dining hall, and scoops Beau into her arms. He goes willingly, curling into her neck like she’s the only safe place he’s ever known.
The room goes still. Grimm’s halfway through a mouthful of scrambled eggs when his gaze cuts to me, sharp beneath his greying brows. He doesn’t say a word—he doesn’t need to. The weight of his stare alone says it all.
Ash leans back in his chair with a long, low whistle. “Jesus,” he mutters, drumming his fingers on the table. “Wasn’t expectin’ a domestic before my second cup of coffee.”
Wren doesn’t even look up from his plate, just raises his brows and keeps chewing like he’s watching a reality show play out live. “If that’s your idea of foreplay, Rook, you might need a manual.”
Frost folds his arms, cold and unreadable, though I catch the flicker of something behind his eyes as he watches Calla cradle Beau. Protective. Calculating. Like he’s already weighing what she means to me, and if that makes her a liability or something else entirely.
“Calla,” I try again, voice rough.
She stops at the door. Doesn’t turn. “I didn’t come here to fight,” she says, voice tight. “But I won’t stay where I feel like a threat.”
The door slams behind her. Beau in her arms. My heart in my throat. I just stand there, fury boiling in my gut directed at myself. And maybe at the idiot kid who’s about to lose a patch and a few teeth.
Ash leans forward. “So… anyone wanna tell me how the hell a four-year-old made it here through a goddamn storm without anyone noticing?”
I don’t answer. Not yet. Not until I figure out how the hell I let this happen.