Chapter Eight
Unclenched and Unexpected
The moon garden is quiet. Too quiet, really, which makes me paranoid that somewhere nearby someone is doing unsupervised breathwork or possibly seducing a willow tree.
I came here to breathe and eat snacks in peace, which I think is a valid form of sacred self-care, even if I’m doing it with a half-melted protein bar I definitely did not charge with intention and a stick of palo santo that smells like I lit an anxiety disorder on fire.
The domes glow soft amber behind me, scattered across the dark like sentient little marshmallows. Everything smells faintly of eucalyptus and revelation.
I flop onto a cushion beside my low writing table, technically it’s a meditation altar, but tonight it’s holding my protein bar, my schedule notebook, and the spiraling beginnings of a completely deranged plan called:
Day Two: Rewild the Inner Wolf-Cub
(subtitled: Reconnect with your pre-societal self through embodied regression, organic movement, and emotionally feral choices.)
So far, the itinerary includes:
· Crawling meditation
· Shirtless forest run (optional but highly encouraged)
· Sustainable nest-building using only foraged materials and the will to heal
· Possibly a howling circle, if I can figure out how to lead it without bursting into laughter or tears
· Post-howl journaling prompt: “What does your inner cub fear?”
I chew my bar in silence, legs crossed, notebook in my lap, thinking very serious thoughts like: Is moss structurally sound for emotional nests? and What are the sanitation implications of primal barefoot expression?
While I ponder, I take another bite of the bar, which tastes like regret and artificial vanilla, and stare at the moon, which feels judgmental tonight.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I mutter.
I’m just scribbling “cub snack break (optional berries?)” in the margin when I hear it.
A branch crunches. There’s a shift in the air.
That feeling in your chest when someone walks into your orbit and doesn’t say anything, but somehow still says everything.
I glance up, already knowing who it is.
Of course it’s Jax.
He’s not stomping in like usual. No swagger. No “look at me” energy. He’s... quiet. Hands in his pockets. Shoulders loose. Shirt still MIA, because of course, but not in the usual “I’m a problem” way. Tonight he looks like someone who’s been cracked open and is still figuring out if he likes the way the light comes in.
He sees me, doesn’t smirk. Just nods once, casual, and walks over like it was always the plan. “You talkin’ to the sky, or just lost your mind out here?”
I swallow the rest of the bar like it’s a defense mechanism.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask, trying not to sound startled or secretly thrilled.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he says. “Too much... steam in my brain or whatever.”
I raise an eyebrow. “That’ll happen when you scream your trauma into the void while squatting in warrior two.”
He shrugs and walks closer, not sitting exactly, but crouching nearby, like he’s trying the whole “reclaiming his cub” thing a little early.
There’s a moment. Soft. Tense. Unspoken.
Then he says, “You were right, you know.”
I blink. “About what?”
“This whole thing. The... screaming. The sage. The yoga where I nearly pulled something sacred.” He pauses. Looks up at the moon. “I thought it was bullshit. All of it. But today, during that pose where we were, like, angry dogs or whatever? Something just...” He gestures vaguely at his chest, his throat, his everything. “Let go.”
I freeze.
Because he’s not joking. He’s not posturing. He’s just... there. Earnest. Raw. A little wrecked in a way that feels holy.
“I’ve been angry so long I forgot what it feels like not to be,” he says. “Like, I wake up and it’s just there. In my jaw. In my hands. In my spine. Like armor. Like... noise.”
He finally glances over, and the look on his face is wrecked. Open. Real. “But today... it got quiet. Just for a second. And that scared the shit outta me.”
I don’t speak.
Because if I do, I’ll either say something deeply wise or deeply stupid and I’m not sure which would be worse. Because this is Jax Riot, the human flame emoji, the man who growled through cat-cow and made two-thirds of the dome cry-laugh.
And now he’s looking at me like I handed him something he didn’t know he needed.
He gives a lopsided almost-smile. “I just... figured you should know. You’re not full of shit. Or maybe you are. But whatever this is? It’s doing something.”
I manage a laugh, too soft. “You screamed at your inner demons in pigeon pose, Jax. That wasn’t exactly my doing.”
“Yeah, well,” he mutters, standing slowly. “Something unclenched. That’s all I’m sayin’.” He turns to go, then pauses. “You ever do that thing where... you’re scared if you let go of one thing, everything else might fall apart too?”
I nod, standing as well. “Only every day.”
He doesn’t say anything after that. Just looks at me. Long. Still. With a kind of quiet I wasn’t prepared for.
And then he steps closer. Just one small shift of weight, but I feel it like a gravitational event. My pulse skips, then slams back like it’s trying to break out of my body.
His gaze drops to my mouth.
And that is not allowed.
He’s close enough now that I can see the damp shine still clinging to his collarbone, the little scar by his eyebrow, the glint of something unreadable, but not uncaring, in his eyes. I could name this feeling, but I refuse to do it without a certified shaman and possibly a snack.
“Jax,” I start to say, except that’s all I manage before he kisses me.
And holy actual moon goddess.
It’s not wild. It’s not fast.
It’s soft. Shockingly soft.
Like he’s trying something out. Like he’s never kissed anyone quite like this. Like maybe he thinks I’ll break if he presses any harder.
(Plot twist: I will. I am. I’m already broken. Ruined. Rewritten on a spiritual level.)
His lips brush mine, a gentle sweep, and it sends every nerve ending in my body into some kind of primal seance. I can’t move. Can’t breathe. My brain is short-circuiting in twelve languages and one of them is just screaming the word “lips.”
I taste heat. And mint. And, oh god, maybe still a little eucalyptus. That shouldn’t be hot, but it is. It really, really is.
He pulls back just slightly, just enough to hover, and it’s worse, because now I feel the air between us, feel how badly I want that space closed again.
And then he kisses me for real.
His hand lifts, brushes against the side of my neck, fingers grazing my jaw like he’s reading something there, some map of all the places I didn’t think wanted to be touched.
And I kiss him back.
No hesitation. No thought. Just instinct and heat and the overwhelming, terrifying rightness of it.
Our mouths move together, slow and messy and too much and not enough. His thumb traces the curve of my cheekbone like a question he’s been dying to ask, and my brain is somewhere three feet above my body, screaming “this isn’t real, this isn’t sacred, this is literally dangerous, how is he good at this, why are you arching, oh my god.”
And I think, with all the clarity of a woman currently being spiritually yeeted off the edge of her own self-control:
I can’t breathe and I don’t want to and this kiss tastes like the beginning of a mistake I will absolutely not regret until much, much later.
And that’s when I do something very smart.
I pull away. Gasp. Step back. Almost fall over the cushion.
He looks at me like I just ripped the moon out of the sky.
I hold up both hands like I’m warding off a very sexy demon. “I… okay,” I pant. “That was... not part of the... curriculum.”
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t smirk. He just watches me. Quiet. Still. Wrecked in a way that makes me feel like I’ve opened something I don’t know how to close.
“I wasn’t gonna make it a thing,” he says, voice hoarse. “It just... happened.”
And then, thank the goddess and all her backup dancers, he turns and walks away into the dark like some kind of post-apocalyptic heartthrob disappearing into the mist.
I drop back onto the cushion and stare at the moon.
“Okay,” I whisper to the sky. “That was either a divine activation or I’ve finally been kissed so good my third eye opened.”
The moon does not respond.
After he’s gone, I sit there for a long time. Still staring at the moon, the steam clinging to my skin, the taste of him still on my lips like a secret that doesn’t want to fade.
I consider journaling.
Something sacred. Reflective. Maybe a gratitude list or a guided question like “What am I surrendering today?”
I grab my notebook and write:
“What am I surrendering today?”
Then underneath it, in all caps:
CONTROL. DIGNITY. MAYBE MY UNDERWEAR IF THIS KEEPS UP.
I cross it out. Rewrite:
“I am grateful for emotional breakthroughs, bodily awareness, and... jawlines.”
Cross that out too.
New heading:
REWILDING THE INNER WOLF-CUB: FINAL DRAFT
I write:
Crawling meditation (primal reclaiming of ground-based power)
Shirtless forest run (probably a terrible idea but honestly I need it)
Group howling (must not make sexual or jokes)
Nest-building with natural, non-phallic materials
Post-howling reflection circle
Optional pack cuddling?? (no. Cross that out.)
Then, underneath in the margins:
“Do not look at Jax’s mouth tomorrow.”
“Do not make him howl first.”
“You are the leader. You have boundaries. Your robe is your armor.”
“Okay maybe just one more kiss if it’s part of his process??”
“Stop it.”
I set the notebook down, press the back of my hand to my forehead like I’m a Victorian widow overcome by emotion, and lie back in the grass, staring at the stars.
I thought this retreat would be a hustle. A scam. A last-ditch attempt to save the estate and maybe trick some emotionally stunted trust fund bros into manifesting their own growth while paying my taxes.
But now?
Now I’ve got five men cracking open like sacred walnuts, one of them just kissed me like I was the answer to a question he didn’t know he was asking, and I have to lead a wolf-themed ego release crawl in six hours without collapsing into a puddle of horny self-doubt.
The stars do not offer advice.
Rude.
I close my eyes and whisper, “Tomorrow, I am professionally feral and completely composed. I am a guide. I am a vessel. I am not kissing anyone in the woods, no matter how good they smell.”
A pinecone drops somewhere nearby like a judgmental mic drop from nature itself.
Great.