Chapter 3 Jae
JAE
Summer was proof that sometimes you should follow the dreams you had at thirteen.
She had her own bakery. Fuck, I was happy for her.
She really looked like she belonged there.
The past eleven years had been good to her, her smile appearing much more easily than it used to.
All the reasons for my first-ever crush were amplified.
Kind, beautiful, the perfect amount of sass.
I just wanted to turn back around, sit in that bakery, and watch her in her element.
Her omega scent had caught me off guard.
It sparkled. Made my alpha sit up. Sweet, like most omegas, but I swore hers was more complex than anyone else I’d ever scented.
Mango and passionfruit suddenly became sunshine distilled.
Long afternoons lying on white sand, naps in the gentle lulls.
And then when she flicked her hair, a hint of wildflowers, caught by a passing breeze.
I’d nearly pitched forward trying to get a deeper sense of it. Would’ve made an absolute fool of myself cracking my head open on her counter.
I shook my head to clear the fog and then realized I was about to enter my brother’s patisserie holding baked goods from his competition.
Well, if I was going to be a bad brother, I may as well commit fully. I took a bite of my bánh mì and my eyes rolled to the back of my head. Securing one of these rolls every single day this summer just became my new mission.
I wandered into the back where Mercer was waxing lyrical about his oven, Lucien nodding along like he understood.
“You’re back. Who was it that you saw?” Lucien asked calmly.
“What the hell is that?” Mercer demanded before I could answer.
There really was no escaping the dynamic that had been hardwired since we were kids. Lucien, calmly assessing. Mercer, guns blazing. Me, a deer in headlights.
Lucien was the eldest and Papa and Mom’s son. But that didn’t make my uncle any less of an appa to him. Two alphas, one omega, and their perfect boy. Lucien had seven peaceful years until Mercer crashed the party.
From what I was told, Mom and Mercer’s dad, Greg, knew instantly they were scent-matched.
Fated, soulmates, meant to be. He was passing through town with his son and never left.
Mercer was unimpressed with getting a new family at four years old, and to this day was perpetually disgruntled to some degree.
The pack grew. Three alphas, one omega, and two young boys.
Unwieldy. Noisy. Fissures forming in the foundations.
I was foisted on them all a year later, orphaned at two. I should have used that to become Batman, but instead I just stuck out like a sore thumb.
Lucien and Mercer were always going to feel like pack to me because we grew up in one. But I found it hardest to overlook our differences. No one questioned that Lucien and Mercer were pack brothers. Even though Lucien was technically half French, they were undoubtedly American .
But I got the double takes, the head tilt at my name. I wanted to hold on to my parents’ last name and be open about my Korean heritage. It chafed when I was the odd one out. I grew irritated if I was called a Beaufort anyway.
I didn’t say any of this was logical.
Lucien was still waiting for my answer while Mercer was trying to activate his X-ray vision through my sunshine yellow cake box.
“I saw Summer.” Zero spark of recognition. “Summer Pham?” Still nothing. “She has a bakery now. I know I’m meant to be supporting your new venture, but this is the best thing I’ve eaten in my life,” I confessed.
Something finally clicked with Lucien as he noticed the Suns Out Bánhs Out logo on my paper bag. “That’s from next door?”
I nodded and took another bite. Crumbs showered onto the floor and I swore I saw a red haze cross Mercer’s vision. Whoops.
“Where is your loyalty?” Mercer huffed.
“It disappeared about three bites ago.”
Smoke nearly curled out of Mercer’s nose as he glared at the roll in my hands. “Give it to me.”
“No!”
“Jae!”
I raced around the kitchen away from Mercer’s outstretched hand, making sure to keep at least one large piece of furniture between us.
Sure, on one hand Mercer was a successful pastry chef and entrepreneur.
But on the other he was an attack dog I had to avoid at all costs.
Based on when he last caught me when I was twelve, he was going to try to suplex me and I didn’t have the luxury of the couch cushions all over the floor this time.
Lucien sighed heavily. He stopped me in my tracks with a firm yank of my shirt and prevented Mercer from reaching me.
“Jae, clean up your mess,” Lucien admonished me. My spine shriveled out of habit from that disapproving eldest brother tone. “Mercer, you don’t serve bánh mì. Don’t be an idiot.”
“But he—”
Lucien stared daggers at him and Mercer shut up. Ah, just like old times.
“Want me to continue the tour?” Mercer said after a beat.
“Yeah, sure, let me sweep up my crumbs first.”
This was Mercer’s fourth Patisserie L’étoile d’Or location. A lot of blue and white and marble. Fancy as shit. But the hanging plants and welcoming plush seating stopped it from looking like you weren’t allowed to touch anything.
He had been tied up overseeing the Portland store and hadn’t been able to settle in at Starlight Grove until now.
What could’ve been a setback was serendipitous instead.
I’d wrapped production on an album and needed to recharge my creative batteries before my next contract began.
Then Lucien got the call from Papa and Appa asking for his help with the old pack house.
It had been rented on and off ever since we moved out, and the last tenant had left so abruptly he abandoned all of his furniture.
He was a programmer who landed a Silicon Valley job so lucrative and loaded with perks that he didn’t need to transport anything.
Trying to figure out what to do with it all was the final straw that broke our dads’ backs with the house after a decade of legal battles and leasing troubles.
Lucien took over. A couple of extra beds, and he turned an inconvenience into the perfect temporary living situation for us.
I was just glad we didn’t have to camp on the floor in sleeping bags.
Lucien checked his phone. “I better get back to the house. My emails are piling up.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on sabbatical?” I asked.
He was already inching toward the exit. “Yes, but I’m bad at it.”
Lucien didn’t give us a second glance as the door swung shut behind him.
“You distract him later and I’ll toss his phone in the path of an oncoming car,” Mercer suggested.
“Deal. Maybe once we start the renovations, he’ll be less of a, er—”
“Human spreadsheet?”
Lucien had landed at a prestigious financial firm even before he’d graduated college and shot up the corporate ladder. Work-life balance wasn’t his strong suit.
“I was going to say workaholic,” I said diplomatically. Mercer probably had a million things to do before he officially opened in a few days. “Place looks great.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll get out of your hair and see you back at the house tonight.”
Mercer pointed at the cake box I’d set on the counter. “Let me try some.”
The amount of possessiveness I felt over Summer’s cake had to be abnormal. “Go next door and get it yourself.” I snatched it back up and quickly made my escape.
The gentle, brine-filled breeze sharpened as I wandered away from the town center.
The bayberry shrubs had exploded along the dunes and I barely recognized the coastline I used to run along.
The beach was empty, save for a few silhouettes of people going on walks in the distance.
I chose a spot on the roughened concrete wall separating the path from the sand and sat down.
A barrel-shaped cat with calico markings flopped unceremoniously next to me. A sudden gust buffeted his thick fur and he seemed very put out, trying to smooth everything down with frantic white paws and maintain some dignity.
“Hey buddy,” I said cautiously. “Are you lost?”
The cat ignored me. There was no collar but he didn’t seem to be afraid of people.
I tried again. “Are you here for a swim?”
Golden eyes flashed distastefully at me. That was a no. Well, I wasn’t going to bother him if he wasn’t going to bother me. We watched the ocean together in silence. The waves crashed. Receded. The longer I sat there, the discordant sensation of being a stranger in my hometown grew.
Disappointing but not surprising. I’d left behind that version of myself a long time ago. Could I even call it my hometown? After all, I wasn’t born here. So it was no big deal that my connection to this place felt as superficial as every other town or city I’d traveled to in the last few years.
I swallowed down the lies like they were a palatable truth.
“It’s weird being back here,” I admitted. “Back in Starlight Grove with Lucien and Mercer. Back in that house.”
I glanced down at the cat. He was immersed in an extensive tongue bath routine. The less interest he showed in me, the more I wanted to talk—a compulsion I probably needed to get analyzed professionally.
“We all went our separate ways to pursue our careers. I mean, that’s pretty normal, right? But I don’t know…I didn’t realize how much I missed them.”
That was inconvenient. I generally made it a point not to have anyone to miss.
No attachments. Unless you counted Rowan, but he was more wart than friend.
His meteoric rise had opened a lot of doors for both of us, and he was too British to question why I kept writing depressing shit. Win-win all around, really.
It wasn’t like I had drifted while Lucien and Mercer stayed close.
None of us had ever lived in the same place since Starlight Grove.
Lucien was already in college when Mom and Greg left.
Mercer went to France for pastry school.
Of course we had seen each other when we visited our dads during the holidays, but being back together this time felt very different.
Not bad different. I was surprised to find a buoyant sensation tumbling in my stomach.
“I think this summer will be good for us,” I decided.
The cat stopped mid-lick and blinked at me. His eyes tracked my movements as I finally opened the box from Summer’s bakery. Inside was a pandan sponge topped with cream and delicately sliced mango. Strange that I could feel so proud seeing a perfect slice of cake.
“I would offer you some but I’ve been waiting eleven years for this.”
It was difficult to make direct eye contact with such a judgmental stare.
“All right, fine,” I caved.
I broke off a piece and handed it over before taking my first bite.
Holy fuck it was good. Fluffy, lush, and melt-in-your-mouth. It exceeded all my rose-colored memories of the cakes she had given me in the past. This had been the last slice in the cabinet. I would have to go back earlier every day so I wouldn’t miss out.
And it would give me a chance to see Summer.
“Don’t tell anyone, but Summer got even prettier, and I didn’t think that was possible.” The mumbled confession tumbled from my lips.
At least only the cat heard me.
He finished his portion, licked his whiskers clean, and rolled himself into a perfect loaf. His big bushy tail settled on my leg.
I guess I was staying at the beach a little longer.