Chapter 40 Lucien
LUCIEN
I glanced at Summer in the rearview mirror for the sixteenth time in five minutes.
Still asleep on Jae. Occasionally, when she exhaled, a wisp of hair would flicker. She was in one of my shirts, the neckline askew and slipping off her shoulder.
We were headed home, Mercer right behind me on the highway. I would’ve liked to have stayed at least one more night so Summer wasn’t so exhausted. But when her heat finally broke, there was only one thing she asked for.
“Can you take me home?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
I wish I had time to read up on expected post-heat omega behaviors. Was this listlessness normal? My instinct to dote on her was still well and truly alive even though the pheromone daze had passed.
I wasn’t in denial about how well we had worked as a pack. But everything felt more complicated in the cold morning light. All three of us were still going to leave. The house was done and going up for sale any day now.
Even if we somehow stayed, I would always be afraid we didn’t break the cycle. I hadn’t meant to be so hard on Jae and Mercer. But it was my responsibility to protect them, even from themselves.
My inbox and missed call log was an avalanche right now. Bzz. Bzz . Shit. Right on cue. I rushed to pick up my phone before the harsh ring would echo through the car.
“Lucien speaking.”
“There you are, finally.” Tom was doing a poor job of hiding his agitation. “Did we get our wires crossed? You missed the photoshoot and we had to pay the full fee.”
Fuck. The listing photos.
“Sorry, Tom. My out-of-town trip extended unexpectedly and I was…occupied.” Even though she was fast asleep, I swore I detected a sour edge to Summer’s scent.
I pushed my immediate surge of concern to the side and tried to focus on the call.
“Can we reschedule for this week? Send me an email with the photographer’s availability and I’ll make it work. ”
Jae was glaring distastefully at his own phone when I hung up.
“What is it?”
“Nothing important,” he said, tossing it on the empty seat beside him. “The execs at Rowan’s label seem to think I’m going to be there for them and keep scheduling stuff into my calendar.”
See, this was what was hard. The way real life bled into everything.
There were difficult conversations we all needed to have.
My eyes flicked up to my review mirror again.
Seventeenth time. She looked so tired. I couldn’t bear to bring it up when the shadows beneath her eyes were so dark.
Despite my trepidation, the instinct to care for her couldn’t be easily switched off.
I didn’t want her to be hurt, either. Somehow we had gone from a summer fling to feeling like no one would make it out unscathed.
Talk to Jae and Mercer first before you burden her with more.
Summer stirred when I turned onto Starlight Grove’s Main Street, blearily taking in her surroundings.
“Good timing. We’re almost home,” Jae murmured.
The wrinkle between her eyes deepened. “Actually…can you drop me at my parents’ place? They’ve been so worried about me.”
I tried to convince myself the subdued tone in her voice was nothing to worry about. At least this would give me a chance to talk to my brothers.
“Of course. Leave all the suitcases, we’ll take care of that. Do you want everything for your nest washed before you remake it?” I offered.
“You don’t have to do that. I can—”
“Summer,” I said warningly.
There was a hint of fight in her glare before her resolve crumbled. “Yes, I do,” she gave in. “But honestly, please let me help with some of it when I get back.”
I didn’t answer because I wasn’t going to let her lift a finger.
The Pham family home was a weathered, brown-and-white house with the same sloped roof as its neighbors.
Victor’s planter boxes, garden beds, and trellises sprawled over every inch of the front yard, and Felix sat on the sidewalk, judgmental eyes following our approach.
Tofu immediately started barking when Summer stepped out of the car, his black nose squashed between the slats of the fence.
Felix sashayed easily around Tofu’s enthusiastic greeting and was immediately scooped up in Summer’s arms. I watched as her mom practically chased Summer inside, telling her she had made special post-heat soup.
This was where Summer belonged. Any future with all of us in it couldn’t take her away from this.
Mercer was already parked in the drive when I arrived home.
“Where’s Summer?” he asked immediately.
“She wanted to see her family.” I popped the trunk and grabbed the first suitcase. “But we need to talk, anyway. The three of us.”
I ran a load of laundry with Summer’s bedding before gathering my brothers in the kitchen. God, I needed a drink. I poured myself a finger of whiskey and threw it back.
“I don’t know if we can continue doing this with Summer,” I said hoarsely.
Hurricane Mercer. Category five.
“Wait, all that shit you were saying during her heat—I thought you were just telling us to be careful. You want us to end things with her?” he exploded, incensed.
“I told you we needed to talk properly,” I fired back. “This last week meant more than it should have. We can’t keep pretending it’s still casual for any of us. We have to either be all in or let her go.”
Sick. I was sick to my fucking stomach, the whiskey sitting all wrong.
“So why can’t we be all in?” Mercer demanded.
“What would that even look like? You setting up stores in a new city every six to twelve months. Jae flying between here, London, LA, and god knows where else. And me working sixty-, seventy-hour weeks in Boston. Look me in the face and tell me that’s the sort of pack she deserves.”
I knew I wasn’t pulling any punches. If I had to be the one to shatter their delusions, so be it. I loaded my final argument into the chamber and fired.
“We all chose to build a life somewhere else. Coming back here was never what any of us wanted. What if we end up doing to Summer what Mom did to us?”
“I wouldn’t fucking let that happen!”
“So what’s the alternative?” Every word tasted like bile, but I had to keep going. “Giving up everything we’ve worked for? That’s not a grand romantic gesture, Mercer. Summer would be horrified.”
Mercer’s glare was murderous. Mentally throwing me off a cliff and relishing the splat when I landed.
But he said nothing because I was right.
The fight drained out of him, and hurt etched across his features. “Is this because you don’t want to risk having me in your pack?” Mercer asked.
That caught me off guard. What was he talking about?
“Hey,” Jae said suddenly.
I’d almost forgotten he was here. His arms had been crossed, listening pensively until now.
“Remember that Halloween when Mercer and I stashed candy in the back of the wardrobe and ants got into it?”
“What?”
Jae laughed, the lighthearted sound jarring in the tense atmosphere. “You panicked big time. You sent us to the market for ant poison and made us sneak it back in so we could clean up the infestation before our parents noticed.”
The memory of the day was coming back more clearly now.
Mom spontaneously decided to cook for all of us.
Appa had a last-minute client dinner he couldn’t cancel, and Papa didn’t take her side fast enough during the ensuing argument.
Greg threw gasoline over the whole situation, dropping pointed comments about how real alphas would be grateful.
I didn’t want to give them another reason to fight.
Jae drew himself up but his stance was still relaxed, his hands sliding into his pockets.
Calm. An equal. I had never seen this version of him, so used to the one that automatically followed my lead as the eldest. “You know, I was thinking about what you said during her heat. About it feeling so good in the moment it makes you believe you’re meant to be a pack when it would never work.
” He whistled low. “Heavy shit, Lucien. Personally, I would’ve picked a different time to bring it up, but it was a valid thing to raise.
It made me think about what I wanted, what I would be sacrificing to get it, whether it even would be a sacrifice…
” Jae shook his head, trying to meander his way back to his train of thought.
“I thought about it a lot on the way home, actually, so thanks for driving.”
“You’re welcome?”
Jae held my eyes with his. Assured and steady, the North Star on a cloudless night.
“I know your heart is in the right place, but you don’t have to protect us, Lucien.
Not anymore. I’m sorry you had to do it so often with our parents.
I wish it had been different because you didn’t deserve that burden. ”
The air thinned. I locked my knees to stay upright.
“We’re not preordained to walk the same path they did.
We can make something new. Do I know what it would be like if we all made a home in Starlight Grove again?
How any of it would work? Hell no. I don’t have all the answers.
But that doesn’t have to be scary, Lucien.
We can find those answers together, with Summer.
All I need is to trust that a future with her would make me happy. ”
Emotion swelled hot in my throat. When did happiness end up so far down on my list of priorities?
“Anything worth having demands that we fight for it. Even against our own self-doubt.” Jae smiled. Big and honest and true, just like him. “And I want to fight for her. My world would be brighter for it.”
Mercer scraped his jaw off the floor. “Jesus, don’t ever say that shit in front of her. Give the rest of us a chance,” he demanded before immediately trying to put Jae in a headlock.
“Shut up. You know she wants all of us.” Jae landed a jab squarely in Mercer’s gut.
I prudently moved the stools out of the way.
They tussled a few moments more, neither getting the upper hand, before releasing each other like nothing ever happened.
I swore I had seen the exact scene play out twelve, fifteen, twenty years ago.
“Fine, you can tell her,” Mercer conceded, straightening his clothes. “But fucking give me time to come up with something, too. Goddamn.”
Jae shot me a stern look. “Also, you should tell Mercer that your freak-out had nothing to do with us thinking he’s like his dad.”
The thought never crossed my mind. I didn’t even realize I’d inadvertently struck a raw nerve. Shit. “Mercer, he’s an ass,” I said emphatically. “You’re nothing like him.”
“I’m half an ass,” Mercer muttered.
“Not by choice.”
Jae clapped me on the shoulder. “Yeah, Lucien is the one who almost sabotaged everything for us, not you. No genetics involved there. He did that all by himself.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, unable to come up with a reasonable comeback. “So what now?” I asked.
“We wait for Summer to get home. Tell her we want her to be ours. And figure out what forever looks like for us.”
It seemed too easy.
“Just like that?”
“Yeah, Lucien. Just like that.”
So we waited. And waited.
But Summer never came home.