Chapter 20
Felix didn’t remember the last time he smiled for so long, but standing in a beautiful kitchen with beautiful ingredients to make his family, his mate, dinner made his smile seemingly permanent.
It wasn't often that he was able to show off to anyone. Ever since the pack grew distant, and even before they were so busy with their music, Felix hardly got to cook for anyone, especially not anything elaborate or cool. Being here allowed him to show his love through what he loved most. Food.
While exploring the fish market and the town’s local farmers’ market with more fresh produce than he could count, Felix pictured the perfect meal to start off their vacation: a seafood-styled charcuterie board.
He was going to serve shrimp cocktails as the focus with oysters, seared scallops, and mussels.
Layered between the seafood was going to be caviar, lightly toasted and thinly sliced baguette, brie, prosciutto, thinly sliced cucumber and avocado, pistachios, marinated olives, an assortment of pickled veggies, and garnish the plate, thinly sliced lemon and oranges, as well as a sprinkle of dill and chives.
It was perfect.
Our mate is going to be impressed.
Felix smiled even wider. He hoped she would be. He also hoped that whatever she was doing outside with Jude and Kai, they were behaving and treating her well.
He peered out the window as he was washing all his produce and meat, his smile softening as he watched the three of them returning from the beach. Kai was walking a few steps behind Jude and Sonnet, his eyes on their hands held tightly together.
This vacation would be good for him, just as it would be for Sonnet, too. Hopefully, she was strong enough to endure his bad attitude and figure him out.
When they came inside, Jude tried to steal a bite of food before he was swatted away. “Go take a shower,” Felix said. “You’re dripping with sand and smell like seaweed.”
“Dibs on taking a shower first,” Kai cut in, booking it to the bathroom down the hallway.
Sonnet laughed and placed her hand on Jude’s shoulder. “You can use the master bathroom. The bathtub is amazing! There are some salts and scents, too, if you like those kinds of things.”
Jude beamed. Of course he would. Being given permission to use her space, even if this house was just a rental, was a big deal. Felix’s alpha felt the hope and happiness of it all, at her slow acceptance, and Jude wasted no time racing to her bathroom, shouting a quick insult at Kai as he passed.
“Wow!” Sonnet walked into the kitchen, looking at all the produce. “I’ve never seen so many fresh colors before! It all looks so beautiful.”
“You’re impressed by the ingredients?” Felix laughed, hooking his arms around her waist and hoisting her up onto the kitchen island.
He remembered she said in the very beginning that she didn’t like to cook and wasn’t good at it.
“What did you use to make to feed yourself?” He asked out of curiosity as he placed the scrubbed oysters back into the fridge to rest as he started on the shrimp cocktail.
Sonnet kicked her legs back and forth and smiled shyly. “You’re not going to like my answer.”
“Let’s hear it anyway.”
“Well, instant mashed potatoes were my go-to with a frozen bag of chicken nuggets. The frozen aisle at the store is where I shop.”
Felix winced and gripped his chest. “Ouch. You’re killing me with that answer.”
She laughed. “To be honest, Summer and Scarlett are the ones who fed me. And my parents. I used to eat with my parents twice a week, and then Summer and Scarlett were taking me out a lot to different places, or Summer would host dinners at her apartment.” She looked down as if fondly being transported into the past. “My mom was pretty devastated when I told her I wouldn’t be around for dinners for a while. ”
“I understand. I still remember my grandparents’ faces when I told them I had formed a pack, and we were starting a band and moving to Chicago. I thought my grandma was going to die from heartbreak.”
“Aw, that’s so sad!”
“It was.” Felix stepped away from boiling his shrimp and grabbed his phone. He turned it to show Sonnet a picture of his two favorite people in the entire world. “They’re both very proud of me, now. They raised me after my parents passed when I was young.”
Sonnet’s eyes softened with pain and understanding. “I’m sorry about your parents.”
“Don’t be, sweetheart. I was too young to remember.
They passed away from a car accident, but my grandparents kept their love alive, so I’ve never known anything else.
” Felix tucked his phone away and smiled.
He felt so relaxed talking to her. “Maybe after this vacation, I can take you up to meet them. They live on a farm in Maine, and I think you’d really love it.
Jude would, too. He’s been asking to see them again since I last brought him up a year ago, but that’s only because he loves my grandma’s food.
She’s the one who taught me to cook and bake. ”
“I would love to meet them. Do they have any farm animals?”
“Yes. A mean old Donkey named Hank, lots of chickens, and last I heard, they also bought some goats and rescued a pony.” Felix shook his head. “They always have animals. It’s because of my grandpa. He’s soft for all the rescues.”
“Ah, so that’s where you get your soft soul from.”
“What do you mean?” Felix asked, dropping the shrimp into an ice bath.
“I’ve just noticed how, out of everyone, you’re incredibly kind and humble. Actually, you’re a lot of very good things. Intelligent, respectful, and creative. An old soul!”
An old soul?
That was a perfectly good way to describe him, but the last time someone did, it was thrown out as an insult to his character.
Juliana’s insult, in fact, who deemed him boring and meant for a woman of seventy rather than twenty.
But when Sonnet said it, she did so with such affection and warmth that it made him melt.
He didn’t know how to respond, so instead he gave her the basket of mussels and had her scrub them clean as he moved on to making the cocktail sauce. She beamed, happy to help in some way, and he was beaming too, happy to have her company.
She handed him the cleaned mussels before awkwardly shifting on the counter.
“Before I meet your grandparents, it would probably be smart for all of you to have dinner with my parents. Honestly, I thought my mom was going to crash our vacation to investigate you all. She’s one of the kindest people I know, but also the most stubborn and protective of her family.
A real Mama Bear. She’s so much like Summer, but a bit more poised and elegant. ”
Felix laughed. “Your sister is terrifying, but we’ll absolutely get dinner on the books after our trip.
It's only right for us gentlemen to meet your parents.” He began patting his scallops completely dry with paper towels and seasoning them.
“If Summer takes after your mother, do you take after your father?”
“Well…” Sonnet sighed, her exhale heavy and filled with a burden he couldn’t understand.
Felix said nothing, letting her lead the conversation based on her comfort level, and focused on searing the scallops.
Finally, when she spoke again, her delicate and sweet voice was consumed by what he could only describe as shame.
“Summer is like both of our parents. Dad is very organized, driven, and analytical. His real estate business is very successful, and he’s very proud of that, but also very strategic and resilient when it comes to keeping it afloat as the market goes up and down.
Summer is kind of like that. And Mom, well, she’s just so dignified and intelligent.
She comes from a very successful lineage and has a large trust fund, but she’s the most humble person I’ve met.
She knows how to work a room and uses her class to her advantage.
I don’t know how she does it, takes control without faltering, but Summer does.
And I’m…” Sonnet tugged on her pink hair and forced a smile. “I’m just me.”
Just me?
She says that like an insult, but who she is, is why she’s meant to be with this pack.
Felix took a break from searing scallops and positioned himself between her legs, tilting her chin upwards with his index finger. “What’s wrong with you being you?”
“Everything?” Her shoulders sagged in defeat. “I’m not organized. I’m messy and hate cleaning. I dye my hair, wear bright outfits, and I’m loud and sensitive. I could never control a room or own a business. I could never be like Summer or our parents.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you were supposed to list negatives about yourself.”
“I am.”
Felix shook his head. “No. You haven’t. Your qualities may be different from those of your family, but those qualities matched you to us. Perfect qualities that I’m sure you share with your mom and dad.”
“I could never be anything like my mom.”
“Why not?”
Sonnet’s eyes finally met his, and in them a candle blew out. “Because she’s not my biological mother.”
Oh.
This was a conversation not meant to be held in the middle of cooking, but she was opening up, and Felix would be damned if he shut her out because of seafood.
He squeezed her hips, quickly halted all his cooking so it wouldn’t get ruined, and pulled up one of the island stools to properly sit in front of her.
She was looking out the kitchen windows, her lips pursed together. She looked so small in this moment, as if she was trying to shrink into herself to disappear, something he had seen Kai do many times.
She was too scared to look at him. Did he ruin the moment?
Talk to me, he wanted to say. You can talk to me.
She turned back to him, her beautiful blue eyes glassy, and heaved another heavy sigh.
“Katherine, who I call mom, is humbler and kinder than anyone could ever know because she took me in as her daughter, even though I only exist because my dad cheated on her. I’m an affair baby.
And my mother, my real mother, she—” Sonnet cut herself off, and Felix could tell she was holding back, but he didn’t care.
His mate was giving him a piece of her past that was delicate and in pain, and he would hold it with gentle hands.
“My birth mother and I were together for seven years before she left me at the police station, and then my dad came and took me home and Katherine has been my mom ever since.”
Felix brushed his hand into Sonnet’s still slightly damp hair, massaging her neck and leaning her towards him. “I cannot imagine how hard that was for you.”
She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. It turns out being abandoned is the easy part. But looking in the mirror knowing I’m the reason for a wonderful woman’s pain is hard.”
“How could you even begin to blame yourself for what your dad did?”
“Because sometimes it’s easier to forgive and forget something when nothing exists to make it real.
But I exist. I’m a constant reminder of my dad’s infidelities, and the worst part is, I’ve done nothing in my life to make up for it but be a burden.
If I were more like my sister, a driven, hard-working beta, I might’ve rewritten all the wrongs I committed. ”
Oh, God, no.
Our little omega is more like us than we thought.
Felix gulped, but his words were a thick lump in his throat. He moved his hands to cup Sonnet’s face and whimpered. As her scent began to burn, his blossomed to calm her down.
“Don’t ever wish you were a beta,” he begged.
“And don’t burden your younger self with the burdens a grown man should own and carry.
Damn what he did and damn the pain it may have caused, because it also made you, and you are my fate.
My destiny. My mate. I have been waiting what feels like forever to be with you, so the only thing you should be upset about is taking so damn long to find us. ”
She laughed, choking on a sob, and opened her mouth to say something, but Felix didn’t give her the time. With her face still cupped into his hands, he took the opportunity to lean in and kiss her.
And holy fuck was it a perfect kiss.
Her lips were soft and awkward, startled by Felix’s sudden approach, but then they melted into each other, and the kiss deepened into something like every cliche book wrote about. Fireworks went off like an explosion of emotion welcoming him home.
Could she feel it? Could she feel that she could no longer claim abandonment now that he was claiming her?
Home. She is home now.
Welcome home. Welcome home. Welcome home.
His fingers tangled into her hair, and when he finally forced himself to pull back, her eyes were glazed over with tears made from happiness, not sadness.
“Stop talking nonsense,” he whispered, “and help me plate the board while I finish up the rest of the food.”
“You got it,” she laughed.
He helped her hop down and gave her the remaining ingredients to assemble. Both were quiet, but it wasn’t awkward. It was blissful; it was peaceful.
He couldn’t wait to kiss her even more and have even more deep conversations. He couldn’t wait for her to reveal all of herself to him, every piece she deemed dark, because he was dark, too. They all were.
He shook his head and brought over the seafood platter. “The boys will be excited about this. I can’t remember the last time we all ate seafood. Especially together.”
“This was a cool idea. I bet they’re going to love it!”
“Hopefully you will, too.”
Sonnet tilted her head and looked up at him. “Oh, I don’t eat seafood. It grosses me out.”
Felix blinked, then blinked again. “What?”