15. Little Bird
Chapter fifteen
Little Bird
The music had shifted to something slow and sensual when Callum appeared at my elbow.
Jasper had gone to get more lemonade, or so he said. I suspected orchestration, but I couldn't prove it.
I felt him before I saw him, a shift in the air, a change in pressure, like the moment before a storm breaks. My body recognized his presence the way it recognized heat or gravity: automatically, involuntarily, with no input from my conscious mind.
Up close, Callum was even more overwhelming than usual.
The festival lights caught the planes of his face, highlighting the strong jaw, the serious mouth, the dark eyes that seemed to see straight through me.
His shirt clung to his chest in a way that suggested the fabric was straining to contain him, and I could see the outline of muscle beneath.
"Are you enjoying it?" he asked. No preamble, no small talk.
"More than expected," I admitted.
"Good."
A long pause. The pause stretched. With anyone else, awkward. With Callum, it felt deliberate. Like he was constructing something.
The band continued playing that slow, honeyed rhythm, and couples around us had started to dance. I was acutely aware of the space between us, maybe eight inches, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his body. Close enough that if I swayed, if he shifted, we’d be touching.
Neither of us moved.
"The magnolia grove," he said finally. "The one at the edge of the preserve. It's better at night. The blooms open more fully after dark. If you want to see it."
I turned to look at him. "I would like that."
"Okay."
There was something in his voice, something that wasn't casual at all, despite how hard he was trying to make it sound that way. A crack in that careful control. I felt it in my chest, that particular awareness I got around all three of them, but sharper with Callum. More focused. More dangerous.
His eyes dropped to my mouth. Just for a second. Just long enough that I felt it like a touch.
My heart was doing that complicated thing again.
My skin felt too warm, too tight, like my body was straining toward something it couldn’t name.
I thought about what it would feel like to close those eight inches.
To press myself against the solid wall of his chest. To feel those hands, large, capable, slightly rough, settle on my waist again.
"I—" I started.
"Lemonade!" Jasper appeared with two cups and a grin that was entirely too knowing. "Callum. Didn't see you there."
"You saw me." Callum's voice was flat.
"I absolutely saw you." Jasper handed me a cup, still grinning. "What are we talking about?"
"Nothing," Callum said, already stepping back. "I'll let you—" he gestured vaguely. "Enjoy the festival."
He disappeared into the crowd before I could say anything else.
"What was that?" I asked Jasper.
"That," Jasper said, his grin somehow getting wider, "was Callum trying to ask you something and getting interrupted by his incredibly handsome brother."
"You did that on purpose."
"I did absolutely nothing on purpose. I am innocent and also holding your lemonade, which you should drink before it gets warm."
I drank the lemonade, considered Jasper’s actions and intentions, but I didn't ask any more questions. After all, he was the only brother that had actually asked me out… unless you count Callum’s recent invitation to the magnolia grove.
Regardless, I had come here with Jasper, I should be with Jasper.
But I thought about the magnolia grove. About better at night. About the way Callum had looked at me when he said it, like he was offering something wicked, something precious, something private.
The band continued with the slow songs. Couples danced across the grass as night began to fall, swaying in the twilight.
“Do you wanna dance?” Jasper asked.
He set down his lemonade and held out his hand. “Come on.”
I should have said no. I was still thinking about Callum, still feeling the phantom weight of his gaze, still wondering what would have happened if Jasper hadn’t interrupted.
But Jasper was looking at me with those warm eyes, his hand extended, and I found myself taking it.
He pulled me close, not inappropriately close, but closer than I’d expected. One hand settled on the small of my back. The other kept hold of mine, his fingers warm and slightly calloused.
“Hopefully we don’t get interrupted this time,” he murmured.
We swayed more than danced, barely moving, just shifting weight in time with the music.
His thumb traced small circles on my back, light enough that I might have imagined it.
I could feel his heartbeat against my chest, steady, strong, slightly faster than it should have been.
I found myself falling into the comfort of being held by him, how easy it was to just wanna lean on Jasper.
“This is nice,” I said, and immediately felt stupid for saying something so obvious.
But he just smiled, that genuine smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Yeah. It is.”
The song ended. Neither of us moved.
Another song started, something with more tempo, and still we stood there, swaying to a rhythm that had nothing to do with the music.
His hand had drifted lower on my back, his fingers splayed across the base of my spine.
My free hand had somehow found its way to his shoulder, my thumb brushing the warm skin at his collar.
“Serena,” he said, and his voice had gone low, rough in a way that made my stomach flip.
“Yeah?”
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His eyes were darker than usual, the playfulness replaced by something more serious. “I’m going to ask you something, and you can say no. You can always say no. But I need you to know that I’m asking.”
My heart was in my throat. “Asking what?”
He didn’t answer. Just looked at me, his gaze dropping to my mouth, then back up to my eyes. A question. An invitation.
A child ran past us, shrieking with laughter, chased by another. The spell broke.
Jasper stepped back, releasing me. His smile was back, but it was different now—softer, more private. “Later,” he said. “When there’s less chaos.”
“Later,” I agreed, though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was agreeing to.
* * *
The fireworks started at nine.
We found a spot on the grass, sitting close enough that our shoulders touched. The first explosion lit the sky in showers of gold, and everyone around us tilted their heads back, faces painted in colored light.
I found myself scanning the crowd for Callum.
He was there, of course he was there, standing at the edge of the crowd with his arms crossed. Not watching the fireworks. Watching me.
Our eyes met across the crowd. Red light burst above us, then blue, then white. In the flickering glow, his face was a study in shadows and angles, his expression unreadable. But his eyes, his eyes were hungry.
I should have looked away. It felt like trespassing, somehow, holding his gaze while I sat next to his brother. But I couldn’t.
The finale exploded overhead, a rapid cascade of colors, one after another, filling the sky with light. The crowd gasped and cheered.
When the smoke cleared, Callum was gone.
* * *
The walk back started as a group, Jasper and me, a few people from town heading the same direction. But the crowd thinned as we got further from the square, and soon it was just the two of us on the dark road, the preserve stretching out to our left.
Something moved in the trees.
I stopped walking, my body going alert before my mind caught up. A shape, low to the ground, moving through the underbrush with fluid grace. Too big for a dog. Too quiet for a deer.
“Jasper,” I said. “What was that?”
He followed my gaze. If I hadn’t been watching him closely, I would have missed it, the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his nostrils flared, the almost imperceptible tilt of his head toward the woods.
“Probably a deer,” he said. “They’re all over the preserve.”
“That wasn’t a deer.”
He looked at me, something shifting behind his eyes. For a moment, I thought he was going to say something real. Something true. But then his easy smile was back, and the moment passed.
“Come on,” he said, taking my hand again. “It’s getting late.”
I let him pull me forward, but I didn’t stop watching the treeline. The shape didn’t reappear. But I could swear I felt eyes on us the rest of the way home; watching, following, keeping pace.
And Jasper didn’t seem fazed by it at all.
We reached the house and stopped at the bottom of my stairs.
The main house was lit up; warm light spilling from the kitchen windows, voices murmuring inside. Out here, in the darkness between the magnolia tree and my apartment, it felt like we were alone in the world.
“I had a good time,” I said. “Tonight.”
“With me specifically?” His voice was teasing, but his eyes were serious. “Or with the general festival experience?”
“With you, specifically.”
He stepped closer. Close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at him. Close enough that I could see the pulse beating in his throat.
“Serena,” he said again, and there it was—that roughness in his voice, that crack in the charm. “I’m not always good at waiting. I’ve been patient for weeks now, and I’m running out.”
“Running out of what?”
“Reasons not to do this.”
He leaned down. I rose up. And for one crystalline moment, I felt his breath against my lips, felt the heat of him close enough to touch, felt every nerve ending in my body lean toward him like flowers toward sun—
The back door of the house opened. Eli’s voice carried across the yard: “Jasper. Callum needs you.”
Jasper closed his eyes. Let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “My brothers,” he said, “have the worst timing in the history of timing.”
“Seems like it.”
He stepped back. Took my hand. Pressed a kiss to my knuckles that was somehow more intimate than a real kiss would have been.
“To be continued,” he said. “That’s a promise.”
And then he was gone, jogging toward the house, leaving me standing alone in the dark with a racing heart and too many questions.
I climbed the stairs to my apartment and didn’t turn on the lights.
Instead, I sat on my bed in the darkness and tried to sort through everything I was feeling. The lingering heat of Jasper’s hands on my back. The weight of Callum’s gaze across the fireworks. The shape in the woods that wasn’t a deer.
Something was off about this family. Something I couldn’t name, couldn’t explain, could only feel like a splinter working its way under my skin.
The running at odd hours. The way animals avoided the property. The way people in town looked at me, like they knew something I didn’t, like they were waiting for me to figure it out.
The way all three brothers watched me with an intensity that went beyond attraction. Like I was something… How had Dex said it? Someone like you. What did that mean?
I thought about Callum’s words on the stairs. This is where you’re supposed to be.
I thought about the way Jasper had tilted his head toward the woods, like he was listening for something.
I thought about Eli’s archive, full of family history he’d offered to show me. The real version, he’d said. Not the public one.
There were things I didn’t know about the Voss family. Things that explained the strange looks, the careful silences, the way the three of them moved like they were connected by invisible threads. I mean, it could be a triplet thing. I had heard that multiples seemed to share uncommon bonds.
Part of me wanted to know. Part of me was terrified to ask.
And part of me, the part that was still tingling from almost-kisses… and heated looks… and hands on the small of my back—didn’t care. That part just wanted more. Wanted them, all of them, in ways I didn’t want to admit. Tara was right. I really needed to get laid.
Below, through my floor, I heard voices. Low, urgent, discussing something I couldn’t make out. Then the back door again. Footsteps moving toward the preserve.
I went to the window and looked out.
Three figures crossed the yard in the moonlight: Callum, Jasper, Eli, moving fast, disappearing into the trees like shadows swallowing shadows.
A moment later, from deep in the preserve, I heard it.
Howling.
Not random. Not scattered. Coordinated. Like voices answering each other across the dark.
I should have been afraid. I should have been unsettled, at least.
Instead, I thought: Yes. There’s something here. Something I don’t understand yet.
And then: I’m going to find out what it is.
I fell asleep with the window open, the howling fading into the distance, dreaming of magnolia groves, golden eyes and hands that promised things words couldn’t say.
Then the dream fragmented.
I was standing in a forest I didn't recognize, surrounded by darkness. And there was something in the trees with me. Something watching from the shadows, its breathing heavy and wet.
Little bird, a voice whispered. Not Callum's. Not Jasper's. Not Eli's. Something older. Something wrong. Did you think the wolves could keep you safe from me?
I woke gasping, my hand pressed to my chest, heart hammering.
The howling had stopped.
The preserve was silent.
And on my windowsill, placed carefully in a pool of moonlight, was a single white rose.