Chapter 1 #2
“Sprinkles wouldn’t eat this morning,” Quinn reports, looking up at me with her full attention. “He just sat by his bowl without touching it.”
She gestures at the dog, who sits and thumps his tail against the dock.
“So I had to hold up each piece and go, this one’s okay, this one’s okay, until he ate it.” She pauses. “The whole bowl.”
“That’s a lot of pieces.”
“It was.” She lets out a deep sigh. “And then Uncle Nat said Sprinkles was being a drama king.” She rolls her eyes. “I don’t think dogs know how to be dramatic.”
“Not dramatic at all,” I agree.
“Okay, kiddo, less reporting on Sprinkles’s morning habits and more getting onto the boat,” Blake calls out. “You don’t want to be late.”
She huffs but releases me, and I stand by the gangplank to ensure she climbs aboard without a tumble into the glacier water. She vanishes toward the bow, and she launches into her story all over again for Jared and Kyle.
“Hey, Em,” Blake says from behind me. “Good morning.”
“Blake.” I straighten and turn. “Morning.”
Leif stands with his hands still in his pockets, close enough to reach out and touch, and about a thousand miles away from where we were last October. His periwinkle eyes find mine and hold for a second before dropping to somewhere near my shoulder.
“Morning,” he murmurs.
“Morning.” The word comes out gruff.
He starts to say something else and stops.
I shift from one foot to the other and don’t fill the silence.
“Mr. Leif.” Quinn reappeared at the railing, using the exact flat authority that Blake had used on her not thirty seconds ago. “Get on the boat. We don’t want to be late.”
Leif blinks, a short, helpless sound escaping him, and my own mouth curves before I can stop it.
“Pardon me,” he says with ridiculous formality, and the small smile on his face is the same as the one he had before Carson stole it from him, and I surrender first, lowering my eyes.
He walks up the gangway, clutching his work satchel to his side as if worried it will slip off his shoulder in the brief moment he’s suspended between dock and boat.
“Don’t forget this monster.” Blake lifts Sprinkles bodily over the rail with both arms, the dog’s back paws pedaling air for a moment before landing on the deck.
Chuckling at his antics, I turn toward the path.
“Em, wait up!” Blake calls after me as I reach the beach.
I slow my pace, and he jogs the last few yards from the dock to fall in beside me. We head up the path side-by-side, my crew yards ahead of us. The packed gravel crunches under our boots, and the firs crowd close on both sides, their branches holding the last of the overnight mist.
We walk for a few paces without saying anything. That’s one of the things I appreciate about Blake. He’s comfortable letting the quiet sit between us.
Then he reaches into the inside pocket of his flannel and produces an envelope covered in pink and gold glitter. It coats the entire front of the envelope in a thick dusting, smeared in places where small fingers pressed too hard.
Quinn’s signature style.
When he tries to pass it to me, I hold my hands up. “Whoa, now, are you trying to give me the glitter plague?”
He taps the envelope against my chest, showering me in sparkles. “Too late. Now you’re infected, so take the damn thing. Quinn was supposed to give that to you at the dock.”
He scratches his beard, spreading the glitter plague. “I reminded her twice, but she still forgot.”
I pinch it between my thumb and forefinger, but nothing can save me from picking up a smear of glitter that won’t come off. Inside is a card, the front a drawing in crayon of a dog, a small person in a yellow dress, and five figures of varying heights.
I open it to find Chloe’s bubbly handwriting with Quinn’s crayon decorations around the border:
You are hereby invited to join us in welcoming the Wright Pack’s newest member:
Leif Hollis
Saturday, 7pm,
The Homestead
Dinner and conversation
Below it, in Quinn’s wobbly print:
PLEES COM
I read it twice, my heart giving a heavy thump. “Pack welcome party.”
“It’s long overdue.” Blake’s hands slip into his cargo pockets, his eyes on the path ahead. “We should have done it back in December, when the paperwork cleared. But then the holidays hit, and the first of the year chaos…” He lets out a breath. “It kept getting pushed.”
“What changed?”
“Chloe informed Nathaniel that if we didn’t throw the party before she had the pup, she’d take over the planning herself.”
I read the invitation one more time. “So you decided to throw it with only five days to spare?”
“Well, our guest list is pretty short. We asked Leif if he had family he wanted to invite, but he said they wouldn’t come.” He scuffs his boot in the gravel. “It won’t be anything fancy, just a big family dinner.”
“So that explains the last-minute invitation.”
“And also my apology.” He gestures to the envelope in my hand. “Sorry for springing it on you.”
I turn the card over in my fingers, Quinn’s crayon flowers looping along the back edge, glitter transferring to my palm in a persistent shimmer. “Saturdays are already social days. It’s not a hardship.”
“Good.” He elbows me in the arm. “And you’re not hosting this time, for once. If you and Jared want to cut loose, we’ve got room at the Homestead. Spend the night.”
I think about sleeping so near Leif, with my inhibitions lowered, and tuck that temptation away. “We’ll see.”
We reach a fork in the path, where the left branch heads toward the Homestead and the residential cul-de-sac, the right curling up toward Phase Two.
I slow my steps. “One thing.”
Blake stops and turns.
“The welcome party is a pack event.” My vision blurs as I stare down at the card. “Why are Jared and I on the list?”
Blake stares at me as if he finds the question puzzling. “Because you’re family.”
“We’re not pack.”
“No, but you’ve been with us since before we even conceived of this whole resort idea. You took a chance on a pack of Alphas fresh from college, with no family backing. And you’ve stuck with us,” he says. “You’re family, Em. You and Jared both.”
He says it as if that settles the matter, because for him, it does. Blake Wright doesn’t rank the things he values. The word family in his mouth encompasses all the people who show up, who sit at the table, who put themselves between someone he loves and the things trying to hurt them.
I know that’s what he means.
“Thank you,” I say. “For including us.”
“Don’t thank me. Kyle and Grady will be there, too, so don’t think too hard on it.” He jerks his chin toward the right path, where the sound of my crew’s voices carries through the trees. “Saturday. Seven. We’ll count on you both coming.”
He turns and takes the left fork, and within a few paces, the trees fold him back into the island.
I stand at the fork alone for a moment, the February morning cold and pale and quiet around me. Far off, I can hear the water taxi’s engine cutting back toward the harbor, carrying Quinn, Leif, and Sprinkles toward the opposite shore.
Family.
I fold the card along its crease and tuck it into the inside pocket of my jacket, where it sits close to my heart, warm from being held.
Not pack. That offer had only been opened to Leif, who I had hoped to form my own pack with, before he broke my trust. I understand Leif’s choice to become a Wright, but understanding doesn’t take away the sting, even if I did reject him first.
I breathe out through my nose and start walking again, heading toward my crew.
Saturday dinner is going to be complicated.