Chapter 4 #2
Something shifts in his expression. A recalibration. “No,” he says, after a moment.
“Good. Because the answer would have been interesting.”
Jack makes a delighted sound.
Tristan sets a plate in front of me—eggs, toast, exactly what I ordered, and a small pot of something that turns out to be very good raspberry jam—and rests his forearms on the counter in a way that brings him slightly closer.
Not crowding. Just present in a way that is, inexplicably, easier to tolerate than it should be.
“Don’t mind Archer,” he says quietly. “He’s suspicious of everything until he’s not.”
“I don’t mind him. I just don’t perform for him like a good little girl.”
Tristan’s mouth curves. “No. I can see that.”
I eat.
And this is where things get complicated, because I came here angry.
I am still angry, the anger hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s sitting in my chest next to the mark on my neck and the pull of the partial bond and the three hours of sleep.
But the food is extraordinary and the man who made it has the personality of someone whose warmth costs nothing and asks for nothing in return.
My anger doesn’t disappear.
But it gets quieter.
Because these are not the men I’d have expected when they walked in the door. The closing-in of Alphas who have decided something and aren’t asking for permission.
Tristan is a man who made my coffee strong because I looked tired.
Archer, who is suspicious of me, and is currently losing the argument with himself about whether the suspicion is warranted.
And in the corner, not speaking, the blond one who has been watching me since he walked in and whose attention is the most direct thing in the room.
And Jack. Well, I already know about him.
Archer has sat down. Not close, but he’s sitting, which is a de-escalation of sorts. He’s ordered coffee from Tristan and he’s holding it with both hands. He’s looking at me sideways with an expression I can’t entirely read but which has less hostility in it than five minutes ago.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is called progress.
“What are you here for?” he asks. Less demanding this time. Almost actually a question.
“Carnival week, apparently.” I take a piece of toast. “Elsie at the gas station gave me an enthusiastic briefing.”
“Of course she did,” Jack says. “Elsie briefs everyone. She considers it a public service.”
“She’s not wrong.”
“She is absolutely not wrong.” He steals a corner of my toast. I let this happen because I’m choosing my battles this morning. “What do you think of the setup so far?”
“Impressive for a town this size.”
“We’ve had sixty years of practice.” He says we with genuine ownership, and I file that away. He’s from here, they’re probably all from here, this is their town in a way that goes beyond address. “You should see it when it’s fully running. Tristan’s stall alone is worth the trip.”
“It’s just the café, but expanded,” Tristan says, with a modesty that his food far exceeds.
“It is not just anything,” Jack says firmly. “The man made a fried cinnamon thing last year that caused three people to cry. Happy tears. He could give a woman an orgasm just with his strawberry tarts.”
“They must be quite the tarts,” I reply.
I eat my eggs and I listen. I feel the pack around me, not pressing, not claiming, just present.
In the way of people who have been in rooms together long enough that they fit without effort.
And at the edge of it, faint and new and entirely without my permission, the partial bond sits like a thread I’m pretending isn’t attached to me.
Except, it is attached to me.
I know it’s attached to me.
Jack is at the end of the counter and the thread runs in his direction. I am in a café in a small town with a pack I didn’t know existed and a bond I didn’t agree to and four men who are, against my considerable resistance, not what I expected.
The blond one is in the corner.
I’ve been tracking him the whole time.
I know where he is the way you know where a fire is in a room, not looking directly at it, but always aware of the heat.
He has coffee and he hasn’t touched it. He’s looking at something on the table in front of him, or pretending to, and he’s been absolutely still for the entire conversation.
His stillness is… different from stillness.
It’s attention. Complete, undivided, directed.
At me.
I turn my head and look at him directly, because I don’t do the thing where I pretend I haven’t noticed. He looks up at the same moment, like he knew the redirect was coming. He is… I’m not doing this. He’s a stranger in a town I’m passing through and I’m not cataloguing his face.
Except his expression does something, in the moment we’re looking at each other, that I didn’t expect.
Nothing soft. Nothing that could be called obvious.
Just the faintest shift, at the corners of his eyes, like something in him acknowledges this thing happening between us and has decided to be honest about it, even if only for a second.
I look away. I finish my eggs.
I think: partial bond, pack I didn’t know about, four men, one mark on my neck that I can still feel.
I think: of all the towns on all the highways in all the states.
I think: I am going to need considerably more coffee.
“I need to go,” I say, to no one in particular, which is also to all of them.
“You just got here,” Jack protests.
“And now I’m leaving.” I put money on the counter and slide off the stool. “The eggs were excellent, thank you.”
“Come back tomorrow,” Tristan says, and it’s not pushy. It’s an offer. An open door, which is different.
“I’ll think about it,” I reply. This is a lie, and possibly also not a lie, which is its own problem.
Archer says nothing as I pass him, but I feel his gaze like a hand between my shoulder blades.
Jack says something that I don’t quite catch, and from the sound of it, Archer tells him to stop.
Tristan is already moving to clear my plate.
And from the corner table, the one who hasn’t spoken a single word this entire time, I feel his gaze watching me go.
All the way out the door and down the two steps onto the cobblestones, I feel all of them. Not chasing. Not crowding. Just existing in my direction with an attention that has no aggression in it.
And the partial bond, pulling gently, like a tide I didn’t consent to and cannot entirely resent because the man it connects me to just sat at the counter and gave me exactly the space I needed and didn’t fake a single thing about it.
I have no idea how to proceed with that.
I shove my hands in my jacket pockets and walk.
The mark on my neck is warm in the morning air.
I don’t turn around.
But my heart is racing, which it does not have permission to do, and my palms are warmer than they should be. That damn pressure in the air that I felt when I drove into this valley is here too, right here on Main Street in the morning light, and it is entirely different from danger.
I’ve been in danger. I know what danger feels like. This is something else.
I have problems. I have real, serious, legally actionable problems that require my full brain. I do not have the bandwidth for four inexplicably compelling men in a small town I’m not staying in.
I walk faster.
It does not help with the feeling.