Chapter 15
JESS
Insistent sunlight pries at my eyelids.
I slept for over ten hours, and still I could sleep until tomorrow.
Jet lag, sure. But it’s more than that. The quiet here has weight, pressing me into the mattress, making me aware of every inch of space I take up alone in this tiny bed.
Back home, the bed was bigger, but I never seemed to fit in it.
Here, the silence is an invitation I don’t know how to accept.
Like if I reach for it, it might vanish, and I’ll wake to Mom passed out on the couch and Dad already gone to one of his jobs.
The murmur of voices drifts from outside and doesn’t feel like abandonment—but permission to just... be.
Cassian’s low and gravel-edged laughter echoes, the kind that sounds like it costs him something to give. Eli’s brighter, unguarded, like he’s never learned to hold anything back, and I know without checking that Rowan’s there with them.
I tell myself I’m not smiling when I get up. The mirror says otherwise, and I look away fast, unsettled by the hope in my own eyes.
Since it’s already so late, I take a shower instead of a bath.
The water runs hot enough to turn my skin pink, steam fogging the mirror until I’m just a shape, blurred and undefined.
When I dress, I pause halfway through smoothing the hem of my navy tee, fingers catching on the lace trim.
It’s stupid—this top isn’t special, isn’t anything more than soft cotton and a little detail at the neckline and hem—but I chose it this morning with more care than I want to admit.
The fabric smells faintly like laundry detergent and my own scent, nerves sweetening the vanilla undertone that makes my biology impossible to hide.
Since learning I’m an Omega, my body’s been treacherously honest. No subtlety. My scent says what I won’t: see me, notice me. The shame of wanting flushes hot through me, but I don’t change.
By the time I step outside, the sun is a mellow gold spilling across the porch.
The guys are at the kitchen table, half-finished mugs of coffee beside a map of Brightwater Bay unfolded between them.
They look like they’ve been there for hours, settled into the morning in a way I envy.
Rowan’s bent over the map, finger tracing a route along the coastline.
Cassian’s chair is tipped back, balanced on two legs, his face with just the right amount of stubble.
Eli’s mid-sentence when he spots me, and the way his whole expression lights up does something dangerous to the careful walls I’ve been building.
“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he says, grin immediate and unearned. “Or… afternoon. We took a vote and decided not to wake you. You’re welcome.”
“Thanks,” I say, and affection bleeds through despite my best efforts.
The truth is, I can’t remember the last time someone let me sleep. There was always something--the maids cleaning, the lawn people making as much noise as possible, Mom and Dad yelling, one of them slamming doors.
The fact that these guys let me rest, that they thought about what I might need instead of what was convenient for them, settles deep in me.
Cassian tucks his sunglasses into his black T-shirt. “We figured if you were still asleep, it meant you trusted us not to burn the place down.”
“That, or I was too tired to care.”
He grins, and there’s something almost boyish about it that doesn’t match the sharp angles of his face. “We’ll take either.”
Rowan closes the map, his movements precise and unhurried. When he looks at me, it’s steady—no expectation, no judgment, just attention that’s like being seen all the way through. “You should eat something.”
“Was planning to.” I tug at my hem, suddenly feeling exposed. “But not really in the mood for breakfasty food. Any ideas?”
Suddenly, the words feel vulnerable leaving my mouth, like I’m asking for something I have no right to expect, and that they might have already eaten or have other plans.
Like they might look at each other and remember that this is a trial arrangement, that I’m here on borrowed time, that they don’t actually owe me anything beyond the terms written in some contract I didn’t bother reading when I signed it.
Eli claps once, triumphant, shattering the moment before it can turn heavy. “Excellent. I know the best place. Walking distance, amazing food, and they don’t judge you for ordering dessert first.”
“Have you ordered dessert first?” Cassian asks.
“Only twice. And technically, carrot cake could be considered a vegetable if you think about it philosophically.”
“I don’t think philosophy works that way,” Rowan says.
“Not with that attitude.”
We fall into step together, and it’s natural, like I’ve been doing this with them my whole life.
Rowan locks the door behind us; the latch clicks like a small oath. Eli holds the screen for me with a flourish, then pretends it was nothing.
“Boardwalk wind.” Cassian tosses me a lightweight hoodie like an excuse to look after me without saying it. I pull it on over my head, inhaling his scent of amber, black pepper, and leather that’s underneath the laundry detergent.
We take the stairs two at a time, sun on our shoulders, the path skirting dune grass and the soft hiss of the bay.
The town unspools along the curve of the bay—whitewashed storefronts, faded awnings, wind chimes tinkling in salt air. And I’m…weirdly okay being part of it.
Gulls call above like they own the sky, and maybe they do.
Everything here is lived-in, worn smooth by time and touch and the relentless work of wind and water.
It’s nothing like the sterile hallways or the city’s sharp edges back home.
It feels like something I might have dreamed once, back when I still let myself dream.
We pass a candy shop with glass jars the color of jewels: ruby reds and emerald greens and bright sapphires.
A surf shop sells shells for obscene prices, and I catch myself wondering who would pay twenty dollars for something the ocean gives away for free.
A thrift store advertises vintage everything, and through the open door, I smell sun-warmed wood and nostalgia, the ghost of someone else’s memories.
Eli ducks into the candy shop for “research,” emerging with saltwater taffy in an assortment of impossible colors.
The bag crinkles as he digs through it, rejecting three pieces before selecting one with the gravity of a surgeon choosing instruments.
He presses it into my palm, fingers lingering just long enough for warmth to transfer between us.
“Try it,” he says. “Trust me. You’ll want a whole bag of that flavor before we go back home.”
Home. The word sticks under my sternum.
The wrapper sticks slightly when I peel it away.
The taffy’s pink, aggressively so, and soft enough that it yields immediately under my teeth.
Strawberry-sweet and too soft, and amazing--exactly like he promised.
It sticks to my molars, and I have to work my jaw to unstick it, probably looking ridiculous in the process.
I laugh around it anyway. “You’re not wrong.”
“I never am,” he says, popping a green one into his own mouth. “It’s both a gift and a curse.”
Rowan carries the paper bag with the rest of the candy, even though Eli keeps insisting he can manage.
There’s something quietly protective in the gesture, in the way he simply takes the bag without asking, like he’s decided this is something he can do, one small burden he can carry.
I don’t know what to do with that, with the casual care that doesn’t demand anything in return.
Cassian lingers behind us, pausing to examine a rack of postcards outside a souvenir shop.
Most of them are garish, oversaturated photos of sunsets and lighthouses, the kind of thing tourists buy and never send.
But one catches my eye that’s a watercolor of the bay at night, the boardwalk lights glowing like fireflies suspended over dark water.
The artist caught something true in it, something about the way beauty and loneliness can exist in the same breath.
He catches me looking and adds it to the pile without a word.
This shouldn’t hit as hard as it does. It’s just a postcard, probably costs less than a coffee, meaningless in the grand scheme of things. But my throat tightens anyway, because he noticed what I was looking at, because he thought I might want it. After all, he didn’t make me ask.
No one’s bought me anything in so long. Nothing that wasn’t required, nothing that wasn’t transactional. The postcard feels like proof that I exist outside of paperwork and assessments, that someone saw me want something and thought that wanting mattered.
I can’t thank him without my voice breaking, so I don’t. I just meet his eyes for a second, and whatever he sees there has him smiling and makes me want to hug and kiss him at the same time.
We drift on. Sun flares off shop windows; a kid drops a cone and wails like the ocean wronged him personally. My stomach answers with a quiet, traitorous growl.
Eli hears it anyway. “We’re almost to the café,” he says, already angling toward the pier.
By the time we get to the place, the lunch crowd is officially gone, but I don’t mind.
The sign out front reads The Salty Gull, paint peeling, neon half-dead and flickering like it can’t decide whether to give up entirely or keep fighting. I love it immediately, this stubborn little place that refuses to be anything other than exactly what it is.
Inside smells like butter and the sea, the kind of scent that should be bottled and sold as therapy.
The air hums with chatter and clinking glasses, and gulls shout overhead like hecklers kept at bay by wooden owl carvings nailed to the rafters.
It’s loud and chaotic and perfect, the kind of place where no one’s watching you, where you can disappear into the noise and just be.