Chapter 14
Knox
My apartment smells like both of us. For once, my alpha brain is actually shutting the fuck up. No roaring, no possessive frenzy. Just a low, steady hum.
Benji is asleep. His face is half-buried in my pillow, one hand resting on the mattress between us.
He’s wearing my t-shirt, the collar slipping just enough to show the claiming bite on his shoulder.
He looks young without the heavy eyeliner and combat boots.
Just pale skin, a galaxy of freckles, and pillow creases.
I stare at him, and a single thought echoes in my head. He stayed.
He told me to stay, and then he stayed, and the sun came up, and the world didn't end.
I ease out of bed and try to make coffee without waking him.
It’s a lost cause. My kitchen is the size of a closet, and the cabinet where I keep the mugs has a hinge that squeals like a dying rat.
I hear a low, irritated groan from the bedroom.
Footsteps shuffle down the hall. Benji appears in my shirt and his boxer briefs, his black-and-blue hair a literal bird’s nest, squinting at the overhead light like it personally offended him.
"Your kitchen is a crime scene," he rasps, eyeing the coffee grounds scattered across the counter and a pan I left out two days ago.
"Good morning to you too."
"Is that coffee or motor oil?" He peers into the mug I hand him.
"Coffee. I think."
He wraps both hands around the mug like a lifeline and takes a sip.
He doesn't wince, but his eyebrows twitch in a way that suggests I should be banned from making hot beverages.
I crack a couple of eggs into the questionable pan.
He watches me from the counter, not saying a word when a piece of shell falls in.
When the edges start to burn, he reaches past me, turns down the burner, and flips them. I just watch him do it.
We eat at my tiny kitchen table. Nobody has ever sat at this table with me.
Benji is grumpy about the fork situation—"You own three forks, Knox? Three?"—and the lack of hot sauce, and the coffee, which he finishes anyway before pouring a second cup. But there’s no real bite to it. He’s just prickly.
His bare feet hook around the chair legs, and every time our knees bump under the table, neither of us pulls away.
He reaches across me for the salt, his arm brushing my chest. I catch his scent, sharp and sweet and tangled up with mine, and my chest tightens.
Six weeks ago, any accidental contact would have started a fight. Now, it’s just breakfast.
We migrate to the couch. Benji tucks himself into the corner, his feet landing in my lap.
My hand drops to his ankle without me thinking about it, my thumb resting over the bone.
He lets it stay there. The sketchbook is still on the floor where he dropped it last night, sitting between the doorway and the table.
Benji goes quiet. It’s that specific quiet where I know he’s reloading his sarcasm, but something real is trying to claw its way out instead. He stares at the ceiling.
"The rematch wasn't an accident," he says.
I look at him. "What do you mean?"
"On KnotMe." He refuses to look away from the ceiling. "I knew it was you. Your tattoos are in your profile photos. I recognized them. I swiped right because I wanted to—" He cuts himself off, but I can fill in the blank. Hurt you. Punish you.
"You catfished me," I say.
"I lured you." His jaw flexes. "Catfishing implies I pretended to be someone else. I just didn't correct your assumption."
I just stare at him. Benji Rowe, twenty-two-year-old art kid, the omega who bit me during sex and told me to go fuck myself, engineered a revenge hookup on a trashy dating app. He baited me to his apartment, opened the door, and let the mate bond blow both our lives apart. On purpose.
A laugh bursts out of me. A real one, deep in my chest. Of course he did.
"You catfished me to your apartment to destroy me," I say, grinning now, "and then you came in your underwear against the wall before I even got my jacket off. Masterful revenge plan, sweetheart."
He chucks a throw pillow at my head. "Fuck you, it was a good plan until your stupid scent ruined everything."
"Right. My stupid scent. That's the flaw in the flawless revenge catfish."
"I'm going to kill you." He tries to scowl, but his mouth is fighting a smile. It’s dangerously easy right now.
Then the humor drains out of his face, leaving something raw behind. He drops his gaze to his coffee mug. "I also knew," he says, his voice stripped of the bratty edge. "Since the door. Since your scent hit me. I knew what we were."
I freeze.
"Mate bond. I figured it out because of Jude and Milo. I knew, and I didn't tell you, and I still tried to hate you."
I run that through my head. The wall-grind, the blowjobs, the dare, the shop. Benji knew. He carried this is my mate right alongside this is the asshole who ghosted me, and he just kept fighting.
"You knew this whole time," I say slowly. "And you still fought it."
"I didn't try to hate you." His voice cracks. "I did hate you. And you were still my mate. Both things were true."
I grab the front of my shirt—the one he’s wearing—and haul him toward me. I kiss him hard, his coffee sloshing over the rim of the mug. His hand comes up to grip my jaw, and when I pull back, his eyes are fierce.
"You swiped right out of spite," I say, "knew I was your mate the second I walked in, and still kicked me out three times. I’m amazed I survived you."
His mouth twitches. "You almost didn't."
We swing by his place so he can change. The apartment smells like him and Shay.
Shay is sitting on the couch when we walk in.
He looks up, does the math—Knox, morning, Benji in Knox's clothes, the claiming bite—and his face settles into a hard, grudging acceptance.
The active hostility is gone, replaced by a warning glare. He gives me a single nod. I nod back.
"If you're staying for breakfast, we don't have eggs," Shay says, immediately looking back down at his phone.
I'll take it.
Benji emerges from his bedroom in fresh clothes, combat boots laced up, eyeliner perfectly applied. He looks armored up again, the electric blue streak in his hair catching the light.
He grabs the jacket he claimed he left at my shop. I don’t mention it.
"Ruth wants to meet you," he says, not looking at me. Like it’s just a casual Tuesday detail.
"Your grandma?"
"She says if you ghost me again she'll key your bike and salt your lawn."
"I don't have a bike or a lawn."
"She'll figure something out. She's resourceful."
***
By noon, I'm back at the shop. The buzzing machines, the smell of green soap, Mars grunting at the schedule. Normal Tuesday. I'm wiping down my station, staring at a DM from Benji—a photo of a poster design with the caption the bassist wants COMIC SANS, pray for me—when my phone rings.
My mom's name flashes on the screen.
My grip tightens on the phone. The last time she called me in the middle of a shift, my dad was in the hospital. The time before that, same thing. My body knows the drill before my brain catches up.
"Mom?"
She’s crying. The words come out in fractured, breathless pieces: "Your father. The hospital. Relapsed. They called me from the ER."
The shop fades to static. The music, the machines, Mars—it all drops away. My blood goes ice-cold, and that familiar, numb efficiency takes over. Task, task, task.
"I'm coming," I tell her. "I'm on my way."
I hang up while she's still talking, grabbing my jacket and keys, checking my wallet for the hospital parking pass I never threw out. Mars looks up from his client. He reads my face, gives me a single, sharp nod toward the door. Go.
I'm already halfway to the door, the crisis-management programming running on autopilot. The old instinct screams at me to handle it alone. Don't drag anyone into this mess. Just drive.
My hand hits the glass of the front door. Stay. I remember Benji’s fingers laced with mine. Don't you dare do this again.
I pull my phone back out and hit his name.
He picks up on the second ring. "Miss me already?"
"My dad," I say, my voice completely flat. "He relapsed. I'm heading to the hospital."
The playful snark vanishes. The silence on the line shifts, turning sharp and focused. "Do you want me there?"
The old code fights the new code. "I don't know yet. I'll text you when I know what's happening."
"Okay." A pause. "I'll keep my phone on."
"I'm not disappearing," I say, the words scraping my throat. "I'm telling you what's happening. I'm not disappearing."
"I know," Benji says. It’s steady. Trusting me is the bravest fucking thing he's done, and I'm holding that trust in my hands as I get into my car.
The hospital is the exact same nightmare it always is.
Same parking garage, same elevator, same bleach smell that coats the back of my throat.
My dad is in a bed hooked up to monitors, looking gray and slack.
My mom is curled in a plastic chair, clutching a cold cup of coffee.
When she sees me, she stands up and crumbles against my chest.
I hold her. I'm twenty-six, and this is the one thing I know how to do. I talk to the doctors. I fill out the clipboards. I call his sponsor. I handle it.
The hours blur together. A nurse comes in with a non-update. A doctor asks for medication histories I can recite in my sleep. By three o'clock, my mom is dozing in her chair.
I reach for my pocket. Text Benji. But then my mom shifts, letting out a distressed noise, and I grab her hand instead. The thought gets swallowed by the next task.
I tell myself I'll text him after I talk to the doctor.
Then it's after my mom wakes up. Then it's after the next vitals check.
I keep chasing the word after, sliding deeper into crisis mode until everything outside this room ceases to exist. It's the exact same disappearing act I pulled last time, just in a sterile room instead of on a highway.
The clock over the nurses' station reads 6:17 when I finally step out into the hallway to stretch my legs. The corridor is dead quiet, save for the hum of a vending machine.
I pull my phone out of my pocket. The screen is lit up with Benji's name.
Benji: How is he?
An hour gap.
Benji: Knox?
Another gap.
Benji: Are you okay?
And the last one, timestamped two hours ago.
Benji: Don't you fucking do this again.
My stomach drops out. My grip on the phone goes white-knuckled.
I can see it perfectly—Benji pacing his apartment, watching the hours tick by with zero response.
The worry bleeding into fear, and the fear hardening into fury.
Don't you fucking do this again. It’s not anger.
It’s his abandonment wound ripped wide open on my screen.
I called him. I thought that made it different. But six hours of dead silence is still dead silence.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. What the fuck do I even say? I'm sorry is a joke. He's alive doesn't fix it. Trying to type out an apology right now is just another way of hiding.
I shove the phone back into my pocket and walk back into the room. My dad is stable. The nurse is checking his IV.
"He's resting comfortably," she murmurs. "Vitals are steady. Go home and get some rest."
My mom blinks open her eyes. I go to her and squeeze her shoulder. "I'll be back in the morning."
She pats my hand weakly. "Go. You've been here all day. We're fine, baby."
I don't hesitate. I walk out of the room, hit the elevator button, and ride it down to the concrete and exhaust of the parking garage. I get in my car and slam the door.
A text won't fix this. Showing up is the only apology that counts now.
I throw the car into drive and head for Benji's.