Chapter 9 Beau #2
When I left ten minutes later, I caught myself thinking about her question. About bodies knowing things brains didn’t want to accept.
My body knew I wanted her. Had known it since that first day in the fire station kitchen when she’d fixed the coffee machine with focused competence. Had known it every morning since when I showed up at her office and felt settled in a way I hadn’t in three years.
But my brain insisted I didn’t deserve to want anyone. That I’d failed once, and failing again would break something fundamental inside me.
So I brought her coffee every morning and told myself it was just routine. Just friendship. Just two people who understood what it meant to carry guilt and build walls to protect themselves.
Even though I knew it was more than that.
Even though I suspected she knew it too.
The lunch thing with Silas was different. Less routine, more deliberate. They’d been meeting twice a week at The Brew for the past month, and I could tell it was good for her. She smiled more. Laughed at his terrible stories. Let her guard down in ways she didn’t with me.
I wasn’t jealous. Or at least, I was trying not to be jealous.
“She’s good for him too,” Sarah mentioned one afternoon when I stopped by The Brew for coffee. “Silas hasn’t been this genuinely happy in years. Usually, he’s performing happiness. With her, it’s real.”
I thought about that. About how all three of us were somehow better versions of ourselves when Sable was around. How she made us want to try instead of just surviving.
Dane was the holdout. He watched from a distance, never pushing, never crowding. But I’d seen him watching her during emergency coordination meetings. Seen the way his attention never strayed far from where she was.
Protective without being possessive. Present without being overbearing.
It was the kind of careful balance that came from someone who’d learned the hard way what happened when you cared too much.
The car thing happened on a Wednesday.
Sable had been at a late community meeting, and I’d already gone home when my phone buzzed with a message from Dane in the group text.
Her car won’t start. She’s still at the office. I’m heading over.
Silas’s response came quickly. Keep us posted.
Twenty minutes later, Dane updated. Giving her a ride home. Battery’s dead. I’ll handle it.
I stared at that message for a long time, fighting the urge to ask questions I had no right to ask. Questions about how she’d reacted, whether she’d argued about needing help, whether Dane had finally broken through the careful distance he’d been maintaining.
The next morning, Sable was quiet during our coffee routine.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Dane gave me a ride home last night.” She said it casually, but there was something underneath the words. “My car battery died.”
“I heard. He mentioned it in the group text.”
“Of course he did.” But she didn’t sound annoyed. She sounded thoughtful. “He said he always knows where I am. That he needs to know I’m safe.”
“That bother you?”
She was quiet for a long moment. “It should. It should feel controlling or creepy or invasive. But it doesn’t. It just feels like someone cares whether I make it home.”
“We all care whether you make it home, Sable.”
She looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw something vulnerable in her expression. “I know. That’s what scares me.”
I wanted to ask what she meant. Wanted to push for more honesty, more openness, more of whatever was happening between the four of us. But I’d learned that Sable shared things in her own time, and pushing only made her retreat.
“Same time tomorrow?” I asked instead.
“Same time.” She picked up her coffee. “And Beau? I’m glad you keep showing up. Even when I’m terrible at saying thank you.”
“You just did.”
That afternoon, I got a message from Silas. Lunch with Sable. She’s asking about scent compatibility. I think her suppressants are failing again.
I stared at that message, my heart rate picking up. Scent compatibility. The thing all three of us had noticed but none of us had mentioned. The reason we could all be in the same room without our alphas competing. The reason her scent called to all of us in ways that shouldn’t be possible.
Dane’s response came quickly. Don’t push. Let her process.
Silas replied. I’m not pushing. I’m just telling her that sometimes your body knows what it wants before your head catches up.
Smart. Honest. The kind of answer that gave her information without pressure.
My response was simpler. How did she react?
Silas took a few minutes to reply. Scared. But also curious. I think she’s figuring it out.
Figuring out that we were scent-compatible. All four of us. The kind of rare match that most people spent their lives searching for.
Figuring out that the friendship we’d been building for the past six weeks had a foundation in biology as much as choice.
Figuring out that maybe, just maybe, the three alphas who kept showing up in her life weren’t going away.
That evening, I drove past her apartment without meaning to. Didn’t stop. Didn’t text. Just needed to know she’d made it home safely, the same way Dane apparently needed to know.
Her lights were on. She was safe.
I kept driving, but something had shifted. We’d moved past friendship into something that felt inevitable. Something that terrified me as much as it pulled me forward.
Because Sable mattered. Not just as an interesting omega or a professional colleague. She mattered in the way that meant failing her would break something fundamental inside me.
And I’d already failed once. Already knew what it felt like to be too slow, too careful, too focused on doing things right instead of just doing them.
But when I thought about Sable, I didn’t think about failure.
I thought about coffee at six in the morning.
About quiet conversations that made nightmares feel less overwhelming.
About the way she looked at me sometimes like she saw past the guilt to the person I’d been before that rescue went wrong.
Like maybe I could be that person again, if she was willing to help me find him.
My phone buzzed with a message from the group text.
Dane had sent it. Just two words.
She’s safe.
Because he’d driven past her apartment too. Because we were all doing the same thing, checking on her in our own ways, making sure she was okay.
Silas’s response came immediately. We’re all disasters.
My reply was honest. Yeah. But at least we’re coordinated disasters.
Dane’s final message made me smile despite everything. Semper Fi.
Always faithful. The Marine motto. A promise that we’d keep showing up, keep being present, keep proving we were worth the risk she’d have to take if she ever let us close.
I pulled into my driveway and sat there for a minute, thinking about tomorrow’s coffee run. About the routine that had become essential. About ten minutes every morning that made everything else worth it.
Sable was scared. I got that. Hell, I was terrified too.
But she kept showing up. Kept accepting the coffee. Kept carving out time for lunch with Silas and accepting rides from Dane.
She was trying, even if she didn’t want to admit it.
And if she was willing to try, then the least I could do was keep showing up with coffee at six in the morning and proving that some routines were worth the risk.