Chapter 33 Aurora
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Aurora
The first thing I notice when we get back to Coyote Glen is that nothing looks different, which feels like a personal attack.
The same string lights are strung across Main Street like they didn’t spend the last couple of days minding their own business. The same flower boxes sit outside Granger’s Goods, and the same woman walks her dog past the square like the world hasn’t shifted even slightly off its axis.
Meanwhile, I got dragged into a storage unit ambush and accidentally developed feelings for three men with a combined talent for violence and emotional confusion.
Everything is… normal, and I am very much not.
Ryder parks behind The Hollow like he always does, controlled and precise, like even the way he turns off the engine is part of a system. Zane is out of the truck first, scanning automatically, eyes moving over exits, angles, people.
Finn moves slower, which is saying something because he usually moves like gravity is optional.
“Don’t make it weird,” he mutters as I reach for him instinctively.
“I’m not making it weird,” I whisper back, already slipping my arm around his good side.
“You’re absolutely making it weird.”
“You got stabbed.”
“Lightly.”
I stare at him, and he grins, but it’s thinner than usual.
“Okay,” he amends. “Moderately.”
Zane shuts the truck door behind us with a quiet thud. “You’re not walking in there like nothing happened.”
Finn lifts a brow. “Counterpoint: I absolutely am.”
Ryder cuts in. “You’ll sit.”
Finn sighs like he’s being deeply oppressed. “I hate it here.”
“You chose it,” I remind him.
“Did I, though? Or was I seduced by small-town charm and poor decision making?”
I glance at him. “…that feels accurate.”
He brightens slightly. “Thank you.”
The Hollow is already loud when we walk in, Arlo somehow having kept the place running single-handedly.
Music hums low under the layered voices, glasses clinking, chairs scraping. It’s packed more than usual, which my brain immediately categorizes as suspicious, because now everything is suspicious: every glance, every laugh, every person who looks at us a second too long.
Arlo looks up from behind the bar as we come in. His expression doesn’t change much. Arlo Benton has perfected emotional minimalism, but his eyes flick over Finn, then me, then Ryder.
“Busy,” he says.
“Good,” Ryder replies.
It’s a whole conversation in two words, the kind that doesn’t need anything else.
We move through the crowd carefully. People greet them, nods, claps on the shoulder, casual familiarity, and no one looks alarmed, no one looks like they think we brought violence back with us.
Which is confusing.
Finn gets settled onto a stool whether he wants to or not. Zane gives Arlo a look that clearly translates to ‘don’t let him move,’ and Arlo nods once.
Finn looks betrayed. “You’ve all turned on me.”
“Yes,” I say sweetly. “It’s a coordinated effort.”
Ryder doesn’t sit. He never really sits when he’s thinking. Instead, he stays near the bar, one hand resting against it, posture loose enough to look casual but tight enough that I know he’s still tracking everything in the room.
Zane disappears briefly into the back, probably checking locks, exits—anything that can be controlled.
Which leaves me standing there in the middle of it all, trying to figure out how I’m supposed to act like I didn’t wake up this morning thinking I might die.
“Hey.”
I turn to find Lani already halfway around the bar, looking at me like she’s about to assess my entire emotional state in under three seconds.
“You look like you’ve had a day,” she says.
“That’s because I’ve had… several,” I reply.
She narrows her eyes slightly. “You good?”
“I’m here,” I shoot back.
She studies me, then nods like that’s enough for now. “Sit, you’re getting something with sugar.”
“I feel like that’s becoming a theme.”
“It’s a good theme.”
I slide onto the stool next to Finn, and he bumps his knee lightly against mine.
“You’re doing that thing again,” he murmurs.
“What thing?”
“The pretending you’re fine thing.”
“I am fine.”
He looks at me.
I exhale. “I’m… processing.”
“Better.”
Lani sets a drink in front of me that looks like it could fix at least three life problems and possibly a fourth if I commit, and I wrap my hands around it like it’s an anchor.
Then I hear it.
My name.
Not said to me.
Said about me.
“…that’s Aurora, right?”
“…the one staying with the new guys…”
“…all three of them…”
“…I heard…”
My stomach drops, a quiet, sinking oh no settling in before I can stop it.
I don’t turn right away, because if I do, I confirm it, and if I confirm it, it becomes real, and then I actually have to decide how I feel about it.
Finn goes still beside me. Zane reappears at the edge of the room, already clocking the shift, and Ryder’s head turns slightly.
He heard it too.
I take a slow sip of my drink and pretend I didn’t hear anything, like I’m just a girl in a bar and not a walking headline in a town that thrives on stories.
“…she seems nice though…”
“…she said cool stuff at the meeting…”
My chest tightens, and suddenly I’m very aware of where I’m standing, who I’m standing with, and what it looks like from the outside.
A tourist.
A motorcycle club.
Three men who people already whisper about.
And me.
In the middle of it.
“Hey.”
Dottie.
Of course it’s Dottie.
She appears like a well-dressed omen about to deliver either tea or a warning. Possibly both.
“Well,” she says, taking me in with a slow sweep. “You’ve certainly made an impression.”
“I was hoping for something a little less… public,” I reply carefully.
She hums. “That was never going to happen. Not here.”
I glance at her. “That’s comforting.”
“It’s honest,” she corrects.
She leans in slightly, lowering her voice just enough to feel conspiratorial instead of broadcast.
“People are talking,” she says. “They will continue to talk. That’s what small towns do when something… interesting happens.”
“I’m interesting now?” I mutter.
“Oh, honey,” she smiles faintly. “You were interesting the moment you walked in with that Harper name and those eyes.”
That does not help at all.
“But listen to me,” she adds. “You’ll be fine here.”
“I will?”
“Of course! For the record,” she adds, “I do enjoy a good love story. So does the whole town.”
And then she’s gone.
I stare down at my drink. I knew this was coming, I just didn’t expect it to feel like this.
You don’t get involved with three men and expect privacy, even in Coyote Glen. Still, knowing something and feeling it are very different things.
“You okay?” Zane asks quietly, back at my side now.
I nod.
Then shake my head.
“People are talking,” I say.
“People always talk,” he replies.
“That doesn’t make it easier.”
“No,” he agrees. “It doesn’t.”
Finn leans closer. “You want to go upstairs?”
I consider it for half a second, because it would be easy, go upstairs, close the door, pretend the world outside doesn’t exist, pretend none of this is happening, pretend I’m still passing through.
But then the door swings open again, and everything changes.
Ivy walks in like a force of nature, her friends in tow and chaos following close behind. She spots me immediately, locks on, and moves.
“Oh, absolutely not,” she says, sliding into the space beside me like she’s claiming territory. “Why do you look like someone just told you you’re not allowed to have feelings?”
I blink.
“I… what?”
She gestures vaguely. “That face. That is a ‘people are being weird about something I didn’t ask for’ face.”
I stare at her. “…that’s exactly what face it is.”
“I know,” she says. “I’ve made it before.”
Olivia appears on my other side, calm and warm and somehow immediately grounding. Delaney and Sloane follow, forming a quiet, unmistakable wall around me.
“What’s going on?” Olivia asks gently.
I hesitate, because saying it out loud makes it bigger, but they’re all looking at me like I don’t have to filter it, like I don’t have to minimize it.
“People are talking,” I say finally. “About me. About… us.”
Ivy snorts.
“Yeah,” she says. “They’re jealous.”
I choke on my drink. “That is not helpful.”
“It’s true,” she shrugs.
Lani leans over the counter. “It is. Also, people love drama. This is premium content.”
Sloane smiles softly. “They’ll get bored.”
Delaney nods. “Or distracted. Or both.”
Olivia’s gaze stays on mine. “But that doesn’t make it feel good right now.”
“No,” I admit.
Ivy leans in slightly. “Listen to me. This town talks. That’s part of the deal. But it also chooses.”
I frown slightly. “Chooses what?”
“Who belongs,” she says simply.
My heart skips a beat or two.
“You think I belong?” I ask, before I can stop myself.
She doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“You’re allowed to live your life,” Lani adds. “Even if it’s… unconventional. Look at Ivy, Olivia, Delaney, and Sloane! Nothing you’re doing is actually that unconventional here. It’s just a new love story for everyone to latch on to.”
“What she means,” Olivia says gently, “is that you don’t have to shrink just because people are watching.”
That settles into me, because that’s exactly what I was about to do, shrink, minimize, make myself smaller so I fit more comfortably into whatever version of this story other people are telling.
But Coyote Glen isn’t a normal town, is it?
And this isn’t normal gossip.
Here, no one’s love is punished.
It’s defended.
And maybe… I can be defended too.