The Gamma’s Second Chance (Crescent Lake #3)

11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

CASSANDRA

I stayed on Nolan’s couch all night.

I didn’t want to. My body betrayed me, though. The couch was too plush, the blankets too warm, and his shirt too comforting, all of it combining and soothing me into a deep, restorative sleep I didn’t wake from until just now, jolted from it by Nolan slamming the door as he left for his regular morning run.

An exact echo of the metaphorical door he slammed on me yesterday.

With the shutting of the door, the events of the last twenty-four hours all come rushing back to me. The rehearsal, Nolan’s teasing, Haven’s aura, my exhaustion, and my misinterpretation of Nolan’s actions towards me; my misreading of his fussing and hovering over me as I recovered from draining myself. His tender touch, gentle hands, and his stern, overbearing kindness and concern were the perfect blend, making my heart race and my blood rush. But he pulled the rug from under my feet right as I got comfortable, sending me toppling over and crashing to the ground in a crumpled, mangled heap.

The rush of memories replaying in my mind is almost as gut-wrenching as when they happened in real time. And the only thing keeping me from drowning in the wave of painful memories is the ringing of my phone in my bag Nolan left in the entryway.

I hop up to grab it, my muscles aching in protest at my sudden movements. I clench my teeth and massage my thigh as I take my phone from my bag and answer it.

“Hello?” I say, hissing through the stiffness leftover from my overexertion and the way I slept on the couch—in one spot and completely unmoving—all night long. Nolan’s couch may be comfortable, but that doesn’t negate the slight stiffness from the position I slept in.

My dad’s voice filters to me through the speaker. “A grunted ‘hello’? Is that any way to greet your father?”

I chuckle softly at his teasing. “Sorry, Mpampa,” I say, rubbing my forehead with my fingertips as I wander back into the living room and plop down on the couch, pulling the blanket up over my legs again. “I didn’t check the phone before I answered. How are you?”

“Alive,” he says, then he lowers his voice to almost a whisper. “I think my days are numbered, though. Now that you’re gone, there is no one to protect me from your mother.”

“I heard that!” my mom says from wherever she is in the house. Most likely cooking in the kitchen or reading near the piano.

“Oh, hello, agápi mou, I didn’t know you were home!”

I hear a light smack and an “ow!” and I laugh louder at their antics, warming on the inside while also getting a little homesick. “Hello, Mama!”

“Help me!” my dad says in a stage whisper.

“She wouldn’t have to help you if you did the dishes when I asked the first time!” my mom says to him beneath the rustling of her grabbing the phone from him. “Hello, sweetheart.” Her tone switches instantly when she speaks to me. “How are things?”

“Everything is fine.”

Lie. Nothing is fine. But I just place a mask of a smile on my face and keep my voice bright and cheerful.

She is silent for a moment, and I can almost feel her sharp, critical eyes on me, examining me and piercing through my facade. She may be an entire country and ocean away from me, but it’s as if she’s sitting on the loveseat right across from me. “You sound tired.”

She doesn’t believe me for a second. She knows me too well.

I swallow and lick my lips, resisting the urge to collapse back into the pillowy softness of Nolan’s couch. It’s embedded with the hint of his scent, just like the shirt on my body, adding to the comforting bubble of coziness I slept safely in all night. “It was just a long day yesterday, Mama. I’m fine, I promise.”

She clicks her tongue at me. “You need to pace yourself.”

I shift uncomfortably on the couch, and my lycan bristles in my mind, frowning at the unnecessary scolding from my mother. Even though we know she means well. It feels like a lecture for an amateur apprentice instead of an adult acolyte on an assignment.

I sigh. “I know, Mama.”

“Good.”

It’s silent again for a long moment, both of us waiting for the other to speak. My tongue is heavy, though. It’s filled with lead and hesitation, and I can’t bring myself to be honest with her and tell her of my woes. Even though she likely already knows. Or has an inkling of them.

She doesn’t push me either, thank the Goddess. A positive side effect of her empathic abilities—she knows when to back off and not pry into things.

“I’m going to go,” I say. “I have the day off from going to rehearsal with Luna Haven, so I’m going to go for a run. Get some exercise and enjoy the fresh air.”

“Of course,” she says, and then her voice switches, softening again for me. “Your father and I love you. Don’t ever forget that.”

I blink back the itching in my eyes and look up at the ceiling, stretching against the strain in my throat as I nod, even though she can’t see me. “I love you both, too.”

The call ends, and it’s silent once more. It’s reminiscent of the silence from those early days of me being here, when Nolan avoided me and spoke very little to me. Back before he started opening up and giving me hope.

My heart clenches for the briefest of moments. One tick of a grandfather clock, a singular flap of a hummingbird’s wings, and then I shove it all down and leave the living room to do exactly what I told my mother I would do—exercise.

I put little thought or care into my outfit, grabbing casual workout clothes—a sports bra, tank top, and bike shorts—and running shoes instead of my usual outfit of a dress and sandals. I head into the bathroom across the hall to get ready for the day and throw my hair into two quick, messy French braids before changing my clothes.

But when I dress, I somehow grab Nolan’s shirt again instead of my tank top, pulling it on over my sports bra without a second thought. The fabric settles over my torso, warm and soft, and still holds Nolan’s scent in its fibers. I stare at myself in the mirror, hating how much I enjoy how I look in his clothes, hating how right it feels to wear his shirt.

I shouldn’t do it. I shouldn’t go outside wearing it. He didn’t give it to me to keep, and he didn’t give it to me with any intent other than to keep me from exerting myself more. And it hangs well below the hem of my black bike shorts, making it appear as if I’m wearing nothing underneath it.

But I don’t care. I don’t change into my tank top, even though I should. No, I tie the hem of his enormous shirt in a knot near my hips instead as I exit his house to begin my run.

I freeze on the top step of the porch, though. Because there, on the front walk, is an almost full-grown gray and white wolf wearing a light purple tutu.

We stare at each other, its head tilted with one ear flopping to the side, tongue lolling out of its mouth.

“Hello.” I give it a tentative smile. Its tail wags back and forth once, then stops.

I glance up and down the little quiet road Nolan lives on, but there is no one around to ask about my peculiar, unexpected visitor. A wet nose rubs my palm, pulling my focus down to my feet, where my new friend now sits, staring up at me expectantly.

My smile grows, and I pat its head, fingers weaving into its thick fur. Its eyes close as I scratch a little, stretching its neck and pointing its nose up towards the cloudless blue sky. As soon as I drop my hand, the wolf nudges my calf and darts away, down the porch and across Nolan’s front yard at a sprint, stopping at the edge of the lawn, crouched and waiting for me, ears perked up and eyes wide.

“You want to run with me?” It spins in a circle, chasing its tail several times before stopping in the same pose. “All right, all right!” I prance down the steps and jog towards the street, waving it towards me with one hand. “Let’s go!”

I turn left and take off, heading towards the main road instead of through the trees behind the house like I did the other day. The pitter patter of wolf paws sound behind me, and I check to see the wolf following me, purple tutu flouncing as it runs, its tongue once again hanging out the side of its mouth.

He stays a few paces behind me for most of the run. We skirt the training fields and then head into the forest, following the winding path that weaves through the tall redwood trees. The sunlight trickles down through the boughs, bringing just enough warmth with it to make my skin dewy with a thin layer of sweat, but the breeze and the shade keep away the full heat of the warmer-than-normal spring day. Birds chirp, and the sounds of the warriors training and Beta Reid and Delta Sebastian calling out orders can be heard bouncing off the trunks of the trees, but with the distance I can’t make out the specifics of their words, just the command and the urgency behind them.

I reach that same fork in the path from the other day, the one that leads to the outlook where I bumped into Nolan, and pause, swiveling my head between the two options.

My feet carry me towards the left path, the harder, more strenuous one, the one that will require more focus from me and be more of a distraction from everything I don’t want to think about. But an image of Nolan standing at the edge of the outlook with his hands on his hips as he looks out towards the training fields flashes in my vision.

I flinch back as the image fades, arms hugging my stomach and my heart skipping a beat in my chest. His scent—fresher and spicier than the hint of it lingering in the fabric of his shirt I’m wearing—fills my lungs and swirls around me, carried by a heavier breeze than what’s been blowing through the forest during my run. I swallow against the lump forming in my throat, annoyed with how quickly it appears from just a brief vision of him and a quick whiff of his scent.

I take off down the path back towards the main grounds, the memories of yesterday and beyond once again slamming into me, playing over and over again like a movie on repeat. I pick the moments apart, holding them up to the light like a jeweler examining a diamond for flaws, searching through them for the hidden clues I missed that should have been signals of his actual intentions, his true feelings.

But I find none, which makes it all worse. It makes the pain deeper and harsher. It’s etched into the fibers of my soul, and only the Goddess knows how long it will take for those marks to fade.

This isn’t like me. I’m not one to wallow. Especially not over something as insignificant as realities I can’t change. But his words— it can’t happen again —echo through my mind and resonate in my bones each time my foot slams into the dirt path, reminding me with every step I take that I was a fool. A delusional, infatuated, lust-driven fool.

It can’t happen again. We can’t allow that risk.

Harmless words. And true. His job—and mine—is protecting Haven. It’s a job both of us love and take seriously, one we would both give our lives for if it came to that. I love the work I’m doing here, helping her and Alpha Wesley and their unborn pup, and I hope in the future, if they have more pups, I’m once again asked to stay in Crescent Lake and help protect her. Not only because there’s no one else who can do it, but because I want to do it.

But that’s all it is for him. A job. Our relationship isn’t anything more than coworkers. Two beings with a shared goal. He made that very clear.

And it shouldn’t hurt as much as it does to be reminded of that. It shouldn’t feel like sandpaper against my heart or walking over smoking hot coals. It shouldn’t feel like a noose circling my throat, growing tighter by the second, or like I’m staring directly at the sun without sunglasses.

My ever-constant, tutu-wearing wolf shadow jogs forward to join me at my side. Its wet nose nuzzles against my hand again as hot tears fall from my eyes and down my cheeks, tears I didn’t realize formed because I was too caught up in my thoughts and focused on the path in front of me.

I stop right before the edge of the tree line, palm against a trunk to keep my balance as I cover my mouth and stifle my sobs. I spin and lean against the tree, sliding down it, and I bring my legs into my chest as I hit the ground. The wolf sits next to me, chin on my knees, and I hook my arm around it, hugging it as I let the pain of Nolan’s unintentional rejection hit me again.

I let it flow from my bruised heart in unfettered waves. It ripples out of me like a raging river as I mourn the loss of something—someone—I never even had. It’s fueled by my exhaustion from always wearing a smile, by my anger at myself for believing I’d found something that could be real and mine, and by my acceptance of all the reasons we’d never be good for each other in the first place.

My new wolf friend and I sit together until my tears stop and my eyes are dry, and the camera on my phone shows me there is no redness or puffiness on my cheeks or nose. Then we both get back on our feet and run the last several yards of the path out of the forest and back towards the main pack grounds, a sunshiny smile painted on my face once more.