Dylan is in the clinic doorway at five o'clock with no clipboard, no errand, no excuse more convincing than his own two hands shoved into his pockets. "Want company picking up the kids?"
"Yes." The word leaves my mouth before the committee in my brain has reviewed the agenda, and by then it's too late to recall it.
Dylan's mouth twitches, and I busy myself locking the supply cabinet so he can't see whatever my face is doing. We walk to the pack school and the air between us has shifted since the lake.
The sharp edges are gone—the interrogation, the fluorescent bathroom, his voice going cold over the glass. But so is the charged gap where his mouth almost touched mine, folded into something neither of us has named.
"How was the shift?" he asks.
The question is so ordinary it nearly makes me laugh—Dylan Warren, Beta of Shadowcrest, making small talk like a coworker at a water cooler.
"A pup came in for his first physical. Maybe seven years old, absolutely convinced the stethoscope was a torture device." I adjust my bag on my shoulder. "Full meltdown—crying, bargaining, and trying to climb off the exam table."
"Sounds like me at my last dental cleaning." He dodges my elbow with a grin. "How'd you handle it?"
"Put the earpieces on him and pressed the chest piece to his own ribs. And his face, Dylan… Like he'd found a secret room inside himself that nobody told him about." The memory blooms warm behind my ribs. "He grabbed it with both hands and whispered, 'Is that really me?'"
"What happened to the stethoscope?" His grin is spreading, and the afternoon feels warmer for no meteorological reason.
"Hostage situation. Ten full minutes." I shake my head. "Had to bribe him with a lollipop to get my equipment back."
Dylan laughs—not the easy sound he puts on for company, but something loose and startled that cracks the afternoon open like an egg. Two passing wolves glance over, and I catch myself storing the sound somewhere I shouldn't be building shelves.
The school gate appears around the last bend, and the noise of children at release hits us from fifty yards. River spots me first and launches herself across the yard, but midway through our hug she catches sight of Dylan and I become instantly irrelevant.
"Dylan! Look what I drew!" She pulls crumpled paper from her backpack with the urgency reserved for delivering state secrets.
A drawing of a cottage under an enormous silver moon, surrounded by tiny flowers that look more like cheerful explosions than petals. Dylan crouches to her height, his face rearranging into something so attentive an outsider might think he's evaluating a diplomatic treaty.
He takes the paper with both hands. "Tell me about the moon."
"It's the biggest one I could fit." River plants her fists on her hips. "Because she's magic, obviously."
"Obviously." He tilts the paper toward the fading light. "And the cottage—does anyone live there?"
"Mama and me and Ashton." My throat does something I have to swallow past quickly, and Dylan's eyes flick to mine for a quarter-second—enough to say ‘I heard that too.’
He turns back to River, nodding slowly. "Good location. I'd move in."
River's whole face ignites, and I have to look away before my expression gives me up. Behind her, Ashton stands near the fence with his backpack straps tightened like parachute rigging, watching from the analytical distance he applies to all new data.
Dylan straightens and turns to my son—no crouching, no softened voice. Just level and direct. "Want to walk ahead and scout the route back?"
Ashton's jaw works once. He glances at me, calculating, and whatever he reads there makes him nod—a single measured dip of his chin, the Ashton Gray equivalent of a twenty-one-gun salute.
He falls into step beside Dylan, not quite shoulder-to-shoulder but not trailing either. Maintaining sightlines and exit options at all times, because my six-year-old has a tactical mind that would terrify a decorated general.
We walk back as four. River grips my hand and narrates at full volume—Miss Walker's rabbit is named Professor Whiskers, the girl who sits behind her shares her crackers at lunch, and there's a boy named Colin who picks his nose during reading time. River has strong opinions about Colin.
Ahead of us, Ashton and Dylan move in silence that isn't strained. Occasionally my son points at something—a guard post, a gap between buildings—and Dylan responds in tones too low for me to catch.
Ashton doesn't need an audience for his conversations. He needs someone who shows up without making a production of it, and Dylan is doing exactly that—keeping pace, keeping quiet, letting my son lead.
I watch them—my daughter's hand warm in mine, and my son walking beside a man who came along for no reason beyond wanting to be here. Something behind my ribs rearranges into a shape I don't have vocabulary for.
Not a fated bond or a Moon Goddess arrangement or a political alliance.
Just four people walking home because they chose to, and the simplicity stings my eyes.
When we reach my door, River wraps herself around Dylan's leg with the possessiveness of a child deciding that someone belongs to her, then vanishes inside without a backward glance. Ashton pauses in the doorway.
He turns, and those amber eyes find Dylan's face with intent. "Goodnight, Dylan."
Dylan's throat moves once. "Night, Ashton."
My son disappears inside, and the corridor fills with a quiet that presses warm against my skin like a hand I can't see.
I turn to thank him for the walk, for treating a crumpled drawing like a masterpiece, and find him already watching me with an expression that makes every rehearsed word dissolve.
When he reaches for my hand, I give it. No hesitation, no internal committee—just my fingers finding his like they've been doing this for years instead of weeks. He holds it for a moment, palm warm against my knuckles, his thumb drawing one slow line across my skin.
Then he lifts my hand and presses his mouth to my knuckles. Not quite a kiss—something quieter, more deliberate, a man choosing to be careful with what he wants badly to hold tighter. Or so I imagine.
His lips are warm, and the contact lasts two seconds and I already know I'll be replaying it for the rest of the night. "Goodnight to you too, Skyler."
Dylan sets my hand down and goes—no lingering, no backward glance, just Beta Dylan walking down a corridor with my heartbeat in his pocket and no apparent plans to return it.
Inside, River is singing something off-key and triumphant while Ashton is informing her with weary authority that the melody she invented doesn't technically qualify as a melody. Their voices tangle and spill under the door—the particular chaos of children who feel safe enough to be loud.
I press my palm against the doorframe where his shoulder leaned seconds ago. The place where his mouth touched my skin still hums with warmth that refuses to dissolve.
This is what it could look like—the walk, the drawings, my son saying someone's name like it matters. A man who keeps showing up without being asked.
Every day. If I let it.