Page 23 of Knot Her Beta

I move through the space, the rap of my cane on the planks echoing, the sound lending the place a sense of size, or perhaps only accentuating the emptiness. My hand finds the kitchen counter, then the jamb of a doorway. In the first side room, I take in the clean corners of the walls, no baseboards yet, nothing but raw edges lined up for the work still to come.

“I know you’ve been viewing places in Pinecrest,” Chloe calls from the living room. “But if you wanted to stay on the island—” Chloe stops and tries again. “There’s room for you here.”

I lean in the doorway, my bad leg half-locked to keep from shaking. “You had a two story cabin built for me?”

“There’s an elevator.” She gestures toward the space behind the stairs. “To make it easier to go up and down.”

“But you built me a cabin?” I say again, incredulous.

She shrugs, a little bashful. “It’s the least I could do after all those years of relying on you so much, not only as my agent, but also as my media specialist. I’d rather have you in the Homestead where I can bother you at any hour of the day or night, but Dominic said you needed a space of your own.”

“Chloe…”

She steps forward, her hands still in her pockets, her shoulders hunched to fight off the cold.

“Look, you’re probably not—” she begins, but stops, and her pink eyebrows pinch together. “You don’t have to decide now. Or ever. But the Wrights want you here. Not only as a friend. You’re family, Grady.”

I’m not sure what to say. My eyes drift to the window, to the way the glass turns the winter light into gray bands across the floor.

After a moment, I say, “Is this you, or them?”

Chloe shakes her head. “It’s both. Packs are about choice as much as anything else. And you always have the choice to leave. But you also have the choice to stay.”

A lump forms in my throat. “It’s a nice space. It would be better with a couch.”

She grins. “We could fix that. And there’s a bakery box with your name on it.”

She gestures at the hallway, stepping aside to let me pass first.

I move through the room, and Chloe follows, quiet but not nervous, her steps light on the new floors.

In the kitchen, she pulls a box from the unfinished cabinet and reveals four donuts, all different. “Surprise!”

I peer at the box. “It’s a little anticlimactic after giving me an entire cabin.”

“No take-backs.” She claims the apple fritter and leaves the rest for me. “You can take them back to Kyle’s cabin, or you can eat them here and think about how you might want to set up the space.”

She takes a big bite of her donut. “I have to get back to work. Gotta lock in some orc smut before this baby comes. Stay as long as you like.”

Before I can respond, she gives me an awkward hug around her rounded belly and slips out the front door, closing it with a soft click.

I lean my cane on the counter and open the box. There’s a maple bar, a jelly, and a cake donut with sprinkles. I pick the jelly and take a bite over the sink out of habit, catching the powdered sugar before it hits the floor.

The filling is raspberry. Chloe always picks raspberry.

The quiet here holds a different quality than the quiet at Kyle’s place. There, silence always comes with the possibility of a knock at the door, a voice from the hall, and the sense of occupying borrowed space. Here, even with the workers hammering from the Phase Two site, the noise is far away, buffered by brand-new insulation and fresh drywall.

I finish the donut and wipe my hand on my jeans. I walk the hall again, slower. In the primary bedroom, I stop at the window.

I imagine how the light will fall across a bed in the mornings, the way the room would warm up first thing, but stay cool all day under the shade of the evergreens.

In the second room, the tap of my cane echoes. A rug would soften the sound, and shelves lined with books would swallow it. I picture my books lined up along the wall, the spines all different heights and colors.

The kitchen still lacks appliances, but the counter is wide and smooth, almost inviting. I run my palm over the surface as I picture a coffee pot here, a bowl of fruit, and the inevitable pile of mail, keys, and other detritus that grows in the heart of a home.

A pang rings through me, so clear it startles me. I can see myself here in a way I couldn’t anywhere else, except maybe at Emily’s cottage.

I find the elevator where Chloe said it would be and ride it to the second floor.