THE SECOND MOON

Chapter Five: Eighteen Years Later

The alarm went off at 6:10, and Drake knocked his phone onto the floor trying to shut it up.

He leaned over the side of the bed and found it under yesterday's jeans.

WORK. 7:30 TEAM MEETING. ALL STAFF REQUIRED.

He stared at the message, then dropped back onto the pillow. A brown water stain spread from one corner of the ceiling, the same one the landlord had promised to fix three months ago. The heater had started clicking around two in the morning. The other half of the bed was empty.

That shouldn't have bothered him anymore. He and Maya had been separated for months, this apartment his now, if a place with peeling paint and a landlord who appeared whenever rent was late could be called his. Some mornings he still woke up expecting to hear her moving around beside him.

He sat up and rubbed both hands down his face.

"Ronan?"

Nothing answered. He waited anyway. That was the pathetic part. Three years, and he still tried every morning like today might be different.

Once, waking Ronan had been easier than waking himself. The wolf complained about hunger, cold, being indoors too long, Maya stealing the blankets, the twins crying, strangers standing too close.

Ronan had opinions about everything. Now there was only silence, and Drake had stopped being able to remember exactly when the silence had started, only that one morning he'd reached for the wolf and found nothing there, and the nothing had stayed.

Three years since Drake had last shifted. First the pack healer blamed exhaustion. Then stress. Then weakened bonding. Eventually Drake stopped asking because every answer sounded worse than the one before it.

His grandfather used to say a wolf that stopped answering wasn't gone, it was buried, and a man had to go looking for it under something bigger than an ordinary day. Drake had believed things like that once, back when his grandfather told old pack stories by the fire and life still seemed like it worked out if you tried hard enough.

Old stories didn't pay rent.

He got up, showered, shaved, and pulled out the one decent shirt he kept for meetings. Today mattered. The supervisor position had opened two weeks ago, and Dawson had all but promised it to him.

Eleven years with the company, covering shifts nobody wanted, fixing mistakes that weren't his, watching people with half his experience move ahead of him. This time was supposed to be different.

Coffee brewed while he checked his bank account. Rent due in four days. Electric bill overdue. Credit card close to the limit. He closed the app.

"Promotion first."

The apartment was too quiet. Only two chairs at the table now, though he'd bought four when he first moved in, assuming Lucas and Lily would practically live there. Every weekend became every other weekend. Then school happened, friends happened, Lucas found reasons to stay home. Eventually Drake folded the other two chairs into the closet and told himself it made the place look bigger.

An old basketball sat above the cabinet, flat, cracked along one seam. Under it, a photograph from high school. Drake in his jersey, Coach Dalton beside him, Maya tucked under his arm. Stupidly happy. Neither of them knowing yet what eighteen years of trying to keep a promise actually cost.

His phone buzzed.

BLACKRIDGE HIGH BASKETBALL. OPEN TRYOUTS FRIDAY, 4:00 PM.

Lucas was seventeen now, almost eighteen. He liked basketball but Drake couldn't honestly say he was good at it yet, decent instincts when he stopped overthinking, but his footwork fell apart under pressure and he gave up on a play the second something went wrong. Drake had tried helping more than once. Lucas usually lasted five minutes before saying Dad, I know, in the tone that meant he definitely didn't.

He scrolled further and found a photo of Lily laughing outside school with two friends, head tipped back. He couldn't remember the last time he'd made her laugh like that.

He locked the phone. Outside his window, two young wolves stood beside a truck, easy and normal, one flashing gold eyes, the other letting claws slide out and back. Drake closed the curtain and hated that he did it.

Everyone in the pack knew what three years of silence meant. If the bond decayed far enough, the wolf might never come back.

He grabbed his jacket. Mrs. Garvey was locking her door across the hall.

"Meeting?"

"That obvious?"

"You ironed."

"I iron."

"You own an iron. Different thing." She almost got a smile out of him. "Promotion?"

"Hopefully."

"About time." Her face changed. "Mr. Cole came by yesterday."

"I know."

"You going to be okay?"

"I'll handle the rent."

She nodded, unconvinced.

He took the stairs because the elevator was broken again, his knee complaining the whole way down. A brown envelope sat on the passenger seat. HALE & BRIGGS FAMILY LAW. Three days he'd had it.

Still hadn't opened it. He threw his bag on top.

"Not today."

The separation had been ugly enough, the arguments, then the silence that replaced them, which was somehow worse. Maya said she needed space. Drake moved out. Nobody had said divorce. Not seriously. Not yet.

At the light, a school bus pulled alongside him, kids crowded at the windows, one boy with a basketball under his arm. For a second Drake remembered being that age so clearly it hurt. He could practically smell the gym floor.

He passed Blackridge High on the way to work. Told himself he wasn't going to look. Looked anyway. Gym doors open, kids running drills, a coach shouting from the sideline. For half a second he could hear Colonel West's voice in his head telling him a man showed up whether he felt like it or not.

"Ronan?"

Nothing. He kept driving.

He reached work at seven twenty-five and sat with both hands on the wheel, looking at the building. Eleven years. If Dawson finally gave him the promotion, maybe he could catch up on rent, stop checking his account before buying groceries, move somewhere the kids didn't hate visiting.

His phone rang before he got out of the car. Unknown number. He almost let it go.

"Hello?"

"Mr. West?"

"Yes."

"My name is Rebecca Shaw. I represent Maya Sanches."

Every muscle in his body went still. "Represent her for what?"

A pause. "I believe you know why I'm calling."

"No."

"Ms. Sanches has instructed our office to proceed with her petition for dissolution of marriage."

Outside the windshield, people walked across the parking lot carrying coffee, laughing, complaining about the morning. Completely normal. Everything around him kept moving while Drake sat with the phone against his ear and felt eighteen years become a legal document.

"We're separated," he said. "That's it. We haven't talked about divorce."

"I can only tell you what my client has instructed us to do."

My client. Maya was somebody's client now. Not his wife across the kitchen table. Not the girl who had stood outside a gym at seventeen with a test shaking in her hand while he told her they'd figure it out.

Drake looked at the work bag covering the envelope on the passenger seat.

"Mr. West?"

He couldn't answer.