CHAPTER 12 – TICK TOCK
1073 Words
LAYLA'S POV
I'm still carrying the number Gears gave me when Rafe corners me after breakfast with a different kind of problem.
"You don't have your wolf. Garrett's escalating. You need to know how to fight."
I agree to the training sessions because he's right, and also because disagreeing with Rafe when he's already decided something is like arguing with a wall that also happens to be devastatingly attractive.
They split the sessions between the three of them, and every single one is a disaster for my sanity.
Rafe teaches hand-to-hand. He's precise and controlled and his body wraps around mine during hold demonstrations in a way that is technically instructional and practically unbearable.
His forearm presses against my throat in a restraint demo. "If someone grabs you from behind, you drop your weight. Like this." His chest is against my back. His breath is on my neck. His hands cover mine to correct my grip and I can feel every callus on his palms.
And he holds the position three seconds longer than he needs to.
I feel every one of those seconds in places I shouldn't be feeling them.
"Again," he says, and his voice is lower than it was a minute ago.
We run it again. And again. And each time his body is against mine, the memory of what those hands did to me in the dark is so loud I can barely hear his instructions.
He calls the session early. Not from weakness – from the specific discipline of a man who knows exactly where his limits are and stops before he reaches them.
I respect it. I also hate it.
Colt teaches dirty fighting, and dirty fighting with Colt is exactly what it sounds like.
"The point isn't technique, Rowan. It's chaos. You're small. Use it."
He grabs me. I escape. He catches me. I twist free. It becomes a game – pins and reversals, both of us laughing, and the laughter loosens something in my body that's been clenched since I walked in on my husband with my cousin.
Then I pin him.
Genuinely pin him – weight and leverage and timing – and I'm hovering over him with my hands on his chest and my hair falling in his face and the laughter dies in both our throats at the exact same moment.
His green eyes go dark. His chest rises under my palms. I become extremely aware of the exact position we're in – my thighs on either side of his hips, his hands on my waist where they landed when I took him down, the heat of him radiating through every point of contact.
Neither of us moves.
"Rowan–"
The gym door opens and Gears walks in looking for a wrench.
We spring apart so fast I almost pull a muscle.
"Good session," Colt says to the ceiling with a strained voice.
"Great," I say to the wall because my face is on fire.
Eli, on the other hand, teaches weapons. And Eli teaching weapons is the quietest destruction of all.
He stands behind me with his hands over mine, guiding my grip on a disassembled handgun. His chest is against my back. His fingers adjust mine one by one, and his mouth is near my ear.
"Squeeze, don't pull."
I can feel his lips brush my ear when he speaks. The warmth of his breath on my neck. The steady rise of his chest against my shoulder blade.
I turn my head slightly. He's right there. A breath apart. His dark eyes are on my mouth and mine are on his and the moment stretches and the air between us is so thick I can't breathe.
The gun's slide clicks back into place, and the mechanical sound shatters everything like a dropped glass.
He steps back with his hands shaking. I see it. He sees me see it.
Neither of us says a word.
***
The custody paperwork arrives the next morning during communal breakfast.
Not delivered to me privately. Delivered to the council. Publicly. A formal petition – biological father's rights, request for primary custody upon birth, citing my "unstable living situation," and an apparent "lack of pack affiliation."
I read the papers at the table with every eye in the room on me. My hands don't shake. I fold them, put them in my back pocket, and pick up my fork and finish my eggs.
Harper beside me looks like she's about to set the building on fire. "Layla–"
"Not here."
Garrett is across the room. He arranged the timing through Megan – I can see it in the way Megan is carefully not looking at either of us, the performance of neutrality. He's watching me with a soft, sad expression that makes members murmur.
"Poor guy. He just wants to be a dad."
The metallic taste is so strong I almost choke on my eggs.
After breakfast, Garrett walks up to me in the common room – in front of everyone – and puts his hand on my stomach.
"Take care of our baby, Layla." His voice is warm. Loud enough for the room. His palm is flat against the bump and his eyes are soft and his smile is perfect and I can't flinch because twenty people are watching a father touch his wife's belly and if I slap his hand away I'm the monster.
"I'll see you at the next appointment."
He squeezes my shoulder. One-handed. The way you'd comfort someone fragile. Then he walks out.
The metallic taste is so strong I can feel it in my back teeth.
Harper is beside me in seconds. "Did he just–"
"Don't." My voice is steady but my hands are shaking under the table.
Later, alone in my room, I pull the custody papers out of my back pocket and read them again. Unstable living situation. Lack of pack affiliation. Every word chosen to make me sound broken on paper.
I put my hand where his hand was – on my stomach, on my baby – and I press down like I can erase the feeling of his palm there.
Tick tock, he keeps saying. Like my baby is a countdown. Like my child is a clock he's winding.
I fold the papers and put them in my nightstand drawer next to my phone with the recording on it.
Tick tock yourself, Garrett.
- Writer
