Page 40 of False Catch

The words hang there, loaded with meaning Torres can't quite parse but definitely notices.

"Adequate," she pronounces once we're back on the dock. "Whatever you did differently this morning, keep doing it. But watch the proximity patterns on land. You cluster like a..." she pauses, choosing her words, "like a unit with poor professional boundaries."

After she leaves to file her report, we stand there in the morning sun, endorphin-high from the best practice we've had in weeks.

"We should hit The Griddle," Zane suggests. "I'm starving and they have those cinnamon pancakes."

"Everything's better than your cooking anyway," Tyler says.

"Excuse me? My pasta last night was excellent."

"You literally made spaghetti with jarred sauce," Beckett points out.

"Elevated jarred sauce. I added herbs."

The banter feels easy, natural. Like we're finally becoming what we were meant to be. Not just a crew, but something more. Something deeper.

As we head back to the team house, I fall into step beside Reese.

"You're different this morning," I observe.

She glances up at me, and there's a knowing look in her eyes. "So are you."

Heat creeps up my neck. There's no way she could know. Unless...

"I can smell too, you know," she says simply. "Even with suppressants."

Fuck. Of course. If I could smell them on her, she could smell herself on me. The evidence of what I did while listening to them.

She walks ahead to join Zane, leaving me standing there with my shame burning hot.

But as I watch them - Zane's hand brushing her lower back, her shoulder bumping his arm, the easy intimacy that wasn't there yesterday - I realize something.

I'm not jealous. Not exactly.

I'm curious.

What would it be like to be part of that? Not just the sex, though the sounds last night will haunt my dreams. But the connection. The belonging. The way they moved through the kitchen like they were sharing the same heartbeat. The reason Reese looked so settled this morning, like she'd finally found her place.

I've spent three years keeping myself separate. Safe. Watching from the edges while the team bonds and breaks and reforms around me. I thought distance would protect me from the messy complications of pack dynamics.

But maybe I've been looking at it wrong. Maybe the messiness is the point. Maybe you can't have synchronization without vulnerability, trust without intimacy, strength without surrender.

Gray falls back to walk beside me. "You hear them last night?" he asks quietly.

I freeze. "What?"

"Reese and Zane. In the kitchen." His jaw is tight. "Hard to miss."

Heat creeps up my neck. "Yeah."

He's quiet for a moment. "Kept me up until 3 AM. Couldn't focus on my reading."

"Yeah, me too." I don't mention what else I did. Don't need to. The shame is probably written all over my face.

We walk in silence for a few steps.

"It's getting stronger," I say. "Whatever this is between all of us."