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Sloane: I have just been informed that the grocery store has stopped carrying oat milk.

Hudson: Should I be concerned for the local grocery store manager?

Sloane: No. I kept my cool, though I died a little inside.

Hudson: What did you end up getting?

Sloane: A single, deeply suspicious carton of rice milk.

Hudson: I’m sorry.

She had sent a picture of her pale fingers wrapped around the carton.

Smiling, I closed the messages and returned to her contact.

Call.

It was one button. I could press one button.

I paced to the window again. What if she said no? That would be fine. Disappointing, but fine.

I meant what I’d told Julie. Sloane’s place in the pack couldn’t depend on how she felt about me. If she didn’t want a relationship, I would respect it.

Part of me didn’t want to open myself up to someone who was inevitably going to leave me when the urge to travel and move on hit again, but Sloane was worth the risk of heartache. Regardless, I needed to find out about her plans sooner rather than later. If she intended to move away again, I wanted to know.

What if she said yes? My stomach flipped, dipped, and rolled. That possibility felt more dangerous.

A real date meant acknowledging that our messages, check-ins, late-night conversations, and that moment beneath the stars had become something neither of us could keep pretending was accidental.

I thought of her in the clearing, her hand against my chest. I thought of her hugging me beside her car.

I pressed the button before I could reconsider.

The ringing began.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

There was a small pause. “Hudson?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, I know it’s you. Your name’s on the screen. I’m only surprised you called.”

“Is this a bad time?”

“No. I was working, but I can stop. I should stop. I’ve been staring at the same icon for twenty minutes and it’s begun to look blurry.”

I sat down on my bed. I could circle it for another ten minutes or man up and get right into it.

“I wanted to talk about the other night,” I said.