Page 94 of Run Wild Omega

I tap my pen against the clipboard. “Weird in the way that three men put their mouths on my neck several times a day and I’m supposed to act like it’s a logistical procedure.”

“And do you act like it’s a logistical procedure?”

“Mostly.”

“Tess.”

I sigh. “No. I don’t. It’s… it’s more than weird, Mara. It’s—” I stop, because I don’t have a word for what it is.

Intimate isn’t right, because that implies mutual vulnerability, and this is strategic. Overwhelming isn’t right either, because it’s not sudden—it’s a slow, relentless accumulation of sensation that builds over the course of each day until I’m wound so tight I can barely think.

“It’s hard,” I settle on. “It’s really hard.”

She nods slowly. “Have you talked to them about it?”

“What would I say? ‘Hey, I know this is fake, but your mouth on my neck is making it very difficult to remember that’?”

“That would actually be a very healthy thing to say.”

“I’ll add it to my to-do list.”

She smiles, but there’s concern in her eyes that she doesn’t push. That’s another thing I appreciate about Mara—she knows when to stop.

The door opens.

I look up, expecting Miles. It’s half past three, which is close to his usual window. But it’s Wyatt who steps into the room, snow dusting his shoulders, his cheeks pink from the cold.

“Dylan already came by this morning,” I say before he’s fully through the door. “I was expecting Miles.”

Wyatt closes the door behind him and shrugs out of his jacket. “Miles got pulled into a conference call with the National Weather Service. They’re doing a retrospective analysis of the storm event—he’s providing the SAR data from the incident report.”

“Is that normal?”

“It’s not normal for the NWS to request SAR data directly. But since Morrison made the weather the centerpiece of his argument, Daniel wants a counter-narrative from the actual meteorological authorities. Miles is the best person to provide it.”

So Miles is building evidence for the defense while Wyatt is here to keep the scent fresh. The division of labor is so seamless it almost makes me dizzy.

“I’ll give you two some space,” Mara says, already unfolding herself from the couch. She picks up her mug and her bag, shooting me a look that says we’ll talk later.

“You don’t have to leave,” I say.

“I know I don’t. But I want to.” She pauses at the door, glancing at Wyatt, then back at me. “I’ll be in the kitchen with Mrs. Lacey if you need me.”

The door closes behind her.

Wyatt and I are alone.

This isn’t unusual. Over the past two weeks, I’ve been alone with each of them dozens of times—in this room, in the café, on the porch of my parents’ house. The scenting requires privacy, or at least semi-privacy, and we’ve developed a quiet choreography around it.

They come in. They sit. They lean close. They mark. They leave.

But there’s something different about today. Maybe it’s the way Wyatt moves—slower than usual, less purposeful, like he’s not here on a schedule. Maybe it’s the fact that Mara just left me with a look that said she could read me better than I wanted her to. Maybe it’s the two weeks of accumulated tension that’s been building in my chest like pressure behind a dam.

Or maybe it’s just Wyatt.

He sits in the armchair across from me, his knees spread, his hands resting on his thighs. He’s in his SAR uniform—the clean one, not the bloodstained one from the mountain, though I know that ruined uniform is still in a plastic bag in his truck because he told me so, in a voice that suggested he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away.

“How’s the leg?” he asks.