all's fair

Having a garden with Talia was practically like a dream come true for Daniel. For so many years, he had missed having an actual garden, like the one his family had when he was growing up. They had flowers and plants growing around their cabin, and off in one section of the yard, a produce garden, with cornstalks that towered over him when he was a small child. One of his uncles brought over his tractor early in the spring to till the soil of their little plot, and afterwards, Daniel, his parents, and his sister planted some of the seeds and tossed the others, landing wherever in the soil to grow. He filled his summers by tending to the garden, pulling weeds and watering the plants, watching as they grew each day. He’d watch each day as the corn grew or as the tomatoes fattened into a deep red, and he’d run inside to give an update to his parents. 

When his twenties came along, he rarely spent any time in the garden—instead roaming and hunting from town to town. Living off the grid for a couple years, he tried to have a tiny garden for himself with just enough produce for one man, but maybe he wasn’t giving the plants enough attention—enough care, because most of them died quickly. Daniel thought maybe his father and mother had the green thumbs, and it skipped him. Maybe he didn’t really know what he was doing with gardening. 

But that never stopped him from claiming he could garden. Now, with the one he planned with Talia, he wanted to make sure that these plants survived and made it to harvesting season. Daniel grinned each day when he saw how well everything was growing, and it convinced him that maybe he had a green thumb—or maybe Talia did and this was all her doing. Either way, it didn’t matter. They had a garden to tend to together. 

Seated on his knees, Daniel leaned over and pulled out some of the weeds. He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, a bit of dirt smearing across his skin. He looked over towards Talia, smiling as he watched her work. “It’s coming along nicely, yeah?” he commented, leaning back to sit on his heels. “I think the green beans are gonna be ready for picking any day now.” 

—

The garden on the packlands had been a thing to behold. A precise grid system, rotating vegetables and herbs and produce, with a complex schedule for watering and harvesting and replanting. It had been necessary, given the unforgiving climate and soil in their slice of Montana. There were trips to bulk-sale grocery stores and plenty of game to hunt, but the garden was essential to helping feed all the mouths of the pack. Like most things in the pack, the garden wasn’t for pleasure, but pragmatism.

This garden, their garden, was the opposite. A freewheeling arc around the span of Talia’s property, the only rhyme or reason to it imposed by Daniel. Produce mingled with herbs and sown throughout it all were wildflowers. It was a riot of leaves and petals and bulbs and fruit and bees and butterflies and Talia adored it. Even if the rabbits and deer wouldn’t leave it alone. It was hers but more than that it was theirs. Hers and Daniel’s, together. 

They had planted it in the earth together, a promise that they would both be on that same land, together, when the greens sprouted, when the blossoms opened, when the fruit grew.  

“Green beans were one of my favorites,” she mused happily, face tilted to the sun. The freckles that were usually faint and sparse over her nose would be out in full-force. “We’d eat them right off the bush.” It was easy to remember: half-hidden in the rows of the vegetable garden with Tabitha to harvest handfuls of beans, shushing each other as they snuck some, still warm from the sun, and then giggling at the squeak of their teeth through the pods. 

It didn’t ache quite so much, these days, to think of Tabitha. 

“They’ll be good with steak. Loaded baked potatoes. Blueberry pie for dessert.” Talia grinned over at Daniel as she mapped out a full menu. If there was one thing she could be trusted on, it was thinking about her next meal. 

She ambled over to the beans, he had mentioned, inspecting them. Nearby were the bell peppers (also nearly ready), a few yards beyond that, the tomato vines (another week, maybe two). Trailing closer to Daniel, she joined him at a kneel and brushed a finger over the smudge of dirt at his browline. Not enough to displace the mark. Leaning close, she pressed into him for a kiss. “More than nicely,” she amended. “It’s perfect.”

—

“Yeah?” Daniel asked, as he imagined a younger version of Talia reaching into the tall leafy greens, breaking off the beans, and biting into them. Anytime she shared something about her childhood—a brief fleeting comment or a long tale—he hung onto each word, as a soft warmth spread through him, knowing that Talia wanted him to know her like this. He wanted every memory and story that she was willing to share with him—he wanted to know all of her, and he wanted her to know all of him. 

“I remember having buckets filled with green beans, snapping the beans, and tossing them into another bucket.” He paused as scattered and blended memories flashed through his mind. “Me and Maya, we turned it into a game. See who could fill up their bucket first.” It was a simple, fond childhood memory, but one that he would never have been able to share this time last year without feeling an ache in his chest. With Talia, he found it easier to talk about his little sister—he found it easier to talk about the memories that he used to keep shoved deep within him. 

He laughed and shook his head as she put together a dinner menu for them. “Okay, okay, I’m starting to think you’re just using me for my cooking,” he teased, winking at her. “Not that I mind. Keep on using me, honey.” 

Daniel’s gaze followed her as she moved closer to him. His eyes followed her hand as she ran her finger across his skin. A wide smile etched across his face as she leaned in for a kiss, and he blinked lazily as they pulled away from each other. “Yeah, perfect,” he agreed. Though Daniel wasn’t sure if he was commenting on the green beans or the freckles scattered across her cheeks and nose. With each passing day of summer, he watched as the freckles grew and darkened across Talia’s face. He spent his evenings tracing her face, keeping track of each freckle and spotting when a new, lighter one popped up underneath her eyes. One freckle, close to the tip of her nose, had darkened faster than the others, and perhaps it had turned into his favorite freckle of hers. 

He grinned as he tapped his finger against her nose, right on the freckle. He leaned in for another quick kiss, unable to stop himself from kissing her. “Perfect,” he whispered, as he looked into her cool gray eyes. 

Daniel wrapped his hand around the back of her head, and he pulled her in for another kiss, longer and deeper this time. He knew they needed to finish their work in the garden, but what was the harm in one more kiss? How could he resist, when his attention strayed to her loose pigtail braids cascading down her back, as the braids trailed out of a bandana covered in a pattern of light pink flowers and deep green leaves—a bandana that he had gifted her when they were supposed to be just friends? 

He pulled away from the kiss as he tried to convince himself to focus on pulling weeds and watering the plants, but he hummed to himself as his hand traveled down one of her braids, pulling it over her shoulder so he could thumb at the strands and accidentally loosen the hairs. 

“You’re so distracting,” Daniel joked, knowing well-enough that he was the one kissing her. “You need to sit way down yonder. Outta my sight, or else we ain’t gonna get no work done.” He motioned with his eyes at the tree behind them. “Or we could take a quick break. Maybe I’m parched and needing some water. Maybe a nap under that tree with you.” 

—

Before, Talia had imagined what Maya might look like. Big, curly dark hair that went all wild and a little frizzy like Daniel’s. Shifting eyes that caught the light and a smile with lines of mischief and nostalgia. (Maybe she was transposing some of her own sister over Maya). And then, just after they got back together, Daniel had shown her pictures – big, curly dark hair, bright eyes, and that smile. That was what Talia saw then, thinking about little Daniel and even littler Maya racing each other to finish their garden chores. 

“Not just for your cooking,” she corrected, a smile painted easy over her face. It would be hard to claim that she didn’t like that Daniel cooked at all. There had never been any joy in preparing meals for Talia. Growing up, food had been little more than a necessity and she had treated it that same when she was out on her own. Daniel’s cooking wasn’t usually fancy but it was leaps and bounds above what she could do herself. And it wasn’t just the end product of the meal that she savored. It was watching him cook, the sure, confident movements of a knife in his hand, the focus that would find his eyes, or the way his attention would drift, actually, away from the food and over to her. Because it was that, too. Talia sitting on the counter with a glass of wine, or folded into one of the kitchen chairs with a beer to chat with him while he cooked. “Don’t worry. I’m planning on keeping you around to cook all my meals for many years to come.”

And wasn’t it something, to realize that was true? She did want to keep Daniel for years to come. She wanted to have him, and this garden, and this house for years, wanted to keep eating dinners in their kitchen and breakfasts out on the porch, wanted Tree to keep running circles through their wildflowers. That’s what planting a garden was, in a small way. Making a plan, a promise, for the future. And Daniel had planted this garden with her.

God, but she did love the look on his face when they were just parting from a kiss. His eyes still low, dark lashes fringed against his cheeks, lips just parted. One curl had slipped out from the band of the bandana looping against the shell of his ear and she traced it absently. “You talking about our garden, or me?” The smirk on her face was made soft, though, by the summer sun drifting over them, by the birdsong and the soft dirt under their knees. Then that smirk was erased by the press of Daniel’s next kiss. Her arms looped over his shoulders, hands crossing behind his head. 

It wouldn’t be the first time they had gotten…distracted in the garden. There was something about being outside, being in the dirt, with Daniel. It satisfied her down deep to her gut, like ever her wolf was pleased with the turn of things. Talia could remember, way back, to sitting together in their tree for the first time. Climbing trees in the golden hour with Daniel and it felt so right that she wanted to show him her wolf. Wanted to feel his big, rough hand close around her muzzle. Wanted to show him her throat, her underbelly.

Would she ever? It was a question Talia had come back to, lately. She felt confident in the safety of it. After all, the wolf had, in the past, recognized humans that Talia cared for as friends. It wouldn’t harm Daniel, that she was sure of. But it still felt like something big. Maybe too big. They loved each other, they had a garden and a home and a promise of years to come but… That didn’t necessarily mean he would want to share in this part of her. He had given up hunting for her, just as she had for him, (and he tended her so carefully during the new moon, held in the morning after the full moon when she felt strange and wrong-shaped, went to the moon temple with her and let her push him onto his back on the cracked floor, let her climb over him, bare as he was, let her plant her hands against his chest and drive them both to climax with the gibbous moon pouring her approval down on them), but truly seeing what she was. That was something else entirely.

“I don’t wanna sit way down yonder,” she said with a bit of a pout, putting on his accent to tease. She tilted her head, getting her mouth just behind his ear to trail kisses there. “I wanna stay right here with you. I could get you water, though, and then come back.” She made no move to do so, staying right where she was, practically in his lap. “We can’t nap. We gotta take care of all these weeds. And I gotta figure out how to keep those asshole bunnies away from our vegetables.”

—

“Oh, yeah, of course. I’ve got plenty of other uses. Pretty sure my first use was as your bedwarmer.” Daniel smirked, though he knew well-enough that he had never been just a bedwarmer for Talia. He recognized over the last few months how attached they were even in the first weekend together—how they could barely keep their hands off each other when they stumbled through the cabin’s door and made their way to the bathroom, where he washed the blood, dirt, and leaves out of her long dark hair before pushing her up against the shower wall and slipping his hand between her legs—how he left the next morning only to drive right back because even an hour apart was far too long for either of them. A bedwarmer wouldn’t have been cooking her meals, washing and braiding her hair, and holding her in his arms as they fell asleep together almost every single night. 

He wanted days, years, and decades more of being with Talia—of keeping her warm, safe and protected, and of feeling her taking care of him too. He wanted the simple, mundane routines that made life feel right to Daniel. He wanted decades more of cooking in the kitchen, as Talia latched herself onto his back, with her arms wrapped around his waist and her chin resting on his shoulder as he prepared their dinner. Someone else might find it annoying to have another body stuck to them as they worked in the kitchen, but Daniel preferred the comfort of her chest squeezed against his back and her hands straying low until he smacked her hands away because he was trying to not burn their food. 

Even more, he wanted decades of getting distracted in their garden. He chuckled at her question, and he ran the tips of his fingers along her neck. “You. You’re perfect,” he answered. “Garden is a close second.” He smiled into the kiss as she wrapped her arms around him. In the past when Daniel had imagined a life without hunting, he never thought it could be something like this, wrapped in the warm embrace of his love as they worked in their garden and as their dog ran laps around the yard. He used to envision something where he fell into the motions of a life on his own—a tiny one room cabin with just him, his cooking supplies, and not much else, and he’d work a little as a guide or maybe get some sort of job at a gas station, and he imagined no one except himself in that future. 

Nowadays all he saw was a long future with Talia, scattered with moments like this with her in his arms. He thought about all the future years when he could press her down into the soil and cover her with kisses. Sometimes he thought about a possible future with more than just him, Talia, and Tree—maybe a kid or two running around in the yard, with him and Talia teaching them about the trees, birds, flowers, and the natural world around them. He could practically see Talia seated on the ground with buckets of green beans as she raced their kids to see who could snap beans and fill up their bucket the fastest—even her voice and her laughter, he could hear them in his mind as she joked with their kids and threatened to beat them in their little game. 

Daniel closed his eyes and sighed as she kissed behind his ear. He ran his hands down to her hips and pulled Talia onto his lap. “You sound cute with that accent,” he joked. He slipped one hand underneath her shirt, trailing his fingers across her back and pulling her tighter against his chest. The last thing he wanted right then was for Talia to go get water—maybe later, maybe after he decided if he should push her down into the dirt and climb atop of her. Daniel knew she was right about the no napping and finishing their work in the garden, but the idea of her in the dirt and flowers distracted him, as he thought about her thighs wrapped around his head and his hands pressed into her hips, with her hand under his bandana and her fingers entangled in his hair, as her back arched and her body rolled as he listened to her beg his name like a prayer.  

“Fine, no napping,” Daniel said lazily. “We’ll take care of the weeds.” He glanced over towards the weeds that he had pulled from the earth earlier. “Ain’t got no advice for the bunnies except killing them,” he joked (mostly). “It’s why we’re gonna need some raised beds next year. Keep them and other little critters out of our garden.” Daniel leaned in and pressed a kiss to her neck, and another one right below his first. He hummed against her neck as he kissed down to her shoulder and tugged on the collar of her shirt—his shirt, with the sleeves unevenly cut off with a pair of old scissors from years ago, back when he decided his old t-shirts didn’t need sleeves anymore. Daniel kissed down her arm to her wrist. He laced his fingers through hers and pressed his lips against the back of her hand. 

Daniel turned his attention back to the weeds. “Though you’re gonna have to get off me, darling.” As if he wasn’t the one to pull her onto his lap. As he hoped that she’d tease him about how she couldn’t get off his lap. He grinned right before he flipped them over, pressing Talia’s back into the dirt and his body into hers. He laughed as her eyes widened at the sudden switch, and he leaned in for another long kiss, as he smiled against her lips. He slowly pulled away from her and said, “All right, you’re off me.” He sat up, smirking down at her. “We really oughta take care of all them weeds now.” 

—

Nine months ago, when they first fell into bed together. Or fell into…pool of blood together. When they were pretending to be nothing more than friends. What a laugh that had been – as if anyone believed they had ever been casual about each other. Hadn’t he taken such tender care of her from the start? Whether it was some trauma through her friends or the shaking uncertainty of the new moon, he held her through the night and made sure she was rested and fed and calm as she could be. Talia had pretended it was just about that, just about him warming her bed or making her food or helping with chores around the house.  

Even from the very beginning, even from before that beginning, when they were teasing about tracking each other through the trails, even as she was sitting in that tree with him. It was about him, and what he made her feel. How he still made her feel, months later, sprawled in the yard of the house they shared together in the garden they had planted together. How they could talk about a whole span of topics and never run out of things to say, never feel like there was something she couldn’t tell him (other than, of course, the obvious – but even that, she had wanted to share with him). 

“I sound cute all the time,” she said back playfully, reveling in his touch, his kisses, the way their bodies wound together. It was easy (so easy) to get lost in the loop of his attention on her. There were countless mornings spent with the two of them wrapped up in each other, kissing leading to full making out leading to Talia climbing up on top of Daniel, bracing her hands against his chest…Like this, out in the fresh air and the sun, him touching her- She loved when he trailed his fingers so softly against her skin, fingertips just brushing the fine bones of her collar. Not starting anything just touching her because he could, because they were both there and he wanted to. He was like this, she noticed, especially in bed together, after. The two of them lounging close so their eyelashes slotted together and he would curve his hand around her shoulder, trail his thumb along her skin. 

She wanted this forever. It wasn’t a new realization, but it was one that had come to her, sudden, over the past few months. Since they had gotten back together. She wanted this forever, wanted him forever. Wanted this garden, this home, this life, with both of them forever. 

With the conversation shifting to the rabbits, Talia shared, “Someone told me garlic powder and cayenne.” She watched, smiling, as he trailed a parade of kisses over her shoulder and down her arm. “I can’t decide if that’s mean or not.” The rabbits wouldn’t take it personally, obviously, but there was something in her still that hesitated against punishing that way for just trying to get a meal. The rabbits didn’t know that the garden was for her and Daniel, after all. They just knew there was food nearby. “Actually, two someones gave me that advice and one of them was your little sidepiece.” Ever since Daniel explained the short history he had with Baz, she had made that into a lighthearted joke. She still loathed the fae, but didn’t begrudge the meet-up they had had while Talia and Daniel were broken up.

“No,” she whined, long and drawn out, even as she smiled. “No can do.” But then he was rolling them over like she weighed nothing and that was still immediately sent a spike of heat through  her. The pressure, the weight of him, the cool earth beneath her shoulder blades… Gone as quick as it had come, as Daniel canted himself up, grinning at her. Her hands lay flat against his thighs where they had settled on either side of her hips. “You, Daniel Abrams, are a tease.” 

God, but he looked good like that. Some threadbare band teeshirt with the sleeves ripped off so she could just see the golden edges of his shoulders, just see the peek of his collarbones under the loose hem. His hair a riot of sweaty curls, gone long and only just barely wrangled beneath a bandana, gleaming with a backlight from the sun. And that smile, the one that she wished would spring up more but only ever seemed to make an appearance with her, when they were goofing around like this. 

“Are you going to get off me, then? So we can tackle all those weeds.” She had been the one to lay down the law, to insist that they take care of the weeks and the bunnies, but that had been before the weight of Daniel’s hips had settled over hers. Her hand drifted up, fingers playing just over the band of his shorts, feeling the warm skin beneath his shirt. “Or did you decide we’re just gonna make out after all?”

—

Daniel hummed as he kissed along her arm and half-listened to her explain how to keep the rabbits out of their garden. If she had heard something worked, they might as well try it. She gave him pause at the mention of his sidepiece, and he rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Shut up. They are not my sidepiece. That was a one time thing.” No matter how much he explained that to her, she kept up her teasing bit. He didn’t mind that much, even if he usually needed to argue against it. 

Daniel rarely told Talia anything about what he did during their breakup period, especially in the immediate aftermath and the week leading them back together. If it was up to him, she would have never known about him and Baz hooking up, but the fae had to go around spreading the word that they had had sex. Daniel preferred hiding his behaviors from her—the less she knew, the better, he thought. He didn’t need to know all the intimate details of what she did while they were separated. And she did not need to know about his nights at shady bars when he threw back too many shots and started a fight with a random stranger just so they would punch him and beat him until he collapsed to the ground. He never tried to fight back, instead just letting them cover him with bruises and a busted lip that at least made him feel something—to feel his heart pounding in his chest and the waves of pain crushing through his body as everything within him suddenly felt alive. 

No, he had decided that Talia didn’t need to know about any of that. She worried enough about him as it was, and if she knew Daniel had fallen into a habit like that… Daniel could only imagine the pain that he would see all across her face or the ache in her fingertips as she would cup his face. He hated seeing her hurt, so it was easier to lean into the joke that Baz was his sidepiece. At least then he could hide what he had been doing with Kelly for most of the breakup too—when Kelly hadn’t asked about the bruises and cuts scattered all across Daniel’s body and instead pushed at them each time Daniel came over, just making him feel that pain and exhilaration that he had craved. 

He didn’t want to think about all that though, not with Talia pressed into the dirt underneath him and with her hands against his thighs. 

Daniel laughed as she called him a tease, and he patted her hip. “I think you like my teasing,” he joked, as he ran his hand from the side of her hip and up underneath her shirt, brushing against her warm soft skin. His hand glided up along her torso, bunching up the shirt as he went and exposing her stomach to him. “You usually seem into it.” Like all the times he had her pinned underneath him, his lips hovering just above hers as she leaned up to close the gap between him, only for him to pull away from her and smirk at her as she whined. Or when his fingers trailed along the inside of her thighs, as her hips rolled and her voice begged for him to please touch her. 

Talia’s hand playing at his waistband distracted him now. He wrapped his hand around her wrist, and he leaned forward as he pinned her hand up above her head. Daniel grinned down at her as he used his other hand to cradle her face and rub his thumb across her skin. He wasn’t much in a teasing mood right then, as the desire to fuck her against the dirt and grass took over him. It was almost animalistic sometimes, when he thought about pressing her into the earth, climbing onto her, and making her practically howl for him. He leaned down and peppered her neck with kisses as he made his way up to her lips, as he stopped cradling her face and slipped his down her body.

“I think the weeds can wait,” he mumbled into their kiss. “Ain’t like they’re going nowhere.” 

Daniel sunk against her body, her chest pressed against his and his hand still tightly pinning hers above them. He repositioned himself as he moved his body between her legs, as his other hand ran down her leg. Making out seemed like the much better option.

He pulled away from her kiss and grinned down at her, distracted again by the freckles peppering her face and how beautiful she looked in the dirt below him. His eyes flashed around their garden, and he gave her a sly look as he motioned with his eyes towards the tree again. “I got us an idea,” he said, as he pushed himself off Talia, rose to his feet, and held out his hand to help her off the ground. 

—

“I do,” Talia hummed back, easily admitting to it. She loved when Daniel teased her, loved when he didn’t. Loved when he held her down and made her just about beg for it and loved when he sought her out and sealed himself to her back. It was a mutual love, theirs, and there was never any doubt in her mind that Daniel was as gob-smacked gone in love with her as she was with him.

Just look at all he had done for her. All he had given up. Both of them abandoning how they had been raised and their personal vendettas to make room for this relationship. To make room for each other. And what a beautiful thing it was that grew in the cracks of that space.

Talia should have expected Daniel to get distracted that easily. Out in the natural world was always where he loved best, where he seemed to be best. Even if she thought she always got the best version of him, because he was happiest, and most comfortable, and most relaxed around her. He had even told her, recently, that he felt most alive (alive really meaning something when he said it, meaning not dead, meaning existing, meaning here in reality) in the moments when he was closest to the natural world: outside, watching the trees move with the breeze. She had been trying, since then, to move them outdoors as often as possible. Not hard, given the warmer weather, their jobs, the garden. 

She noticed, as well, Daniel’s specific appetite when they were in their garden together. So many factors combined meant that, as he said, if she was closer than a yard away, he would be distracted. Whatever gardening chore they were after would devolve into touching, and then kisses, and then fully making out and then, occasionally, more even. So when he announced that he had an idea for them, Talia was certain she knew just where his mind was going. At least certain that she knew the genre of his plan. 

Getting to her feet, she pressed herself into his side, under one arm. Talia took a moment to let herself be stunned to have all that. To have a home that she loved and called her own but not hers alone, that she shared with someone she loved, someone who was a ranger and who had given that up and helped convinced her to give up her same crusade. To have a garden that they planted together, a plan for the future, an investment, a promise. 

When he led her to the tree, she knew she was on the mark with her guess. Her back fell against the trunk and she could feel the warm indent of its bark pressing into her spine. “Oh honey,” she drawled, voice as sweet and lazy as the bees themselves. “Gonna plant me like our garden?” Such a smile as she teased him, beaming joy out of every part of her expression. 

—

The tree towered over them as its branches shaded them from the hot summer sun’s rays. Scattered beams of light crept through the branches, and one ray shined across Talia as she smiled at Daniel. The light sparkling in her soft gray eyes practically hypnotized him, and he laughed as he pulled her hips against his. “Oh, you bet I am,” he replied. “Gonna plant my seed all in you, honey.” He spun her around and pulled her back against his chest. His hands roamed down her body, to the hem of her shirt, and he lifted it up and pulled it off her, tossing it to the ground where his shirt followed in suit. 

His hands wrapped around her hips as his lips trailed kisses down her spine until he reached the waistband of her shorts. His hands ran along the fabric until he gripped it tightly and pulled down her clothes. He kissed his way back up her body. His fingers slid underneath her flowered bandana as he pulled her head back, exposing the length of her neck for him. He sank his teeth into her soft skin while his other hand curved around her body and slid between her legs. He laughed as he kissed behind her ear. “Wanna find out what blooms in your garden,” he said with a goofy grin, right before he pushed her fully against the rough tree bark and as he sank into her.   

After they finished, Daniel spun her back around to face him as his mouth crashed against hers. He hoisted her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist. He held her as he carefully dropped to one knee and then the other. He laid her down on the grass and dirt underneath the tree. He buried his face into her neck before he rolled them over, with Talia settled on top of him. 

Daniel rested his arm behind his head as a makeshift pillow, and his other hand lazily ran along the curve of her body. His hand traveled down to the back of her thigh before running back up to give a quick smack on her ass. He smirked up at her as he kept his hand there.

Rays of sunlight danced behind Talia as the tree branches swayed above them. Scratches from the tree bark covered her face and shoulders, and Daniel knew he would find more scratches scattered across her torso. Stray hairs flew out from her now-loosened braids. He lifted his hand up to cup her face, before moving further to adjust her bandana back in place. His hand ran down her shoulder and arm to her left hand, where his fingers played around with hers. He hummed along with the bees bouncing and buzzing between the flowers surrounding the two of them, and he ran his finger along each of hers. Daniel lingered for a moment on her ring finger. “I could get used to summer days like this. You and me for the rest of our lives,” he said, his voice slow and love drunk. 

He turned his head to the left, and his eyes landed on a pile of pulled weeds from earlier. A deep booming laugh shook his body as he turned back towards Talia. “You are distracting. We got so many weeds left,” he commented between his laughs. Worth it, though—always worth it to fall into her arms. “Mm, you make a beautiful garden. Though I’m suspecting I gotta get to watering you, now that I’ve got some seeds planted.” He angled his head back as he looked for the water hose. A sly smile grew across his face as he turned back to her. “Maybe spray you down.”

—

It was a perfect summer day. Warm and sunny with just enough of a breeze to keep the heat from getting oppressive. She was outside with her boyfriend, hands dirty from their garden. All around was the sound of birdsong, crickets and bees joining in. Tree was lazing in the shade not far off. This was the kind of day Talia would live in forever, if she had the choice. And that was doubly true when Daniel made his intentions absolutely clear and started removing her clothes. She laughed when he laughed and then that gave way to a breathy moan when he put his teeth in her throat. 

There were aspects of being with the pack that Talia missed, and this made up for it. Fucking under the sun, in broad nature, with his teeth in her throat. And then after, naked with him in the dirt, her hair wild and her mouth searching along his jaw, down his throat, into the curve of his shoulder. With the hand he wasn’t toying with, she dipped her fingers into his curls, loose and fluffy from all the humidity and their actions. “I was just thinking that, you know. That this was the kinda day I could live in forever.” Forever, with him.

For as long as Talia could remember, growing up, she had dreamed of some great romance. She wasn’t sure how exactly it would come, but the great romances always worked themselves out. And when she pictured forever it was with her pack. It was doing what the pack wanted – having lots of babies with another werewolf and expanding the pack. She wouldn’t have been elder, Tabitha was sure to inherit the seat even from when they were young, but as a Shaw she would have been important. That dream died with Tabitha. In its place was a stretch of blankness. Once she knew her future could no longer be with the pack, Talia didn’t know what it could be. 

This. It could be this, with someone who loved her enough to put down his silver and build a home with her. A great romance. A forever.