text: "Well, if someone's trying to push Paul Claymont to his breaking point, they're certainly doing a good job," Park said.
  
  He and Cooper had been assigned to the Communication and Trust workshop along with four other couples, and were seated in uncomfortable plastic chairs facing each other with their knees touching in a large windowed room overlooking the falls. Behind Park, Cooper could watch it raging ceaselessly into the lake whose previously calm, black surface was now rolling and white-ridged in the restless wind. The generator had yet to kick on, and around the room Vanessa had set up fifty or so candles. If nothing else, the retreat stayed on track keeping its cult-ritual chic vibe.
  
  "Reggie wasn't doing so hot herself. Whatever type of triangle that was happening between her, Kreuger and Llcaj, something about seeing that shirt enraged her," Cooper added, keeping his voice down. Vanessa was walking around the room, listening in on the couples' working through the exercise sheets and occasionally interjecting and not showing any sign of concern.
  
  Paul may have spent a good ten minutes collapsed in Kreuger's chair chanting "It's over" after the ranger had left, but thus far, Vanessa was showing a scrappy sort of determination Cooper couldn't help being impressed by.
  
  "Let that bastard get a warrant," she'd been saying when Cooper and Joyce had returned to the boiler room. "What will he find, animal prints? In the woods? After this storm? The only thing we have to hide is our nature."
  
  "But Vee," Paul had said. "Maybe we should consider asking for help—"
  
  "No, the less people who know, the better. Please..." She'd turned to Park and Cooper. "I'm so sorry you were dragged into this, but I'd be appreciative if you kept what you heard here to yourselves. Just for now of course," she'd added, voice gentle, slightly imploring.
  
  "Of course," Cooper had agreed immediately. "What's to say?"
  
  Which was how they found themselves seated with half the retreat's blissfully clueless guests, scattered about the room for privacy's sake and seated in similar positions to Cooper and Park. On all of their laps were papers with lists of questions they were supposed to be asking each other to "stimulate honest and open conversation." Some of them seemed silly. Favorite ice cream. First crush. Favorite song. Cooper supposed those were the warm-up pitches. Though he'd have to be pretty warm indeed to discuss First memory of loneliness. Have some middle ground, for fuck's sake. Fortunately, the only truths he and Park were pursuing at the moment were in regards to the case.
  
  "It's certainly interesting timing," Park mused. "The retreat coming under threat of attention from unaware authorities. De Luca just upstairs, an unexpected guest for the weekend."
  
  "What do you mean?" Cooper asked.
  
  "That's the biggest appeal of following a ruling pack like De Luca. That's where we get our power from. They have the money and connections to make problems like this go away. Human cops who get too nosy, et cetera. If you want their protection from something like this, you follow their rule, and your territory becomes their territory."
  
  Cooper blinked. Between his revelatory impromptu session with Vanessa and the tense confrontation in the basement, he had clean forgotten about the retreat's celebrity couple. Had lunch really been less than an hour ago? It was barely two o'clock, but the gray skies outside and candlelight in here gave the room an ambiguous, timeless feeling. Like they were all trapped in some cursed, unchanging afternoon. "Right. De Luca. Is that going to be a problem?"
  
  Park shook his head. "There's no reason either of them would recognize my face. But I called Eli just in case. It seemed like too big a coincidence for them to just show up like that. I needed more information. There's a good service spot right outside Kreuger's office, by the way. Gave me front row seats to Beck pulling out that shirt, too." He grimaced. "If you had seen his face... I'd almost wonder if he hadn't planted the damn thing himself."
  
  Cooper considered that. There had definitely been a smugness and underlying aggression to Beck that might have been his usual unpleasant personality or something darker. It was worth keeping in mind. "Why call Eli, though? Why would he know anything about it?"
  
  Park smiled wryly. "He has a talent for...keeping in the loop. Every loop. But as far as he could tell, no one from the De Luca pack knows I'm here. Officially, De Luca and Terradas were just nearby dealing with rebel packs."
  
  "That's what they said at lunch," Cooper confirmed.
  
  "Unofficially," Park continued, lowering his voice, "Eli's source says Celia De Luca has been itching to get her hands on this property for a long time. One way or another."
  
  Cooper absorbed that. "Which is why you think the timing's a little too convenient. That now the Claymonts will need to join De Luca's pack to avoid whatever trouble Beck is going to bring down on them."
  
  "I don't think they've reached the need stage," Park said. "But Paul certainly seemed ready to float the possibility. And we both know someone planted that shirt."
  
  "Popular spot," Cooper mused. "Everyone wants a piece of it."
  
  "You think Paul is right and Montclaire is the saboteur?"
  
  Cooper considered that. "Maybe. I don't know. Montclaire or De Luca, either one doesn't explain where the bloody shirt came from in the first place, what happened to Llcaj or where the hell Kreuger is."
  
  "True," Park began, then tapped his finger against his knee twice—their signal for listeners.
  
  Cooper jumped into the first innocuous looking question he saw on the list. "If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?" In his peripheral vision he saw Vanessa approach and pause, hovering just a couple feet away, passively supervising.
  
  Park considered the question, then smiled a slow, secretive smile. "Greece. That cliff you mentioned yesterday sounded nice."
  
  Cooper snorted. "I'll let my secret lover know you've taken the bait. Operation Postman Always Rings Twice is a go." Vanessa still watched. "Okay, your turn."
  
  "Um." Park looked down at his list. "What's your biggest fear?"
  
  Cooper stared at him, mouth ajar.
  
  "What? What's wrong?"
  
  "You're kidding. I gave you the easiest possible game show question and you hit me back with what's your biggest fear?"
  
  Park shifted in his seat. "Right. I'll pick another one."
  
  Vanessa stepped forward. "Can we back up a moment, please? Kyle, you don't have to answer what your fear is if you don't want to. But I would like you to talk about why you got so angry right now."
  
  "I'm not angry," Cooper denied immediately. "I was just...surprised." And annoyed and frustrated and all the other relatives of anger one could think of beyond its immediate family.
  
  "Surprised because you expected Andrew to pick an easy, superficial question like you did for him? Or because you expected him to already know this would be a difficult question for you?"
  
  Now it was Vanessa's turn to get the full force of Cooper's bewildered stare. "Um..." he started. Stopped. Looked at Park for help. No help came. "Isn't it a difficult question for everyone?"
  
  Vanessa shrugged. "Some people can immediately say spiders. Or flying. Or dolls possessed by the devil, no problem. Next question."
  
  "Oh, well, my nickname in college was actually Bride of Chucky, so you can see why this is hard for me," Cooper joked weakly.
  
  "Do you think Andrew would have an easy or hard time answering this question?" Vanessa asked, then without waiting for Cooper to respond added, "Often the questions that are hardest to talk about are the ones we think our partner doesn't already know the answer to. Do you think Andrew knows your biggest fear? Do you know his?"
  
  Cooper looked at Park. "I...don't know," he said honestly, in response to all three questions.
  
  Vanessa nodded, as if satisfied by this answer. "That's good honesty. Let's start there." She touched Cooper's shoulder lightly. "And I'm sorry again, we got interrupted earlier. I have some time after this if you'd like to continue our conversation."
  
  "Oh no," Cooper said hastily, glancing at Park, whose expression had furrowed with curiosity. "No, that's... I'm a little talked out today."
  
  She patted him. "I understand. Just know my door is open." With that she nodded goodbye and wandered on to the next couple.
  
  "What conversation?" Park said as soon as she was a good distance away.
  
  "Nothing," Cooper said immediately. "I'll tell you about it later."
  
  It wasn't necessarily a lie. He just hadn't had the time to process things himself. Bringing in another person—even his favorite person, the only person he really felt like he would want to tell—felt too soon. Too raw.
  
  Park's expression had turned concerned. "It's not related to the case," Cooper assured him. "She just got me oversharing. Me."
  
  He watched her crouch by the feet of Jimmy and Lisa across the room, speaking soothingly. "I wonder who they were, the people in the photo." Cooper had already filled Park in on his unsanctioned adventures in Vanessa's office. "Her father and brother? Son? And why unforgivable?"
  
  "Unforgivable to whom matters, too. Did she write it herself? A reminder? Or blackmail?"
  
  Cooper frowned. "As if she hasn't been through enough."
  
  Park started to smile slowly.
  
  "What?" Cooper asked. "Why are you making that face?"
  
  Park shook his head. "You like Vanessa?"
  
  "Well, let's see. I barely know her, she's a suspect in a murder case, she chewed on my leg and dug into my head. What's not to like?"
  
  "And yet despite all that, you seem comfortable around her. Protective, even," Park said.
  
  "Well," Cooper protested. "That's just because she's—" He made a complicated gesture with his hands, trying to convey the odd appeal of her. An open attentiveness, the way she just rolled with the punches through it all, adapting, not rising to the mayhem around her. Even—or perhaps particularly—knowing she'd run with a rebel pack and come through the other side working with trauma recovery. Vanessa just felt...nice.
  
  "I think she's probably a good therapist or something," he said eventually, but when he looked up Park was biting his lip hard. "What? What are you laughing about?"
  
  Park cocked his head, listening to make sure Vanessa was still engaged far across the room. "She has an abnormally low AQ, you know."
  
  "How do you know that?" Cooper looked back at Vanessa with new eyes.
  
  "It was part of my role to notice those things. If you believe in AQ science, she complements you. And that would explain why you're drawn to her."
  
  "We don't know my number," Cooper said immediately. "And how come I'm drawn to your bossy ass, then?"
  
  "You're contrary and paradoxical to your core."
  
  Cooper looked down at his paper pointedly, scanning through the list of prompts. "What stage of building intimacy is this? Burn down previous foundation or...?"
  
  Park laughed and trapped Cooper's knees between his own, squeezing. "Forget it, if it makes you uncomfortable. Go back to explaining why sabotage doesn't explain what's happening," he said.
  
  Cooper stifled a sigh of relief at the reprieve. He'd rather talk murder than AQ any day. "If someone was just trying to put attention on the retreat, why hide that shirt in Kreuger's office? Hardly a lot of foot traffic. Can't be sure when it will be found. Pure chance Beck came by when the power was out and Paul agreed to let him look at the generators."
  
  "Ranger's here a lot, from what I've seen," Park disagreed.
  
  "But that room? It feels more like someone is drawing our attention specifically to Kreuger. Wants everyone to think he killed Llcaj."
  
  "Maybe he did," Park said. "Something clearly happened between Llcaj and Reggie. Kreuger feels protective or possessive or jealous, pick your poison. So he kills Llcaj and runs. Maybe it really is that simple and the planted shirt is another game entirely."
  
  "To what end?"
  
  Park shook his head. "I think we should take a trip to the lumber mill. Talk to the employees. Find out a little more about Llcaj and this supposed trespassing and theft."
  
  They made a quick plan to hike up to the mill. Cooper briefly worried it would look suspicious, traipsing through the woods in weather like this, but it was only a mile away when one took the back trails, and while it was certainly windy outside, the hurricane wasn't supposed to actually hit until much later that night or the next morning.
  
  "I doubt we'll even be the only couple heading outside," Park reassured him. "They'll all want to get a good run in if we're going to be cooped up tomorrow."
  
  "All right. So we show up to the mill and claim we got lost," Cooper said. "Tell them we're tired. I'm tired," he corrected, rolling his eyes at Park's skeptical face. "And that we're there to beg a ride back to the retreat. Not a completely unreasonable cover story."
  
  Park started to respond, but Vanessa was walking back in their direction. "And that's why I don't eat lamb," he said.
  
  Cooper nodded as she continued past them to the front of the room to call their attention.
  
  "Thank you for your patience and participation," Vanessa said, voice clear and gentle. "We're nearly to the end of today's workshop. After our last exercise, I encourage you all to take the rest of the afternoon to continue building intimacy with your mate." She smiled. "You're welcome to take a candle." The group laughed.
  
  Cooper was mildly astonished. Half the advice this place gave was to go have sex. "Morning, noon and night, how is there room for afternoon delight?" he whispered to Park.
  
  "Hmmm, I'm unfamiliar with that particular sailor's warning," Park said. Cooper coughed over a laugh and Jimmy shot him a dirty look.
  
  "Now, to solidify the work we've done together we're going to finish on a classic exercise of nonverbal communication." She spread her hands and looked around. "Sharing a hug." The room awwed. "For five consecutive minutes." Cooper groaned.
  
  The point, Vanessa explained, was to move past the initial comfort, into awkwardness and then, through some sort of hug enlightenment, into a deeper emotional connection.
  
  "I'm in hell," Cooper muttered into Park's neck, five seconds into their hug. He felt Park shake with suppressed laughter then squeeze him gently around the waist.
  
  Over his shoulder, Cooper observed the other couples, curiously. Some were laughing, some were holding each other stiffly, one man and woman whose names he'd forgotten were hugging and pressing their foreheads together and making continuous eye contact which made Cooper uncomfortable to even look at, never mind do.
  
  Five minutes was a very long time to just stand there and hold someone, even for people who loved hugs. Cooper did not. Though he wasn't strictly opposed to them, either. He was just...meh about the whole practice. He had to be in the right mood for it. That was just his personality.
  
  Unless it's a symptom, too. Cooper stiffened at the errant thought. Surely not. He'd never been one to crave touch as comfort. Not even as a kid.
  
  But then before today he would have said he'd always been on the short-tempered side, too. Always a bit nervous and jumpy, quick to react, observant, wary. Now all these facets of himself were being called into question. Was that really him? Or was it the PTSD? How could he ever be sure?
  
  Park had said his core self was contrary. A joke, of course, but who was he at his core if not...this? A super-alpha, like Park thought? A survivor, as Vanessa had alluded to? The obedient mate of the most feared wolf on the eastern seaboard? A dramatic little thing?
  
  Everyone seemed to know who he was. Everyone but Cooper.
  
  Park's arms loosened, dropping gently away. "You're uncomfortable," he said. "Do you want to stop? I can fake an emergency if you want."
  
  "No, no. I'm fine. I'm just thinking."
  
  "About running a marathon? Your heart is beating out of your chest," Park said.
  
  "Shhh," Cooper said. "Hold me tighter," he added impulsively.
  
  Park hesitated, then did. Cooper sighed, a bolt of pure fondness warming him from head to toe. A separate thing from love. Related but different. God knew he loved Park. But to be very honest, he'd been in love before. Knew Park had, too. Cooper believed you could love lots of people in your time. Really, genuinely be in love with them whether you chose to remember it that way or not. But this feeling he had for Park—this irrevocable, gravity-altering, forever feeling... It was different.
  
  This was quite simply it for him. The end of the line. The relationship that changed the laws of physics. The person he'd always, no matter what, consider a part of him. Consider his family.
  
  "Oh, fuck," Cooper said emphatically.
  
  Park pulled back again to look at him, clearly startled. He raised a questioning brow and scanned the room as if looking for the danger. But there was no danger out there. Well. Besides a potential murderer and/or violent game of blackmail, sabotage and control. But Cooper had more pressing epiphanies to deal with at the moment.
  
  He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Park. Okay, not exactly breaking news.
  
  He...maybe, sort of, kind of might want to marry him.
  
  Perhaps that wasn't so mind-blowing for some people. But Cooper hadn't been that kid who got to take for granted that he'd fall in love with someone one day who loved him back, get married and live happily ever after. Growing up, he hadn't seen a lot of queer people settling into long-term love. Not that they hadn't existed; of course they had. But not openly in Cooper's small Maryland town and limited world exposure.
  
  In his childhood, it had been a precious and secret joy to even glimpse stories of boys who had feelings for other boys at all. Thrilling to know they fell in love and lust with each other and recognize that in himself. Unheard of to see them grow old together, happy and safe forever.
  
  No. If someone had told little baby Cooper he'd grow up and get married to the man he loved, he would have laughed his head off. Of course, if someone had told little baby Cooper he'd grow up and spend the week mansion shopping with his hot werewolf boyfriend, he'd have laughed, too. And then likely given himself carpal tunnel jacking off.
  
  But lo and behold, here he was. Building a whole-ass life with someone. Growing as a person with someone. Making a family or pack with someone, whatever you wanted to call it.
  
  Of course, growth and love and commitment didn't need to look like marriage. Not at all. Anyone who didn't want that, who chose not to express their partnership that way, was no less valid. It was personal choice. But for the first time in Cooper's life he felt like that choice was his to make. He was in the position of asking himself if he wanted to get married. If he wanted to be the thing he hadn't gotten to see, hadn't gotten to imagine as an unsure, anxious little gay boy in small-town Maryland who had no fucking clue what life would allow him to do or be.
  
  And the answer was yes. He did. That's who he wanted to be at his core. Not alpha, or survivor, or mate, or overdramatic, anxious, cantankerous grump. Not even husband, really. Those were all facets, badges. At his core, he wanted to be his own wildest dreams come true.
  
  Sometimes realizations took time to puzzle out. Sometimes they just showed up in your brain with no forewarning and asked where to put their baggage. This one had just kicked the door down and set fire to his entire head. He was going to ask Park to marry him.
  
  Cooper put his mouth against Park's shoulder to muffle his shaky exhale.
  
  "Are you crying?" Park asked, appalled. "What's wrong? Are you hurt? Is it the hug?"
  
  Cooper shook his head, sniffed a bit to clear the prickling at his eyes, then looked at Park. "I love you," he whispered.
  
  Park's expression went from anxious to completely gobsmacked. "What?" His hand came up to cup Cooper's forehead "Do you feel feverish again? Light-headed? Nauseous? I knew we should have gotten you to a doctor."
  
  "No! I just—will you stop that?" Cooper had to wrestle Park's hand away from checking his pulse. "Forget it. I take it back. I don't love you anymore."
  
  "Hmmm." Park gave him a long, critical look, then apparently seeing something that satisfied him, pulled Cooper close again. Sounding far too smug, he said, "Too late. No take-backs. Sorry, I don't make the rules."
  
  Cooper purposefully stepped on Park's toe, but smiled when he felt a gentle kiss to the side of his head and heard the words whispered into his hair: "Love you more. My absolutely rabid porcupine."
  
  A thrumming sound pulsed through the air, and with a little flicker the lights came on overhead as the generators finally got working. Around the room people dropped out of their hugs to applaud, but Cooper held on to Park and closed his eyes. He didn't mind one more moment of this. He had suddenly found himself in the exact right mood.