The doorbell rang at 6:12 p.m., and Beto didn't even look up. He was kneeling behind the counter, his hands buried in an arrangement of white lilies a customer wanted for a funeral. There was dirt under his nails and a petal caught in his hair, and the flowers' sweet scent mingled with the exhaustion he carried on his shoulders like a second skin.
—Good afternoon—he said, his voice soft and automatic. —I'll be right with you.
He finished tying the satin ribbon. Wiped his hands on his apron. Stood.
And the world stopped.
Caio stood in the shop's doorway, his silhouette cut out against the golden light of late afternoon. Dark suit, rigid posture, jaw locked as if he were holding himself together to keep from falling apart. His eyes—those dark eyes Beto knew better than his own—were fixed on him with an intensity that made the air disappear.
Beto felt the bond before he felt anything else.
It was like a punch to the chest. No—it was like a door someone had locked five years ago being kicked in all at once. Heat climbed his spine, spread up his neck, tightened his throat. His heart raced so hard he was sure Caio could hear it.
Five years.
Five years without a word, without an explanation, without an “I'm sorry” or an “I had to go.” Five years waking in the middle of the night with the ghost of a scent that wasn't there. Five years learning to live with half of himself.
And now he was there. Standing among the roses and sunflowers, as if he had the right to exist in the space Beto had built brick by brick just to stay standing.
—Beto.
Caio's voice was exactly as Beto remembered it. Deep, restrained, with that rough note underneath that only appeared when he was holding himself back. And he was holding himself back—Beto could see it in the fingers gripping the handle of his briefcase, in his overly tense shoulders, in his clenched jaw like a padlock.
Beto didn't answer. He couldn't. His mouth was dry and his chest was too full—with anger, with longing, with something he refused to call by name.
—What are you doing here?—he managed to say at last. His voice came out lower than he wanted. More unsteady.
Caio took one step forward. Just one. As if he knew that anything more would mean trespassing on territory he himself had abandoned.
—I need an arrangement. For an event at the firm.
A lie. Beto knew it the instant the words left his mouth. He knew every microexpression on that face—the way the corner of Caio's eye tightened when he lied, the way his breathing became too controlled, too artificial. Five years hadn't erased that knowledge. Nothing could.
—There are other flower shops in the city—Beto said, hating the way his voice faltered on the last syllable.
—I know.
Silence.
The kind of silence that weighed tons. The kind that said everything words refused to carry. Beto could feel the bond pulsing between them like an exposed electrical wire—dangerous, alive, impossible to ignore. Caio's scent cut through the perfume of the flowers and reached him like a memory with claws: cedar, coffee, and that woody undertone that belonged only to him, only him, and that Beto had spent five years trying to forget in every soap, every perfume, every body that wasn't the right one.
Caio looked around the shop. The hanging pots, the succulents on the wooden shelf, the bouquets ready in the glass cooler. He looked as if memorizing it. As if he were hungry.
—Are you okay?—Caio asked, and his voice cracked.
It was almost imperceptible. Anyone else wouldn't have noticed. But Beto wasn't just anyone—he was the person who had slept listening to that voice whisper in the dark, who had memorized every variation, every fissure.
And that crack in Caio's voice hurt more than the abandonment.
Because it meant he cared. Still.
—I'm great—Beto replied, and smiled.
The smile he'd perfected over the past five years. The one that covered everything. The one no one questioned. The one that worked with customers, with friends, with his mother over the phone.
But it didn't work with Caio.
The alpha narrowed his eyes. His jaw tightened further. And for one second—a second that lasted an eternity—Beto saw something in his eyes that nearly knocked him down: pain. Pure, raw, devastating. The same pain Beto saw in the mirror whenever he forgot to pretend.
Then Caio put his mask back on. Quick, efficient, like someone who had been practicing for years.
—I'm glad to hear that—he said, his voice back to its controlled tone. —The arrangement. I need it by Friday. Can I leave the details to you by email?
Beto should have said no. He should have pointed at the door and told him to leave, sent him back to the hole of five years of silence he'd crawled out of. That was what the rational part of him was screaming.
But the bond wasn't rational. And Beto's hands were shaking, and his heart was beating in the wrong place, and the scent of cedar and coffee was everywhere, everywhere, and he couldn't—
—Sure—he said. —The email's on the card.
He picked up a card from the counter and held it out. When Caio took it, their fingers touched.
The entire world narrowed to that point of contact.
It lasted less than a second. The tips of Caio's fingers against Beto's—skin against skin, heat against heat. The bond roared. There was no other word for it. It roared like something alive, hungry, furious at having been ignored for so long. Beto felt his legs weaken. He saw Caio hold his breath, his eyes widening for a fraction of a second before closing.
Caio pulled his hand away. Slipped the card into his jacket pocket. He didn't look at Beto.
—Thank you—he said, and the words sounded like an apology.
He turned. Walked to the door. Opened it.
Stopped.
Beto saw his back contract beneath the suit fabric. Saw his shoulders rise with a breath he was trying to control. Saw the hand on the doorknob tighten until his knuckles turned white.
Caio didn't look back.
He left.
The bell rang again. The sound echoed through the empty shop like the final chord of a song no one had asked to hear.
Beto stood there. His legs slowly gave out, and he braced himself against the counter, then slid down to the floor. He sat among the flower buckets, the funeral lilies beside him, the satin ribbon still between his fingers.
He rested his head against the wooden counter and closed his eyes.
The scent of cedar and coffee was still there.
And for the first time in five years, Beto didn't try to pretend it didn't hurt.