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With brows crinkled in confusion, I take tentative steps towards the only shelf with color. The only shelf that isn’t perfect and in perfectly neat shapes. My eyes welled up with tears.There, in as neat of rows as he could get them, is every single mug I’ve made with my mom. The ones I left on the Take One shelf at Muddy Paws. He’s been the one taking them all along. In a room full of perfect dishes, bowls, and mugs, he has an entire shelf dedicated to my lumpy, misshapen, chipped creations.

There in the center of the shelf, like a beacon to my eyes, sits the one that I just made. The odd shape standing out against the others. The handle feels odd in my hand, almost like I shouldn’t touch it as I bring it down from the shelf. Slowly turning it over, stamped into the bottom is my crescent moon signature. My thumb grazes over the top of it feeling the outline along my finger.

My breath caught as the first tear fell.

He’d never said a single word. Not once. But he’d taken them. Not just the better looking ones as my skills increased, all of them. He didn’t hide them away in the few cabinets with doors. No, he put them on display, giving them a shelf all their own. As if they were worth displaying. Like they were his favorites.

And in this perfect kitchen surrounded by order and symmetry, my imperfect mugs tell me everything I needed to know. Caelon was in love with me, not because of the mate bond, but because he saw me.

“I see you found my stash.”

Gasping, I whip around to find him leaning against the refrigerator. A soft, easy smile on his face with his arms crossed. His blue, plaid pajama pants hanging low on his hips, as his ankles cross showing his bare feet. His hair damp from a shower, the scent of his soap filling the room as his eyes locked with mine. Neither of us saying anything as we stare at each other.

“I see you found them already. I was wondering when you would.” His voice is quiet, almost bashful at being caught.

I looked down at the mug. The one with its strange shape that called to me. With a pattern I’d never even thought of until I was in the middle of making it.

“You kept them all,” I whispered.

“I did far more than that.” He pushed off the fridge, his steps deliberate as he came closer to me. “I waited for them. The days I knew you would be there with your mother. Patiently waiting until you left, hoping nobody would have seen your piece yet. Some days I was lucky and able to grab it before anyone else. Other days I had to barter with the elder who snatched it already.”

My finger swipes across the perfectly sized squares. The glaze highlighting the colors that I’d never been able to perfect before now. A piece I made on a whim in a pattern and shape I didn’t know the name of. I’d just…felt drawn to it.

But he knew what it was.

He stepped closer till his torso was in my line of sight as my fingers continued to trace the pattern along the side of the mug.

“That one is my favorite.”

I looked up at him, surprised.

“Why,” I asked, my voice catching.

His smile was quiet, reverent. “Because it’s math,” he said as he gently pulled the mug from my hand. Holding it up between us, he says, “Clean lines. Balance. The pattern loops in the exact ratio of a Fibonacci spiral.”

My brows furrow, breath stuttering. “I didn’t mean to…”

“I know,” he says.

His gaze drops back down to the mug in his hands. Something shifting in his expression…soft, unguarded. As if he is looking at something sacred. Not clay and glaze, but a relic. A message in his hands that only he could understand. His jaw flexed as if something had settled in him, his fingers gently caressing the pattern as if they were scripture.

It was worship. Silent, aching adornment.

Sucking in a trembling breath, the sting of tears are hot behind my eyes. This moment suddenly feels heavier…more than clay and art. It was proof. Of him. Of me. The thread that had been tugging between us all along.

I didn’t see the proverbial writing on the wall. All the small moments drawing me to him. Like a slideshow playing behind my eyes, the moments flashed. Meeting Shadow, Cal sitting on the porch at the same time as me, the mug, the gifts, every breadcrumb leading me forward, even my dreams that whispered of him in the dark.

“That’s why it means everything,” he whispered. “The shape, the symmetry…it’s a pattern. Something I’ve always been drawn to.” He turns and walks over to his bookshelf in his living room, scanning the titles on the shelf before pulling a worn hardback off the shelf. His long legs eat up the space as he rushes back to the kitchen, setting both the mug and book down on the counter top between us. He flips to a page as if he has it memorized.

His fingers run along the sketch, spiraled and elegant, the lines forming a perfect, sacred geometry.

“The golden ratio,” the words left his lips like a confession, “it’s found in everything—from galaxies to pinecones to the bones of our hands. But it’s not just math…it’s the feeling. The balance. The pull.”

His gaze flicks to mine full of worship and adoration. “You made this without knowing. You shaped something perfect, balanced, and beautiful with your hands, Selene. You madethis.” His fingers trace up the curve of the mug again, with a tenderness that makes my chest ache. “It matched something I’d spent years chasing. Something I thought only lived in theory and the art of the world. But you—”

He swallows hard as his thumb brushes along the curve of my cheek. “You felt it too. Even if you didn’t know yet. Even if you didn’t understand what you were doing.”

My breath catches in my throat, a soft gasp that stings behind my eyes. The tears come anyways, thick and hot, welling until his face blurs in front of me. His eyes are soft and round, as they flick between mine, cataloging everything.