Chapter 35 Lavender Ghosts

Chapter 35 Lavender Ghosts
Sebastian started sleeping in his own room again.

The door didn’t slam. It clicked. Soft. Deliberate. Ezra heard it every time—through the walls, through his chest. Like the house exhaling. Like something sacred locking itself away.

Still, Sebastian made the lunchboxes. He folded Ezra’s T-shirts neatly from the dryer, tucked them with the same precision as always.

He hummed softly while slicing strawberries, lavender curling through the kitchen with every movement.

His scent clung to the couch cushions, the laundry room, the soft spots on the stairs where he always stepped. It wrapped around Ezra’s pillow even though he no longer slept there.

Mia’s socks were still rolled like sushi. The twins still found their vitamins tucked beneath their pancakes. Sebastian’s rhythm never faltered. His presence pulsed through the house, even when he wasn’t in the room.

Ezra noticed everything.

The absence of that warm Omega curl beside him at night.

The hallway air colder without Sebastian brushing past, still soft with sleep, still smelling like lavender and heat.

The silence after lights out. No more half-asleep murmurs, no more bare skin seeking him in the dark.

And now that he knew—truly knew how Sebastian gasped in the dark, how he whispered Ezra’s name when he came apart beneath him, how his body arched sweet and pliant when marked and taken—it hurt worse.

Because he let him go back to that room.

Because Clara was here.

Clara, Beta. With her avocado-skin scent muted and pale, barely-there in the house now thick with Alpha-Omega history.

Clara, pretending she belonged. Clara, with her perfect hair and her tiny, unconvincing baby bump.

Clara, cooing to the twins like she had the right. Clara, slipping into bath time with a practiced laugh, saying, “Let Mommy handle it tonight,” like a title she thought she had earned.

The twins didn’t know what to make of her. Camden flinched the first time she tried to wash his hair. Caleb refused the tub the next night until Sebastian coaxed him in with bubbles and his scent and a gentle, “Daddy’s right here, baby.”

Mia didn’t bother hiding her disdain.

Sebastian never argued. He didn’t need to. He stepped back, quiet. But the air shifted whenever she entered.

The home recoiled. Ezra felt it. Pheromones clashed softly, invisibly. Sebastian’s scent fought to linger. Clara’s tried to root—but the walls belonged to lavender, not avocado.

Ezra stayed out later. He didn’t mean to. He just—did. The workshop became his hiding place. He drove slower. Parked longer. Sat in his truck with his forehead pressed to the steering wheel, watching Sebastian’s bedroom light blink off like a wound closing.

Clara started making breakfast.

“They like their eggs sunny-side up,” she said sweetly, plating them like art. “Right, boys?”

Camden and Caleb exchanged a look. Camden whispered, “Daddy puts cheese on it.”

“We can try something new, can’t we?” Clara said, smoothing their hair like she had any idea how to touch them.

Sebastian was already gone. Ezra lingered too long at the coffee pot, hyper-aware of the kitchen’s sterility. Clara’s scent did nothing to warm it. Her hands moved with Beta calm, but no one responded to her.

That night, the silence was unbearable.

Ezra cracked the bedroom door open and found Sebastian lying on his side, curled like a comma. The scent of lavender was stronger here—unbottled, unguarded.

Ezra breathed it in like punishment. Sebastian hadn’t even changed out of his sweatshirt. His bare legs were tangled in the quilt.

Ezra stepped inside. Closed the door behind him.

He didn’t speak. Just crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. His body thrummed. His scent—the sharp wood-and-spice of Alpha need—rolled slow and hesitant toward Sebastian.

The Omega turned his face away, curls falling like a curtain.

Ezra reached for the book on Sebastian’s chest. Slid it off gently. Their fingers brushed.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Sebastian whispered, so quietly Ezra almost didn’t hear it over the thrum of scent and tension pulsing between them.

“I know.”

But Sebastian didn’t move. Didn’t push him away. His scent thickened in the air, curling around Ezra like a question. Like a dare.

Ezra leaned down. Kissed him like a secret. Like he would never forgive himself. Like he didn’t know how else to breathe. He kissed him until Sebastian pulled him down and kissed him back like he was burning.

And in the quiet, with the night stretching deep around them, Sebastian slipped beneath the blankets and unbuttoned Ezra’s jeans with trembling fingers. Not asking. Not begging. Giving. Like he always did.

Like love made fools of both of them.

When it was over, Ezra curled around him, burying his face in the mess of curls at Sebastian’s neck, nose pressed into scent glands, into soft Omega skin.

“I miss you,” Ezra whispered.

Sebastian didn’t answer. But his fingers curled around Ezra’s wrist and stayed there.

Clara stood in the hallway the next morning. Her robe was tied too tight. Her eyes didn’t miss a thing. She didn’t speak—just watched Ezra exit the wrong room, Sebastian's room.

She smiled. Cool. Planning.

Later, she set the table like she belonged. Took Sebastian’s mug from the cabinet like she had a claim. Her muted scent hung like a shadow behind the stronger presence of lavender, and she ignored it.

“So,” she said, pouring juice like she had always done it, “Do the twins still nap? Or have we outgrown that?”

“We?” Mia said flatly, fork pausing halfway to her mouth.

Clara laughed, brittle. “I just meant—you know, now that I’m here. I want to help.”

Sebastian didn’t reply. He was folding laundry at the edge of the living room, hands precise, movements clinical. Ezra watched him—watched the tension in his shoulders, the way his scent had dimmed into a low ache.

Sebastian didn’t look up. He didn’t speak.
But Ezra felt it.

The house did too.