Page 108 of What We Don't Say: Part One

I grip the fabric of her pants, then make myself loosen my hand. “Garrett said you would try to carry too much if I asked.”

Her hand pauses for one breath. Then it keeps moving. “Did he?”

“Yes.” I press my face closer to her knee, close enough that the rest of the room blurs. “He said I should let the Alphas carry the heat. He said I should let you keep the place you can survive.”

The chair creaks softly as she shifts. I can feel her looking down, though I don’t open my eyes. For a moment, all I hear is the refrigerator humming in the next room and the scratch of a branch against the dining-room window.

“Star,” she says, and her voice trembles a little around my name. “You aren't hurting me by wanting me.”

My eyes burn. “I believe you when you say it.”

“But it gets hard to hold when he talks.”

I nod against her knee. “Yes.”

She slides her hand lower, fingertips brushing the back of my neck, right where Garrett touched me in the hall. The difference almost makes me cry. “Then you can sit here until it gets easier to hold again.”

“I don’t want to make the heat harder for everyone.”

“You’re under the dining table with your cheek on my knee,” she says, and there’s a thin thread of warmth in her voice, gentle instead of joking. “We can handle that.”

A shaky breath leaves me. Callie’s fingers curl softly in my hair like she feels it and wants to keep me with her. I turn my face enough to see her socks, thick and woolly, one heel tucked under the chair rung.

“I like it here,” I admit.

“Under the table?”

“With you.” I breathe in, and the sweater smells like her, and her knee is warm against my cheek. “The sunroom is good. Sloane and Idris are good. I want them so much it scares me. But when I’m with them, sometimes my body gets louder than my head. With you, I can hear myself better.”

Her hand keeps moving, slower now. “That makes sense to me.”

It helps that she doesn’t turn the answer into a lesson. Above me, her pen moves again. She is grading while I fall apart againsther leg, and the ordinary sound holds me in place better than any protocol could.

Footsteps pass the dining-room doorway a few minutes later. My body tightens before I know who it is, and Callie’s hand presses more firmly to my head.

“You’re okay,” she says quietly. “You can stay.”

Sloane’s voice reaches the doorway, rough and too controlled. “Callie, is he with you?”

“He’s here,” she says, her fingers still moving through my hair. “He needed quiet.”

The floorboards creak as Sloane steps in, then stop. I can feel him realize where I am. His scent pushes into the room, smoked cedar and brown sugar sharpened by fear, and my body answers even while I press closer to Callie’s knee.

“Sweetheart,” Sloane says, quieter now. He lowers himself near the table but doesn’t lift the cloth or reach under right away. “Can I see you?”

I look at Callie’s hand, at the shadow of Sloane’s knees beyond the tablecloth, at the strip of light along the floor. “I’m under the table.”

“I know.” His voice breaks around the second word and smooths out before it can scare me. “I’m staying out here unless you ask me to come closer.”

Idris arrives behind him, black tea and rain cutting cleanly through Sloane’s fear. He doesn’t crowd either. His shoes stop near Callie’s chair, and then his hand rests on her shoulder above me, visible through the gap in the tablecloth.

“Theo,” Idris says, steady and low. “Tell me what happened.”

The words are gentle. They still find the locked place.

I close my eyes. Callie’s hand stays in my hair. Sloane shifts outside the table, and I can hear how hard he’s trying to keep still.

“Garrett talked to me in the hall,” I say at last. My voice comes out quiet, but I keep every word whole. “He said Callie would try to carry what belongs to a heat room if I asked her. He said I should let her keep the place she can survive.”