Page 126 of What We Don't Say: Part One

Idris answers before my guilt can make me careless. “We need to tell her when she can answer us, not when she’s trapped listening to a message with no way to help. If she’s in the interview, she can’t leave the room safely. If she’s driving, we don’t want fear in her hands.”

Theo thinks about that with his whole tired body. His gaze drops to the sweater beneath his cheek, and he rubs the cuff between two fingers. “I don’t want her to think we didn’t need her.”

“She won’t think that,” I say.

I wish it sounded less like hope.

Garrett comes back while the phone is still warm in my hand. He appears in the sunroom doorway with campus health papers tucked under one arm and his own phone in the other, his suit still too neat for the day we’ve had. He pauses there long enoughto take in Theo tucked between us, the damp cloth, the bandage, Callie’s sweater, my phone beside my knee. His eyes flick over every piece of it before his expression settles into concern.

“She still hasn’t called back?” he asks.

No accusation. No anger. Just a soft question shaped like worry, and my entire body reacts before I can tell it not to. Idris looks up from Theo’s wrist with his face calm and his scent gone sharp with rain.

“She’s in the interview,” Idris says. “Or somewhere she can’t step out yet.”

Garrett nods as if the answer has been entered into a file. “That’s where her focus needs to be right now. Today already became more complicated than anyone wanted.”

Theo’s hand tightens in the sweater. His eyes are open again, glassy but intent. “I wasn’t scared of Callie.”

Garrett’s face softens immediately. “No one said you were.”

“You keep almost saying it,” I say. I keep my hand flat over Theo’s stomach because his body jumps when my anger gets too close to the surface. “He told us what happened. The café got loud. A mug broke. Callie took him to the nurse. That’s the story.”

“It’s part of the story.” Garrett steps into the room, stopping near the edge of the nest. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t loom. He makes every inch look measured and reasonable as he sets the papers on the side table. “The rest is that Theo was injured during an off-site visit hours before his expected heat window. Calliope was responsible for him in that moment, and now she isn’t answering while he’s asking for her.”

Theo flinches. Small. Fast. Enough that I feel it against my chest.

“She’s at an interview,” I say, and the words scrape because I’ve been telling Theo the same thing for over an hour. “An interview you told her to focus on.”

“I told all of you to let her focus on it.” Garrett takes off his suit jacket and drapes it over the chair near the windows. Then he loosens his tie, slow and calm, like he’s preparing to settle into the room for whatever comes next. “There’s a difference.”

Every part of me goes tight.

Idris sees it. His gaze catches mine across Theo’s body, controlled and warning, but he doesn’t tell me I’m wrong to feel it. Garrett unbuttons his cuffs and rolls one sleeve up, then the other. It’s a practical thing. Alphas strip down for heat rooms. We all do. Clothes get in the way of touch and temperature and whatever the Omega needs when the next spike rolls in. But watching Garrett make himself ready while Sloane’s phone stays silent beside my knee turns the nest too small around my lungs.

Theo pushes his face harder into the sweater. “I wanted lunch. I wanted Callie. Then everything got loud.”

“I know,” Garrett says, his voice smooth with comfort that should belong here and doesn’t. “You’re explaining the emotional truth well. I’m talking about the practical reality. Campus overwhelmed you. Calliope was with you. The incident became tied to that setting and that plan.”

I move before I realize I’m moving, but Theo is against me and the nest catches the shift before I can do something worse. Idris’s hand lands on Theo’s ankle, steadying him when my body tenses behind him.

“Stop putting words in his mouth.”

Garrett looks at me then, and for the first time, the polish thins. “I’m not.”

“You are.” My voice drops lower. “You’re taking what scared him and shaping it until it points at Callie.”

Garrett’s eyes cut to Theo, who has gone still between us. Whatever answer he was preparing changes before it leaves his mouth. He draws a slow breath and reties the loosened knot ofhis voice into something softer. “Outside. We’re not doing this over him.”

I don’t want to move. I want to stay where Theo’s back is pressed to my chest and where my hand can keep telling him I’m still here. But Garrett is right about one thing, and I hate him more for being able to use it. Theo doesn’t need three Alphas arguing over his head while his body is this close to opening again.

I lower my mouth to Theo’s hair. “We’re stepping into the hall,” I tell him. “Right outside the door. You’ll hear us, and we’ll hear you. You say my name, and I’m back before the second breath.”

Theo’s fingers clutch my shirt. “You’re not leaving?”

“No.” I cover his hand with mine until his grip loosens by a fraction. “Hallway, sweetheart. That’s it.”

Idris shifts closer to him as I ease out from behind Theo. “I’m right here until Sloane stands, then I’m right beside the door. You won’t be alone.”