Page 37 of What We Don't Say: Part One

Callie studies him for a moment with flour on her cheek and cookie dough in her lap. Then she nods once, small but real, and goes back to stirring. “Miller was better on the phone yesterday. Theo seemed calmer when she was the one handling the care package.”

“Miller is who I requested.” Garrett glances toward the bowl as Callie folds something green into a smaller batch of dough. “Is that matcha?”

Callie’s mouth curves before she looks up. “Green tea. I’m making a batch for you too.”

Garrett’s expression changes in that quiet way of his, less polished at the edges and more like the man who sits with us during late dinners when no one needs him to be Alpha Crane. “You hate those cookies.”

“They’re nasty,” Callie says, lifting the spoon and letting the dough slide back into the bowl. “You like them.”

Sloane makes a wounded sound and tries to steal dough from the wrong bowl. Callie catches his hand without looking, smacking his knuckles with the spoon hard enough to leave a pale streak across his skin.

“Theo’s batch,” she says.

Sloane looks down at the mark on his hand, then at me as if I might intervene. “I'm being abused in my own kitchen.”

“You are being supervised in our kitchen,” I say, taking the grocery list before he can add anything else in the margin. “You wrote emergency cheese under toiletries.”

“It belongs somewhere,” Sloane says, but his attention has already slid back to Callie’s mouth as she tries not to laugh at him.

The phone rings on the island before he can make the laugh happen.

Bellwether’s name appears across the screen, and the kitchen keeps moving around it: Callie scraping dough from the side of the bowl, Sloane’s thumb smoothing flour from her wrist, Garrett’s hand already moving to silence the second tablet alert. I answer with one finger on the security schedule and my eyes on the woman sitting on the counter.

“This is Idris Ward.”

The coordinator confirms my name, Garrett’s signature, the arrival address, and the counselor assigned for transport. I answer each item while Garrett watches the tablet and Callie leans forward without pretending she isn’t listening. Sloane goesstill only in the places that matter, his hand curled around Callie’s ankle, his thumb moving once over the bone there.

“Then everything is settled,” the coordinator says. “Theo Mehra will be transported to your residence tomorrow at ten. The placement window begins upon arrival, and Counselor Miller will remain on site for the initial transition review.”

The words land in the kitchen, and the room gets brighter with them.

“Thank you,” I say. “We’ll be ready.”

I end the call and set the phone facedown beside the tablet. Callie’s spoon is still in her hand. Sloane is already smiling, slow and wide, and Garrett’s shoulders drop around the first true breath I have seen him take all evening.

“It’s settled,” I say. “They’re bringing Theo home tomorrow at ten.”

Sloane reaches me before the news has fully settled. He catches the back of my neck, pulls me down, and kisses me hard enough to knock my hip against the island. I grip his waist and kiss him back while Callie laughs beside us, and when Sloane releases me, his forehead stays against mine for one unsteady breath.

Then Callie makes a sound that catches halfway between a laugh and a gasp. Sloane turns toward her immediately, pressing his mouth to the flour on her wrist, then the inside of her elbow, then the place where her sleeve has slipped down her arm. She laughs for real this time and tries to keep the bowl balanced while he kisses his way up toward her shoulder.

“Don't make me drop Theo’s cookies,” she says, but her free hand is already in Sloane’s hair, holding him there.

Sloane lifts his head with flour on his mouth. “Theo’s coming home. He’ll forgive me.”

“He has known you for two visits,” Garrett says, reaching past them for the tablet. “Let’s not test his generosity before he unpacks.”

Callie turns her laugh toward him, and the movement sends flour off her sleeve. It lands across Garrett’s forearm and the side of his dark shirt before she can stop it. Her eyes go wide for half a second, then she looks down at the white smear and back up at his face.

“Oh,” she says, pressing her lips together. “That one wasn't Sloane’s fault.”

Garrett looks at the flour on his shirt, then at the bowl in her lap. The corner of his mouth moves. “I’ll note the distinction for the record.”

Callie reaches for a towel and only manages to smear more flour over his cuff when she tries to brush it off. “I’m sorry. Wait, no, I’m making it worse.”

“Leave it,” Garrett says, catching her wrist before she can fuss with the sleeve again. His thumb rests briefly against the flour-dusted skin near her pulse, and there is nothing clinical in the touch. “Thank you for the cookies, sweetheart.”

Callie’s expression softens so openly that I look back at the tablet and give her the privacy of it. Garrett’s thumb remains near her pulse for another second before he releases her wrist and reaches for the ruined towel.