Page 46 of What We Don't Say: Part One

My eyes sting but before I can answer, Idris sends another message into the group thread.

Idris: We’ll keep the hall clear. Does he need water nearby?

Garrett’s message follows.

Garrett: Let him sleep. I’ll tell Miller the first settling space changed.

There. All of them. Waiting. Trusting me with this.

I tuck the phone away, then spend five minutes working myself free without waking Theo. It isn't graceful. My foot has gone numb. My cardigan is trapped under his elbow. The shelf tries to take out a piece of my hair. By the time I make it to the closet opening, my lips are swollen, my sweater is twisted, and my knees feel unreliable for reasons that have nothing to do with sitting on the floor.

I ease the door almost closed, leaving a sliver of air and light.

Garrett is in the hall.

I freeze with one hand still on the knob.

He isn't holding towels. He isn't standing there like a judge. He's leaning against the opposite wall with his phone in one hand and his jacket folded over his arm, waiting exactly far enough away that the closet door can open without him crowding it. When he sees my face, his expression shifts.

He crosses the hall and pulls me into his chest.

The hug catches me wrong because it is too steady for the way I feel. My hands hover for a second before they settle against his shirt, and he tightens one arm around my shoulders like I have done something worth holding onto.

“There you are,” he murmurs. “Breathe, sweetheart.”

I do.

I breathe because it is Garrett and he sounds calm, because his shirt smells like cold mint and polished leather, because my mouth still feels like Theo’s and my body hasn't figured out how to stand in a hallway after that closet.

His hand moves once over the back of my hair. “Is he settled?”

“Sleeping,” I whisper into his shirt. “He found the closet. I didn’t want to crowd him.”

“Good call.” Garrett keeps his voice low, his chest steady against my cheek. “First day home is a lot. Smaller spaces can feel safer before the house starts feeling like his.”

I nod, the words loosening something under my ribs. “I wasn’t sure if I should’ve called one of you.”

His arm shifts, keeping me close while he looks toward the closet door. “We’ll tell everyone. Let him sleep first. There’s no reason to turn the first place he chose into a committee.”

My throat tightens. “I didn’t do much.”

“You stayed.” His hand settles between my shoulders, warm and certain. “That counts.”

I close my eyes before he can see too much in them.

The comfort works. My breathing steadies against Garrett’s shirt while Sloane and Idris wait farther down the hall and Theo sleeps inside a nest made mostly from my clothes.

Garrett holds me for another second before easing back. He doesn't let go all the way. One hand remains at my shoulder, thumb resting over the seam of my cardigan. “First-day attachments can feel bigger than they are,” he says. “That doesn’t make them wrong. It means we move carefully.”

I nod, because carefully sounds like love when Garrett says it with his hand still warm on my back.

Sloane appears at the end of the hall before I can answer. He stops the second he sees us, gaze moving from Garrett’s arm around me to my face to the closet door. There is no jealousy in him. No suspicion. Only a ferocious restraint that makes his whole body look too large for the hallway.

“Is he asleep?” Sloane asks.

I nod. “Curled up in half my clothes.”

Sloane’s mouth trembles like he wants to smile and ache at the same time. “Smart boy.”