Page 47 of What We Don't Say: Part One

Idris steps up beside him with a water bottle, a folded throw, and one of the spare card dishes from the living room. He takes in Garrett’s hand on my shoulder, my twisted sweater, the sliver of closet darkness, and he only asks, “Where do you want these?”

The question almost undoes me.

Garrett answers before I have to. “Outside the door for now. He can see them if he wakes, and no one has to reach over him.”

Idris sets everything down exactly where Garrett says, then looks at me. “Do you want to sit?”

My knees answer before my pride does.

Sloane comes forward and wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me from Garrett’s steady hold into his own. The shift feels natural, one piece of the pack passing me to another.Sloane presses his mouth to my temple, then keeps his lips there while he looks at the closet door.

“You did good, baby,” he murmurs.

I lean into him harder than I mean to. “He picked my hoodie.”

“Of course he did.” Sloane’s voice goes rough. “Best thing in this house.”

Idris gives him a look. “The structural integrity of the nesting platform would disagree.”

“The nesting platform is upstairs being rejected,” Sloane says. “My argument stands.”

A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it, all three Alphas looking at me like the sound matters.

Garrett’s phone buzzes. He checks it, then lowers his voice. “Miller moved the placement check from four to six. I told her he found a smaller settling space and that we’re not moving him unless he asks.”

Sloane exhales. “Thank you.”

Garrett nods once. “We follow him today.”

Sloane lowers himself to the floor beside the hall table, one knee up, his shoulder pressed to the wall. He keeps me tucked beside him until I stop shaking. Idris sits across from us with the quiet patience of a man willing to guard a closet for the rest of the afternoon if that is what the pack needs. Garrett takes the chair from the little writing nook and sets it near the end of the hall, close enough to belong, far enough to keep the doorway open.

After a while, Theo stirs inside. Fabric rustles. His breath catches, then calms again when he sees the water and the cards outside the door. The sliver of light shifts, and one dark eye appears in the gap.

I lift my hand from where it rests in Sloane’s and place it palm-up on the floor between me and the closet.

Theo looks at it for a long time. Then his fingers slip through the gap and touch mine.

Sloane

Callie is doing that thing with her hands again.

She has one tucked under her thigh and the other wrapped around her mug, thumb rubbing slowly along the handle like she's trying to polish the ceramic down to dust. She's on the couch, technically. Her hip is on the cushion, her feet are under her, and she has been sitting there for the last twenty minutes pretending to read an article on her tablet. But every time Theo shifts on the floor near the coffee table, she goes still.

Theo is doing the same thing in reverse.

He has the plant book open across his knees, one of Callie’s old gray sweaters folded beside him, and a pencil in his hand because Idris told him he could mark the pages with sticky notes instead of trying to remember every question. He has marked nothing. He keeps looking at Callie, then looking away before she catches him, like her wanting him back yesterday turned into a secret he isn't sure he's allowed to touch in daylight.

It makes my teeth ache.

The sunroom should feel good tonight. The windows are dark, reflecting warm lamplight back at us. The rain started around dinner, soft against the glass, steady enough to make the whole room feel tucked away from the rest of the world. Idris is in the armchair near the shelves with a notebook in his lap, pretending he's reading through Miller’s evening notes when every line of his body is tuned to the couch. Garrett is on the far end of the sectional, sleeves rolled up, one ankle crossed over his knee, phone facedown beside him after finishing a call. He looks calm in that polished Garrett way, but he has stayed in the room since dinner, close enough for Theo to glance at him whenever the house makes a sound.

Theo has looked at all of us tonight.

He has leaned into Idris’ hand when Idris checked his temperature. He let Garrett tuck the throw around his shoulders after the rain made him shiver. He took three bites of sandwich from my fingers while glaring at me like I had invented dinner to personally offend him.

Then Callie sat down, and every line of him started reaching for her.

Except he hasn't moved closer.