Chapter 19 Sai
Sai
Morning arrives and I went back to my apartment last night, hating every second of the shower that washed Mavi’s scent off my skin. Now, standing in my bedroom trying to get dressed for work, the simple task has become impossible.
Two shirts lie on the bed. A third one rests in my hand and a fourth one I stuffed myself into but didn’t button because it felt wrong.
I’ve been standing here for twenty minutes.
The morning light has shifted since I started, and the shirt that looked right under the overhead light now looks wrong in the daylight.
The second one has a button that sits differently than I remembered, the alignment off by a fraction that makes my chest tighten.
The third shirt is the one Mavi touched last night, and it still carries the faintest trace of honey.
I can’t decide if wearing it preserves that scent or wastes it by letting it fade against my own skin during the day.
The color under this light versus that light, the way the fabric drapes, the memory of Mavi’s fingers on the collar last night, the calendar invite still waiting on my phone, the family machine that never stops turning. Everything piles up and my brain locks.
A knock at my door breaks through the spiral. It takes me a moment to walk to the door, relief spreading through me when I see it’s Mavi through the peephole.
I open the door looking exactly like what I am, half-dressed, stuck, and embarrassed.
My shirt hangs unbuttoned, more options visible on the bed behind me.
Mavi’s eyes sweep the scene and I watch the Omega’s brain process it in real time.
He sees the shirts, the tension in my shoulders, and the way my fingers hover without moving.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I don’t want to say it. The shame of it burns, a Hollis Alpha who can’t even dress himself without freezing. But Mavi’s gaze is warm, not pitying. It’s patient. So I finally push through it. “I can’t choose.”
Mavi steps inside like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He goes to the closet and looks through the shirts with the same decisiveness he brings to everything. He pulls one out, holds it up to the light, then holds it against my chest, checking the color the way an artist checks a palette.
“This one?” he asks.
Something flickers across my face. It’s not quite right. The shirt is fine, but it isn’t the one, and I can’t articulate the difference because the difference doesn’t exist in language. It exists in the tangle of inputs that my brain can’t sort right now.
Mavi catches it immediately. Before I have to explain, before the shame can build any higher, he puts the shirt back.
He doesn’t ask what was wrong with it. He doesn’t offer three more options.
He simply pulls another one, decisively, with certainty and no question mark in his posture or his voice. He holds it out to me.
“Here you go.”
I take the shirt. The tension in my shoulders drops like someone cut a wire.
My hands become steady as I slip off the one I was in and then put his choice on before buttoning it, the fabric sliding into place without resistance.
Mavi watches the transformation, the way the freeze breaks and the system reboots.
Between that pasta dinner and this morning, I can only imagine how much Mavi now sees of me.
The noise that had been building quiets.
The shirts on the bed no longer feel like threats.
They’re just fabric again. My fingers move smoothly down the row of buttons, the collar sitting perfectly against my throat, a different kind of collar than the one I wore for him last night, but still a reminder that someone helped me find the right path through the chaos.
Mavi stays close while I finish dressing. He doesn’t hover or fuss. He simply exists in the space with me, and that certainty bleeds into me. I tuck the shirt in, adjust the cuffs, and for the first time this morning my reflection in the mirror looks like someone who can face the day.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
He smiles. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”
But I do. Because without him the morning could have stretched into an hour of paralysis, the freeze deepening until I missed the shoot or arrived late and triggered more questions from the family.
Mavi steps closer and adjusts the collar of my shirt with two fingers, a tiny correction that settles the last bit of tension. “You look good,” he says simply before slowly bending down.
My hand falls to his back, confusion running through me until I find his fingers running along the chain around my ankle beneath my pants. My shoulders sag an inch further, his possessive touch settling my nerves before he straightens back up.
I lean in and kiss him softly, tasting the faint trace of last night on his lips. “I have to go.”
“I know,” he says. “Go be brilliant. I’ll be here when you get back.”
The simple promise settles the last frayed edge inside me.
The day ahead will have its demands and its questions and its machine-like expectations, but for the first time in a long time I feel like I can face it without the constant fear that one wrong choice will break everything.
Because I am not facing it alone anymore.