Chapter 35
H e felt a bit ridiculous taking his mother to a meeting with his lawyer. But Mr Evans smiled at her and got them both coffee, for all the world like he found it perfectly normal.
Kallen was suddenly intensely aware that he’d freaked out on the phone to the guy a couple days earlier. Mr Evans had been a champ about it all, but still.
“I haven’t watched the tape,” he told Kallen, and it took serious effort to disguise his relief. “Because I don’t need to right now, and that is one of the things we have to look at today.”
He nodded, eyes fixed on the middle distance and well away from the alpha’s face.
“We have evidence of sexual assault, legally obtained,” he continued. “This means there is a very high chance of putting McKinley in prison for a good long while. It won’t touch the White Cats except by association, though.”
Kallen didn’t speak. He couldn’t. So this was the other shoe dropping.
“Aren’t they responsible for putting a vulnerable young person in harm’s way? And not listening when he reported it?” His mum was shaking a little next to him, stiff on her seat, all five feet four of her small self inflamed.
Mr Evans’ eyes flickered to Kallen, then landed on her. “They are, of course. But they can argue McKinley is a rogue agent and... Guin, am I mistaken in thinking we don’t have any evidence of the other cases of mistreatments at the hands of your teammates?”
Yrovsky. Vandy. Had there been more before? He couldn’t quite remember. McKinley had always been a little rough with him even before his jealousy had made him lose it, but... None of it counted if he couldn’t prove it, did it?
“It was in the heat room.”
The lawyer nodded. “Where there are no cameras, for obvious reasons.”
“Is that the only kind of proof?” Kallen’s mother demanded. “What about people testifying to it? You weren’t alone with them in the heat room, were you?” She looked at Kallen, who found he couldn’t meet her eyes.
He shook his head. “The others... The other alphas won’t talk about it. I mean, it’s their team, I get it. I wouldn’t—” He cut himself off because that was crazy, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t even ask his teammates to speak up when he’d been abused in front of them? The twins had intervened to stop Vandy, at least. But what would happen to an alpha who testified against a teammate? His lawyer had explained the non-disclosure agreements that were standard part of the team’s contracts didn’t cover criminal activity, but getting a little rough during heat sex wasn’t a crime, and talking to the team omega like he was a piece of meat even less.
And even if it didn’t violate the NDA, other teams might not want to take a player on if he’d ratted out a teammate.
The team hadn’t committed any crimes, they’d just created the perfect environment for them and then refused to believe Kallen when he’d reported what had happened. He was about to ask, but his lawyer interrupted his spiralling thoughts.
“If I may,” Mr Evans said gently. “At this stage, it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to approach anyone about testifying. It might be helpful to write down any instances of abusive behaviour you recall and the names of those involved. But for now...Well, Guin, the question today is if you are ready to take McKinley to court for what he did to you. The report makes the evidence sound pretty solid, but of course there is no sound so you will need to tell everyone that he gave you an order using will.”
Kallen flinched a little. He wanted to ask so many questions. How many people would there be? Would there be reporters or could they be kept out? Surely if he asked... But that was fear speaking, the same fear that had kept him right under the White Cats thumb, under McKinley’s body and Vandy’s and all the rest, submissive and suffering because that is what he’d been told an omega was for.
That’s what every omega was being told they were for. And the lie was almost worse than the acts, the fact that they had convinced him he didn’t deserve respect even more terrible than their cruelty. Anyone could be cruel, but only you could allow it, again and again. A betrayal that knew no end and left you nowhere to hide because it was self-imposed.
There was only one question that mattered now; could he show up for himself once and for all? Whatever the cost?
“Will they take my word for it?”
Mr Evans tilted his head, but he met Kallen’s eyes easily. “Look, justice is a process so I would never make any promises. But there are several things that help our case; your youth and the vulnerability inherent in your position, like your mother mentioned. The fact that officially the video has been found by the police during another investigation and they will have approached you to testify. And well, the sympathy most people feel for someone who’s been abused. So we can say we are playing with a good handicap here, so to speak.”
Kallen huffed, shaking his head, and drained his remaining coffee for something to do with all the nervous energy. “I...” He glanced at his mother, whose green eyes were fixed on him. She nodded. “Okay then,” he told Mr Evans. “Let’s do this.”
IT SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE , but life kept going. Mr Evans had told him quitting didn’t make sense at this stage, since if McKinley was convicted, there was a chance the White Cats would decide to back up their omega at long last to save face. Not to mention the fact that he could get paid until the start of the next season for the low price of keeping his mouth shut.
And there was one more thing Kallen hadn’t mentioned but couldn’t forget. If he didn’t quit, the White Cats couldn’t hire a new omega.
It wasn’t much, he knew. And it wasn’t his place. Like Taylor said, maybe there was some omega out there who could handle it. But most couldn’t, Kallen believed that much. Most would be destroyed by what he’d experienced.
They didn’t deserve that, and Kallen couldn’t see a way to make them believe they didn’t. It would require taking down the entire league, everything that governed the sport he loved, and all other sports too... It wasn’t something a single person could accomplish.
Maybe not even many people together.
But he could do this small thing, for a few months, maybe longer.
So he didn’t quit.
MAYBE HE WASN’T FAMOUS enough to get recognised everywhere, but he also wasn’t crazy enough to pick up a random guy in a club and make them sign one of those prewritten one-night-stand heat arrangements you got at the copy store .
There were agencies that arranged sexual encounters between alphas and omegas in heat, which still meant a stranger but at least one who’d had a background check and even reviews. The fee wasn’t too outrageous, since it was a service intended for normal people and the agencies were highly regulated and could only charge for certain items. The paperwork he had to fill out with his preferences and limits was intimidating, and he ended up ticking the ‘no’ box for anything he couldn’t understand.
All he wanted was to get fucked without getting hurt. He didn’t have any great expectations of pleasure besides the relief of heat breaking, and even that felt like too much to ask. He wished he could talk to someone about this. Well, not someone, another omega. But Analisa was on the pill, which she said was the devil she knew, and he didn’t feel like he could ask how she dealt with it when she had to go off it every six months. Maybe she had an alpha at university she trusted.
He thought Brad, as a medical professional, might not be on it himself. But while their conversations sometimes went on for a bit, Kallen couldn’t imagine texting anyone about something like this. So he booked himself a hotel room, mid-range, but equipped for heat with snacks and drinks.
And then he booked himself two different alphas, one for Thursday and one for Friday. Calculating from his last disastrous heat in Jiro and assuming the pill hadn’t messed up his cycle, that should more or less work out. He wrote down their numbers on two separate pieces of paper, intent on only calling them from the landline.
His parents knew where he was, of course. And so did Analisa, since she wasn’t shy about asking questions when he’d said he couldn’t hang out. But he saw no reason to tell anyone else, and so of course Levy was still texting him.
It wasn’t like Kallen had much to do other than watch shitty television and wait for his body to demand something. Either food or sex would do. He half wanted his heat to rise quickly so he could get over with.
[I found the FS website. Their graphics are terrible.] It took Kallen a moment to guess the abbreviation was for Fair Sport . Was Levy trying to be discreet in case someone looked at his phone? The notion that an alpha could be worried was an odd one to him, but the way Levy had talked about the possibility of a better system had nothing of the purported alpha confidence.
[Um not to criticise!] came another message, timestamped two minutes later.
[Haven’t seen it,] Kallen explained. [Analisa read me what it says... Didn’t wanna look at it after that.]
[Oh, is she the one who told you about them? Makes sense if she is a law student.]
Kallen was rather surprised he remembered that. He huffed and got up to chug down some water. It would be so simple to talk about Analisa again, to keep this one secret from Levy. And he had every right to do it, Mr Evans was his lawyer and what Kallen did and didn’t do to the White Cats was his business.
Levy probably wouldn’t even disagree. So why did it feel so wrong not to share it?
[It say alphas are welcome to meetings,] came the next message. [But pretty sure they’d kick my butt if I tried.]
[Like, not that I blame them.]
[You could call ahead,] Kallen found himself texting back. He wasn’t about to try to convince Levy, but he was all too aware that Levy probably didn’t have anyone to talk about this either. Maybe his parents, who’d apparently managed to raise their children to know how to use will and lure respectfully, would be understanding. But they wouldn’t understand .
[Oh FACEPALM EMOJI You are way too smart for me.]
[EYEROLL EMOJI Modesty doesn’t suit you.]
Levy had asked if he wanted to watch some telly together, but Kallen didn’t have his laptop with him, and he didn’t want to explain why or lie about it. Instead, they ended up playing Scrabble on a cranky app that kept making them stop for ads.
He was still laughing at Levy’s latest offering (Canoodle, using his original ‘noodle’) when he laid his head down on the pillow and became aware of the intensely floral scent of the detergent. He glanced down, confused because it hadn’t been that strong earlier and he’d been in enough hotel rooms to know it was unusual for them to use anything scented at all.
His phone pinged again, and just like that, his mind went back to Levy and a pleasant shiver ran up his spine. Oh.
Turning his back on his mobile was harder than it made any sense. Levy wasn’t in the room and he wouldn’t even know that Kallen had done it. And besides, it wasn’t like his heat was coming because of the alpha. It was just time.
And that meant he had to pick up the phone and call Thursday’s guy. He didn’t know how far Nouri Fawkes lived, and while he’d agreed to wait for the call, it didn’t mean he’d been lying in bed all day doing nothing, so Kallen might have to try more than once to reach him.
He contemplated adding Nouri’s number to his mobile after all so he could text, but in the end forced himself to use the landline instead.
Each time it rang, it felt like his heart clenched, releasing only when the call went unanswered. And then, of course, Nouri picked up.
“Hello,” his voice was deep Kallen thought, and then immediately. What the fuck am I doing?
“Hello,” he got out.
“Oh, Kal?” It took him a moment to remember he’d given Brad’s nickname as his preferred name—it’d seemed like a good idea at the time, another way to create distance with someone he was deciding to let way too close for comfort.
“Yeah.”
“You doing alright?” Nouri checked, perfectly sensibly given the circumstances and yet indescribably grating because he was a complete stranger.
“Yeah,” he repeated, nails of his free hand digging into his own thighs.
“You want me to head over to yours?”
He managed to bite back a refusal, exhaling slowly instead and checking in with his body. He was already starting to feel a little too warm, somewhat sleepy too despite the way his pulse was racing. It was definitely heat. “Maybe in an hour?” he said and it came out like a question.
“Sure,” Nouri said. “Whatever you need. Where are you at?”
ONCE HE’D HUNG UP, he’d allowed himself to drop onto the bed and rest for a few minutes. Nouri sounded nice and he’d had glowing reviews from past partners too, and Kallen was going to need someone within the hour, so... So it was absolutely stupid to open up the chat with Levy now.
[Did I stun you with my vocabulary?]
[Come on! I have a great one for my next turn]
[Kallen?]
[You fall asleep on me?]
It’d only been a few minutes, and Levy had a tendency to babble via text anyway. Kallen knew he wasn’t under any circumstances doing anything wrong by contacting Nouri. But it didn’t feel that way. [Sorry, phone call]
[Back now.]
[Good! I ended up watching the ads without skipping SAD TEAR EMOJI]
They didn’t really talk after that, though Levy sent him several GIFs to express his opinions on Kallen’s words on the game, and Kallen sent a couple back.
It was only when he realised that he couldn’t quite focus his gaze that he sent, [Need a nap, play later?]
He didn’t see Levy’s response because he’d already yanked himself to his feet and dropped the phone in the desk drawer. He served himself a tall glass of water and methodically downed it, palm flat against the wall by his side.
If he’d allowed himself to stop to think, he might have panicked, so instead he took off his clothes, folding them neatly on the chair provided, then laid himself out on top of the covers. This time around, heat seemed a bit sluggish—perhaps it was a side-effect of the pill—but he was already wet enough to get a finger inside.
The knock at the door came when he was three fingers deep, lazily rubbing at his prostate because he didn’t have the energy to fuck in and out. It wasn’t until he pulled his fingers out and found himself whimpering at the loss that he realised he was actually aroused at all.
And then he went to the door and opened it without even asking who it was.
The man’s blue eyes widened in shock and a faceful of alpha hormones hit Kallen hard. Taking hold of his wrist and dragging him inside before slamming the door shut wasn’t so much a thought as a reflex.
He was just about rational enough to let go once he did. “Sorry.”
Nouri was tall and built in that way that came so naturally to alpha men, though he was a little narrower than Kallen. He probably went to the gym a couple of times a week, but Kallen could have flattened him if they’d wrestled.
“Wow,” the strange alpha said, eyes dropping down Kallen’s body. His throat was working hard, a lovely column of tanned skin Kallen wouldn’t have minded licking. “You...”
“Take your clothes off?” Kallen suggested, and took a reluctant step towards the bed. Nouri seemed too stunned to move and for a moment, he thought about lure. Just a little to tug him over, which he’d agreed to do anyway... He turned his back on his visitor and went to pour more water down his throat instead, catching himself on the nightstand when he tripped over his own two feet.
There was a hand under his elbow almost instantly and he blinked up at the alpha holding him up. “Careful,” Nouri said, and led Kallen to sit on the bed, passing him the glass of water before stepping back and taking off his shirt.
He was hot, a scattering of dark hair over his defined chest that Kallen wanted to tug at. His green eyes had been almost completely eaten by his pupils in the dimness of the room and when he finally dropped his trousers and boxer briefs, his very nice cock was standing to attention.
Of course, the room must smell like a brothel to him already.
“Heat’s... This one is a bit weird,” Kallen told him, frowning as he tried to put his finger on it. “Took the pill last month.”
It wasn’t any of this guy’s business, except for how for once he was spending his heat with an alpha who maybe actually wanted to help him with it.
“Oh,” Nouri tsked. “Yeah, it’s... It happens.” He took a step closer. “But I’ll help you out, yeah? Just let me...” And he put a hand under Kallen’s chin and leaned in for a soft kiss, deep and exploratory. It was strange, whether because his body was off-balance or because Nouri was a stranger , Kallen couldn’t tell.
He opened his mouth and sucked on Nouri’s tongue and by the time he was on his back with the alpha on top of him, the dreamy relaxation of heat was starting to fully descend upon him.
Nouri’s thigh was a solid weight between his bent legs, pressing against his sack but not his hole or cock—a delicious tease that was starting to get close to too much. His hips were twitching, and he was squirming under Nouri’s mouth on his throat and chest, but he couldn’t quite get it together enough to ask for more. Nouri was holding his wrists down to the bed, and it wasn’t bad, not really, but if he could have just reached out and pulled him closer, it would have been much better.
The low whine that came out of him surprised him as much as his partner, who paused to glance up from circling one of his nipples with his tongue with hunger all over his face.
Kallen met his eyes, lips parted but no words coming. The pressure on his wrists eased, and finally Kallen could move . He reached down and got him by the shoulder—probably too roughly because his fine motor skills were properly shot—until Nouri crawled back up his body. The alpha groaned as their cocks made contact and Kallen hooked his legs behind Nouri’s knees, thrusting upwards as he did.
“Oh fuck,” the alpha muttered into his cheek. “You’re...” Whatever it was, it had his dick hard as rocks against Kallen’s stomach. He needed it inside him, right where he was clenching desperately and leaking all over the sheets.
Even then, no words were coming to him, so all he could was squirm pitifully and beg, whole-bodied, for relief.
“Shhh...” Nouri was whispering, caressing his cheekbone, and Kallen could have bitten off his fingers, inexplicably enraged by the gesture. Fortunately for them both, Nouri’s hand was rapidly travelling downwards, forcing Kallen’s knees back against his chest while his other hand found his hole. They groaned in unison at the contact. “God, were you... You are so fucking ready. I—” He pressed inside, two fingers that were sucked in greedily by Kallen’s desperate body.
He threw his head back and keened, pushing back into the penetration. Oh, god, yes .
At the third finger, his knees fell to the sides, leaving him fully exposed.
Nouri had insisted on scissoring his fingers a few more times, ignoring Kallen’s whimpers or maybe assuming they were a sign of pleasure instead of frustration. Later it would occur to him that maybe it wasn’t standard for an omega to stretch himself before sex, but right now he was skidding dangerously close to the catatonic state in which he’d fallen when McKinley had refused to give him what he needed. It was better than crying, but even when Nouri at long last positioned himself and started pushing his cock inside, Kallen was only half there.
It felt good, of course, but only at a slight remove.
And even when the fucking sped up, the distance didn’t fade.
He’d come, and Nouri had got him food and been a proper gentleman about the aftercare, chatting about a recent holiday while they waited for his heat to rise again.
It hadn’t been bad . Objectively it’d been fine. Just like objectively a protein shake tasting mostly of sand and coconut was nutritious.
By the time he’d woken up with the sun the next morning—he hadn’t noticed the drapes weren’t closed all the way, he’d already decided to never touch one of those fucking pills again.
If he could, he’d have rather not slept with a stranger either, but given the much worse choices he’d made when it came to alphas in the past, he was pretty sure the odd taste in his mouth and general discomfort were due to the chemical intervention.
He could have stayed at the hotel, since he’d booked it for two nights, but after showering, all he wanted was to get out of there, so he returned his key and got a recommendation for a place that did a good breakfast.
It wasn’t until he was halfway through the meal that the relief hit him and he could slow down.
Here was pleasure , finally. His body singing about each mouthful of bacon and eggs, relishing a sip of coffee and another of orange juice, the flavours rich and real. Unlike the sex from the previous night, which had been unlike any heat or non-heat sex he’d ever had.
He paused to breathe out slowly, silently giving gratitude for the food. Those fucking pills , he thought viciously as he cut into a sausage. And to think they’d told him it was safe to take them for months! What would have happened then? Would he have just gone numb all the time?
Did Management know about that or did they contractually forbid their use just because they wanted their omegas to go into heat? Since he’d learned there was medication to help with heat, he’d sort of held the idea of it as a backup plan, something he was choosing not to use while he could handle heats but that he could resort to if he ever needed it.
Except obviously he’d somehow lucked out and got it right, because they weren’t a backup plan, they were— Or was it him? Surely if all omegas experienced this numbness, they wouldn’t keep using them, would they? At least not in such overwhelming numbers—he’d read stats once that about twenty percent of all adult omegas of reproductive age took them.
But then again, what if the other option was risking your freedom? If most omegas didn’t know about lure, if they were truly as helpless as Kallen had always believed himself to be during heat... Maybe this numbness that made him want to peel off his own skin was the best alternative they could find.
A passing waiter shot him a startled look and he realised he’d sworn aloud. He grimaced an apology, then signalled for the check.
HE’D TYPED UP THE LIST the lawyer had suggested right away, and he’d had the phone appointment booked with a therapist, just like he’d told Mr Evans. It wasn’t his fault the woman had cancelled over some emergency.
In the meantime, all he knew was that he had to do something .
Taylor was openly pleased when Kallen asked if they could talk. Kallen wasn’t, because he still didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. He’d thought he was stuck in a shitty situation in exchange for playing the sport he loved and making a fuckload of money, but now he was starting to suspect that Fair Sport was just looking at the tip of a very fucked up iceberg. Normal people would readily admit having a team omega forced to share his heats with the team alphas wasn’t healthy, but how many people knew about the effects of the pills? And Nouri had been lovely, but if the Nouris of the world were an omega’s only alternative to chemical imbalance—he just knew what he’d felt, and he was really praying the effects would simply fade—then why were private organisations the ones in charge of them?
It was as if the moment he’d allowed himself to look, the iceberg had started emerging from the depths. He was terrified that it wouldn’t stop any time soon, and he couldn’t handle that. At least not without taking some bloody action.
“So you wanna try it?” Taylor asked after some back-and-forth. Kallen hadn’t mentioned the pill, much less his whole situation with the White cats, just that he’d been thinking. He didn’t remember anyone mentioning them in the meetings, but better safe than sorry. Like Taylor said, there was no point in judging if you didn’t offer a better alternative.
“Well, I mean... I still don’t know what I’m doing. But if you want to learn, maybe we could try that?”
He could hear the smile through the line. “I’d love that. Honest, even if I can only get a little bit better.”
So there he was, stuck waiting for Taylor to finish with a real customer—he was something akin to a social worker, though Kallen thought he hadn’t quite got the nuances of the role.
“Hello, hello!” Taylor greeted him.
And Kallen startled so badly he couldn’t blame him for asking, “Something in your mind?”
“I’m fine!” he said at once and grimaced at how fake it sounded. He sighed and got to his feet, offering his right hand.
Taylor squeezing it instead of shaking it, but he didn’t ask again. “Thank you for waiting.”
“Sure, no problem.”
And it wasn’t, other than hang out with his friends—the majority of which lived off-city—training for no purpose and helping his parents with chores, Kallen had absolutely nothing to do with his time.
At first, he hadn’t minded so much, but at some point in the last few days after spending his heat with Nouri, he’d lost all the joy of a holiday. Now, he was just restless.
But this was important, a job no one else could do and it turned out years of discipline were very much a transferable skill. “So, the principle is that you are calm. ‘Magnetic’ is a great word, really,” he summarised. “And everyone wants that, deep down. Because if you are angry you don’t want to be, but if you are super hyped, at some point you also want to come down, right? Otherwise, it goes from happy to manic.”
That got him a nod, and it was a little bit nuts because it was just coming to him on the fly, as if the words had been there all along and all he’d had to do was listen for a moment and pluck them out of the air. “So let’s try breathing in and out a bit, and then see if you can become the oasis. I’m just going to sit here and see if I can feel you inviting me.”
When he’d thought about doing this before, he’d convinced himself that maybe he was some sort of natural, but that didn’t translate to teaching. In fact, the easier something came to you, the harder it tended to be to put it in a way someone else could get. But now that he was here across from Taylor, having done his own breathing to centre himself, it came as no surprise when he found himself turning his head towards the older man and smiling.
He'd definitely felt something there, a little warmth maybe. Taylor’s eyes popped open, brow furrowing but mouth curving tentatively upwards. Kalen nodded, biting back on his own smile. Taylor closed his eyes again and now he could hear it too. It sounded, of all things, like the ocean—peaceful and deep, a promise of long summer days and easy games with his family and the kids he’d called his summer friends.
Taylor couldn’t get him to move or do anything just like that, but then he spoke in his soft mellifluous voice, “Can you pass me the water?”
And just like that Kallen was on his feet and reaching for the fancy decanter. Only then did he realise what he’d done. He turned around to shoot Taylor a mock glare. “That’s cheating.”
“Is it?” Taylor asked, grinning smugly now. He shot to his feet and stepped closer to clap Kallen on the shoulder. “Damn! We did it!”
“You really couldn’t do that before?” Kallen checked once they’d sat back down to sip at some water. Lure wasn’t exactly tiring, but he did feel a little more sleepy than he’d expect late in the afternoon like this.
The older man shook his head vehemently. He didn’t seem sleepy. “I— I have used it before. In bars, years ago,” he clarified with a self-deprecating smile. “But it didn’t feel like this, it felt a little bit like, well, batting my metaphorical eyelashes.”
That was the same thing Analisa had said, and Kallen had also equated lure with seduction. But of course, if only omegas could use lure and everyone had bought the bullshit that sex was the main thing omegas had to offer anyone... It would make perfect sense if they had focused on it as a tool of seduction.
But Kallen had felt it, and there was nothing sexual about the oasis.
“I don’t think it’s for... Well, sex.” Given how much of it he’d had, it felt a little absurd to be unable to meet Taylor’s eyes, but he sipped his water and kept talking to the carpet between them. “I mean, it can be used for getting someone to notice you, sure. But that’s sort of how you could dress up nicely, show off the—” He waved, cutting himself off before he mentioned Taylor’s very shapely arms, for example. And how come he’d even noticed those? He cleared his throat. “But really, that’s like the basic stuff, because when we like someone, we don’t really want to attract them by being hot, right? It doesn’t hurt , sure,” he admitted, managing a small smile. “But we want them to get to know us, to value us , not our...” He glanced down at his own body to illustrate. “Assets, or whatever.”
Assets , he thought with a wince. But Taylor was looking at him with a little thoughtful frown and nodding slowly. “Yeah, that’s... I get what you are saying. So the oasis is the essence of you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, exactly.” Kallen was nodding like he was a dashboard puppy and he didn’t even care. “And I think... Like, when we see someone that open, it’s kinda irresistible. Omegas are supposed to be weak, because we need things and we show it. But lure is... Like, with lure you can see we’re not, that being vulnerable is what makes us strong . It’s...” He huffed, and he found his excitement turning into a much more unwieldy emotion. “It’s pretty scary, really. But when I focus on being the oasis I am not scared, not at all. It’s like I’m absolutely confident I’m amazing and worth it and I’m just telling the other person: hey, check me out. And if they don’t want to come closer, I’m good because I got me, and I’m enough to keep going. But if they do, it’s nice to share. So whatever happens, I’m golden.”
“You know,” Taylor said slowly when Kallen looked at him again. “I think you really are.”