16. Calliope
Calliope
Theo’s in the sunroom with the plant book open across his lap and lets Sloane identify every leaf wrong on purpose until I throw a pillow at him.
Idris brings water and crackers, then sits on the floor near Theo’s feet while reviewing the evening check-in notes without making them feel like a threat.
Garrett takes a work call in the hall and comes back with his jacket off, settling in the armchair like he belongs in the noise instead of above it.
Theo keeps drifting.
He sits beside Sloane, then leans toward Idris when Idris offers a steadying hand.
He lets Garrett place a blanket over his knees when his hands start to shake after lunch.
He takes a bite of lemon bar from me when I hold it out, then looks so startled by his own willingness that Sloane has to turn his face into the couch cushion to keep from making too much of it.
By midafternoon, his eyes are shadowed.
I notice it first because he stops tracking the conversation and starts tracking doors. The sunroom door. The hall. The line of sight to the stairs. His hand moves to his pocket, touches the cards, then drops again.
Idris notices a second after I do. His gaze shifts to Garrett, then to Sloane.
Garrett lowers his tablet to his knee. “Theo, would you like to go upstairs for a while?”
Theo nods, then shakes his head, then looks at me.
“Smaller?” I ask.
His eyes flicker.
Sloane starts to sit up, and Theo’s shoulders jump before Sloane can even get his feet under him. Sloane freezes at once.
“All right,” Sloane says, voice gentler than his body wants to be. “No stampede. We’re good.”
Garrett sets the tablet aside and stands without rushing. “No decision needed. We can leave the house quiet and let Theo find what feels right.”
Theo’s face pinches around the word find.
It is such a small change. I almost miss it. His hand tightens in the edge of my cardigan, then lets go.
“I can walk with you,” I offer. “Or I can stay here.”
He reaches for my sleeve.
So I walk.
No one follows us. That is the first gift they give him.
Sloane stays on the sofa with his hands clasped behind his head like he's physically restraining himself.
Idris watches us go, his attention steady but his body still.
Garrett remains by the chair, one hand resting on the back of it, calm enough that the air doesn't chase Theo down the hall.
Theo leads because I let him.
We pass the stairs. We pass the powder room. We pass the little side table where Idris put an extra bowl of cards. Theo slows near the laundry room, his breath growing shallow again.
“The suite is upstairs,” I say softly, only to let him know I remember. “But you don’t have to go there right now.”
He looks back at me, eyes wet and wide, then turns toward the narrow linen closet beside the laundry room.
The door is cracked.
I'm certain it was closed this morning.
Theo pulls it open and slips inside before I can ask anything else.
For a second, I stand in the hall, staring at the dark gap where he disappeared. Then the scent reaches me. Cardamom and peach blossom, sharp with panic, layered over something familiar enough to make my heart kick.
Me.
I ease the door wider.
The closet is deeper than it looks from the hall, a narrow rectangle lined with shelves of towels, spare pillows, winter blankets, and the emergency bedding Sloane bought after reading one article about Omega nests and losing his mind.
On the floor, tucked beneath the lowest shelf, Theo has built a small, frantic pile out of the things he must have gathered when none of us were looking.
My cream cardigan from the mudroom bench.
The charcoal sweater I wore during the second visit.
The soft gray hoodie I keep pretending is still mine even though half the house steals it.
A scarf from the basket near the back door.
One of Sloane’s shirts is near the edge, and an Idris sweater is folded under a pillow, but the center is mine.
Theo is curled in the middle of it with his face pressed into my sleeve.
“Oh, Star,” I whisper.
He goes still.
I don't call for anyone. My phone is in my pocket, and I can text them in a minute. Right now, the closet barely has enough room for breath. If three Alphas appear in the doorway, even careful ones, Theo will have to be seen before he has finished surviving being found.
I lower myself to the floor outside the closet first, giving him time to look at me. “I’m going to come in, okay? You can tell me no.”
His fingers flex in my sleeve.
I wait.
After three breaths, he nods.
The closet is cramped and too warm, the air thick with fabric and panic and the clean cotton of stored linens.
I crawl in slowly, knees pressing into the edge of a folded quilt, and settle beside him with my back against the wall.
My shoulder brushes the shelf. My leg falls asleep almost immediately.
Theo watches me from behind the gray hoodie sleeve.
“I like this one,” I say, touching the edge of the hoodie instead of him. “Good choice. Sloane says it’s ugly, but Sloane owns shirts with flamingos on them, so his authority is limited.”
Theo’s mouth trembles.
I keep my hand where he can see it, palm turned up on the pile between us. “The big room was a lot.”
His eyes close.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I thought so.”
He makes a sound too small to be a word and shifts closer by inches, dragging the hoodie with him. His hand reaches for mine, stops, then reaches again. I don't close the distance for him. I wait until his fingers land on my wrist.
When he pulls my hand to his cheek, my breath catches.
His skin is warm. Too warm from stress, not fever. He presses his face into my palm with a broken little sound, and the thing inside me that has been trying to behave all day goes quiet.
I stroke my thumb once along his cheekbone. “You’re here. We’re not moving you right now.”
Theo’s eyes open. They search mine like he's waiting for the second half of the sentence, the part where I explain what he has to earn for that to stay true.
I give him the only thing I have.
“You picked a spot,” I say. “That’s good. We’ll tell everyone this is where you feel safe right now.”
His grip tightens.
“Not yet,” I add, because his breath jumps. “I’ll tell them when you’re ready or when you’re sleeping. Nobody is going to rush in here.”
He swallows hard, throat moving around a word that doesn't come.
I shift carefully so my hip fits between a pillow and the wall. “Do you want me to stay for a little bit?”
He nods so fast his hair falls into his eyes.
“All right.” I lean my head back against the wall and let my shoulder relax near his. “I’m staying.”
The first few minutes are only breathing.
Theo’s comes in sharp little pulls. Mine has to become something slower on purpose, because every time his fingers twitch against my wrist, every time the cardamom in his scent spikes, I want to gather him into my lap and promise things I don't know how to promise yet. So I sit there and breathe where he can hear me. I let the house make its quiet noises around us: distant water in the pipes, the low hum of the dryer, Sloane’s muffled voice somewhere far enough away not to press.
Theo inches closer until his forehead rests against my shoulder.
My hand moves into his hair.
He melts.
The change is so complete that I have to close my eyes for a second.
His body doesn't just relax. It yields, the rigid line of his spine softening against my side, his fingers loosening around my wrist only to find the hem of my cardigan.
His scent shifts too, the sharp edge of cardamom easing into something warmer beneath the peach blossom.
“Callie,” he breathes.
It is barely sound. It still lands everywhere.
I look down, and he's already looking at me. The closet is dim, but I can see enough. Wet lashes. Flushed cheeks. The frightened set of his mouth giving way to something I have no safe name for.
“Hi,” I whisper, because apparently that is the only word I know today.
His gaze drops to my mouth.
My chest goes tight.
He looks back up, waiting for me to stop him, and that is the part that moves me. Not the want by itself. The waiting. The fact that he has learned to ask with his whole body before his voice can get anywhere near permission.
“Theo,” I say softly.
He leans in.
It isn't smooth. His mouth catches the corner of mine first, a trembling press that almost misses, and then he adjusts with a tiny, frustrated sound that breaks my heart open. His lips find mine again, fuller this time, warm and unsure and hungry under all the fear.
I mean to stay still for him.
I manage it for one breath.
Then he makes a sound against my mouth, and my hand tightens in his hair.
The kiss changes.
He follows the pressure of my fingers like he has been waiting for permission to fall.
His hand slides from my cardigan to my waist, fisting in the fabric there, and he presses closer until the nest of my clothes shifts beneath us.
I taste lemon sugar from the bar he ate earlier and the salt of his nerves, but mostly I feel him.
Theo. The man who found my sleeve in a house full of Alpha scent and built himself a center out of it.
He's still trembling, but the tremor is different now.
I pull back just enough to breathe. “Is this okay?”
He nods, forehead bumping mine.
“Use the card if it stops being okay,” I whisper. “Or tap my wrist twice.”
His fingers move instantly to my wrist. Tap. Tap.
My heart stutters. “That means stop.”
He shakes his head, then taps once.
“One means yes?” I ask.
One tap.
The smile that breaks across my face feels too big for the closet. “Okay. One means yes.”
He kisses me again before I can make any more rules.
This time there is less fear in it. More certainty. His hand slides up my side, over my ribs, stopping when I inhale too sharply. He pulls back at once, eyes wide.
“One,” I whisper.
He taps my wrist once and touches me again.