29. Theo
Theo
The sunroom smells like lemon wax, warm wood, and the clean cotton Idris has been carrying upstairs all afternoon.
It’s smaller than the master suite, with garden-facing windows and a low couch pushed beneath the far wall, and the size of it helps because the bigger rooms keep making my skin feel too easy to see.
I crouch on the hardwood with one knee pressed into a pile of blankets, dragging a slate-gray pillow six inches to the left before the shape of it finally stops bothering me.
“Not there,” I murmur, tugging the corner until it sits tighter against the base of the nest. “If I roll, it’ll slide, and then the whole side will collapse.”
Idris stands near the door with two more boxes at his feet and a folded blanket over one arm. He hasn’t tried to take over once, which is probably why I can still breathe. “You’re building a fortress, Theo. Should I be concerned about an invasion?”
“Maybe,” I say, and my voice comes out softer than I mean it to. The joke is there, but it’s buried under the heat-pressure moving through my body, that low hum behind my eyes and under my skin. “It needs to hold.”
He nods like I’ve said something practical instead of strange, then sets the blanket where I can reach it.
The basket beside him is full of Callie’s old sweaters, the ones she gave me with a shrug and a smile like she didn’t know she was handing me pieces of the house I could survive on.
I pull out the cream-colored one first and press it to my face for one stolen breath before I lay it in the center of the pillows.
Idris lowers himself to the floor across from me, careful and quiet. “Weighted blanket on this side?” he asks, sliding it close without placing it for me. “It’ll keep the bottom layer from shifting when you get restless.”
I take the blanket, spread it where he suggested, then move Callie’s sweater on top of it.
The rightness of it lands in my chest before I can explain why.
The wool is worn thin at one cuff, and when I rub my thumb over it, I can still catch the honeyed pear and vanilla tea that clings to her no matter how many times the sweater has been washed.
Idris watches my hand instead of my face. “The center has an opinion.”
“She does,” I say, then glance up because I didn’t mean to say it that way. My cheeks heat, but Idris doesn’t smile like he’s caught me. He only reaches for another pillow and waits until I point before he sets it down.
The door creaks open before I can fix the left edge.
Sloane comes in with three grocery bags hooked over his wrists, his hair wind-tossed and his shirt sleeves shoved up like he fought the entire store and won.
Crackers and ginger ale knock together in the bags when he stops at the edge of the nest.
“Smells like a knitting factory in here,” Sloane says, stopping in the doorway with a grin that makes the room feel less breakable.
He sets the bags down and leans over the half-built nest, eyes narrowing as he scans the layers.
“Is there anything of mine in there, or have I been emotionally evicted?”
I point toward the window, where one navy shirt sits beside a stack of cooling towels. “You’re there. For balance.”
Sloane presses a hand to his chest and looks wounded enough that I almost laugh before the sound catches. “The window? I carry you to the bath one time and suddenly I’m decorative support. I see how it is, sweetheart.”
“You’re too warm,” I tell him, because that part is true and because saying it makes his grin go softer. “You’re like a radiator. I’ll use you when I’m shivering.”
“A radiator,” he repeats, and his hand comes down to ruffle my hair with a touch gentle enough to make my eyes close. “Fine. I’ll be the heating element, but I’m stealing center privileges later.”
He leaves the groceries by the wall and ducks back out to check on the soup downstairs.
His boots fade down the hallway, and for a few minutes the world stays almost ordinary: open windows, rustling fabric, Idris’ low breathing, the distant smell of something savory warming in the kitchen.
My skin is still too tight, and the seam of my shirt keeps scratching my shoulder, but Callie’s sweater is in the middle and the nest has started to look like a place I might survive.
Idris sits back on his heels, his attention steady without pinning me down. “Theo,” he says, waiting until I lift my head. “Do you want Callie here in the nest with you during the heat? I’m pretty sure I know the answer but I have to ask.”
My whole body moves toward the answer, my hands clenching in the cream sweater until the fabric twists. I want her there when the room goes bright and wrong. I want her hand in my hair, her voice near my ear, her quiet threaded through all the Alpha heat so I don’t disappear inside it.
“Yes,” I whisper, and the word breaks on the way out. “I want her there. I need her.”
Idris’ face changes, not into surprise and not into pity. Something in him settles, like he was waiting for me to say the thing my nest has been saying for an hour. He reaches out, his fingers brushing my wrist before they curl loosely there. “Can I kiss you?”
I nod before fear can make the answer smaller.
He leans in slowly, giving me room to meet him, and when our mouths touch, it’s sweet enough that my shoulders finally drop.
He kisses me like honesty deserves gentleness afterward, his hand warm at the back of my neck, his black tea and rain wrapping around the edges of the heat until the room stops tilting.
When he pulls back, his forehead stays against mine. “Then she’ll be there,” he murmurs.
For one breath, I believe him completely.
The nest is half-built, Sloane is downstairs making soup, and Callie’s footsteps move somewhere beyond the door, light and familiar against the hall.
She’s close enough that my chest aches with it, close enough that I almost call her name just to hear her answer.
Idris’ thumb moves once at the side of my neck. “Why haven’t you asked her yourself?” he asks gently. “Did someone make that feel hard?”
The warmth in my chest turns cold so fast I can’t get air around it. Callie’s footsteps pass the sunroom door, and my head snaps toward the sound. The answer presses against my teeth, but my tongue won’t lift for it.
I want to say Garrett’s name. I want to say he told me wanting her too much would make her feel used, that I shouldn’t turn her kindness into another job. The words crowd my throat, thick and sharp, and all I get out is a breath that sounds wrong even to me.
Idris’ hand goes still. He doesn’t repeat the question, and he doesn’t turn my face back to his. He only shifts closer, blocking the doorway from my line of sight without making it look like a wall.
“Theo,” he says, his voice lower now. “Look at the nest.”
I drag my eyes down. Callie is everywhere: cream sweater in the middle, gray cardigan folded along the side, soft cashmere tucked beneath the edge where my cheek will go when I can’t keep my head up anymore.
The sight should calm me. Instead, shame prickles hot behind my ribs, and my fingers move toward the center before I decide what I’m doing.
“It’s too much,” I whisper, already tugging at the cream sweater. “I should put one of Sloane’s shirts there. Or yours. I can fix it.”
Idris catches my wrists, firm enough to stop me and gentle enough that I don’t panic. “No,” he says, and the word has weight without turning sharp. “You don’t have to make the nest lie.”
My breath shakes. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” He eases the sweater out of my grip, smooths the twisted sleeve, and sets it back exactly where I put it the first time.
“You’re scared, and you’re close to your heat, and somebody taught you to apologize for needing the person your body keeps choosing.
We’re not fixing that by moving her to the edge. ”
My eyes burn hard enough that the pillows blur.
I lean forward before I can talk myself out of it, and Idris gathers me into his lap with one arm around my back and the other still near the sweater.
He holds me there in the half-built nest, my knees tucked against his thigh, my face pressed into the steady warmth of his shoulder.
“I won’t make you answer right now,” he says against my hair. “Finish the nest exactly how you want it. We’ll talk when your body isn’t trying to turn every question into a cliff.”
I nod into him because that’s all I can manage.
Outside the door, Callie’s footsteps fade down the stairs, and the part of me that wanted to run after her stays locked behind my ribs.
Idris doesn’t ask again. He only reaches for the charcoal cardigan, folds it once, and hands it to me so I can put her back in the center with my own hands.