13. Calliope #2
“You made paperwork,” I say, and my voice almost breaks on the ridiculous relief of it.
“I thought it might help.” Dash rests two fingers on the folder and then lets go, leaving it in my reach instead of pushing it closer.
“If you say no, I’ll help you find another place tomorrow.
If you say yes, I can take you to the hotel tonight so you can pack what you need. We can get the rest this weekend.”
My fingers touch the edge of the page. The paper is warm from his hand. I hate that I notice. I hate more that I want to notice.
“If I say yes, I need to pay rent,” I say. “Real rent. I can’t owe you something vague.”
“You’ll pay rent.” He nods once, as if that was always assumed. “You won’t owe me anything else.”
The old part of me waits for the hook. The quiet pressure. The shift in scent that tells me his patience has a cost. Dash only stands in my office with tired eyes and his coat over one arm, waiting as if my answer matters more than his desire to fix the problem.
I look around the office that has become too familiar for six weeks and still not familiar enough to keep me.
My cardigan is on the back of the chair.
My annotated copy of the ethics reader is under a student’s paper.
Mara’s email is open in another tab I forgot to close, her subject line simple and firm. I’m here now.
“Okay,” I say, and the word is barely more than breath. I clear my throat and try again. “Okay. I’ll stay there until I figure things out.”
Dash nods and reaches for the folder, sliding it into my bag after I make room for it. “Pack the work you need for tomorrow. Leave the rest. I’ll drive behind you to the hotel, and we’ll move whatever you’re comfortable bringing tonight.”
“I can drive.” It's reflex, not refusal, and we both know it.
“I figured.” He steps back toward the doorway and gives me the room to collect myself. “I’ll follow, then.”
The hotel room looks worse when I know I'm leaving it.
Nothing about it has changed. The bed is still made with professional tightness.
The curtains still hang straight. The little kitchenette still holds the two yogurts I bought with good intentions and a carton of soup I won't miss.
My suitcase sits open on the luggage rack because I never fully unpacked, and that alone should make this simple.
It does not.
Dash waits by the door after carrying in two empty boxes from his SUV.
He asks before touching anything, and the first time he says, “Do you want this packed?” I nearly cry into the bathroom drawer because the choice is so small and unbearable.
I tell him books are fine. Toiletries are mine to do.
Clothes are mine too. He accepts each rule as if I have handed him a map, and then he follows it.
The last thing I pack is the scarf I was going to wear tomorrow.
My fingers linger over the silk before I fold it into the suitcase.
The bite in my shoulder pulses, irritated beneath my sweater, and for a second I see Sloane’s mouth in the memory of the mark, the way he looked at me the first time he realized I had given him a place no one else could touch. The memory cuts me.
I zip the suitcase too hard. Dash looks over from the small table, where he's stacking my papers into a folder. He doesn't ask.
The drive to his house is quiet. I follow his SUV through streets I still only know by landmarks: the pharmacy with the green awning, the church with the crooked sign, the coffee shop that closes too early, the diner outside campus with yellow light spilling across the sidewalk.
His house sits back from the road behind old oaks, broad and steady without being showy. The lockoff has its own narrow path along the side and a small porch light already on, the door painted deep blue,
“This one is yours,” he says, placing the key in my palm without closing my fingers around it. “The internal door is inside by the kitchen. It’s locked from your side right now, and I don’t have a key to that lock. If you want it open later, that’s your choice.”
I look at the key instead of him. My throat hurts. “Okay.”
Dash carries the suitcase to the bedroom but leaves it near the door, like he doesn't want to decide where my things belong.
The lockoff is small, clean, and warmer than the hotel room ever managed to feel.
There is a little kitchen with a half-sized fridge, a round table under a window, a soft couch facing built-in shelves, and a bedroom through an open doorway with fresh sheets folded down at the corner.
On the counter sits a basket with coffee, tea, oatmeal, apples, and a loaf of bread wrapped in waxed paper.
“I made the bread yesterday,” he says from near the door, and the quick explanation tells me he has realized how the basket might look. “Everything else is from the store. Receipts are in the drawer if you want to split the cost or replace anything.”
I run one finger over the waxed paper. The bread smells faintly of honey and oats, and the warmth that moves through my chest is so tender it frightens me. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
“I know.” Dash’s voice is quiet behind me. “I wanted the first night to be easier than the last few weeks.”
The sentence sits between us with too much room to expand. I pull my hand away from the bread and tuck both arms around myself. “I’m sorry I’m like this.”
His footsteps stop before they get too close. “Calliope.”
I close my eyes. “I know. Stop apologizing.”
“Yes.” There is no frustration in his voice, only patience that feels old enough to lean on. “Try sleeping. If you need anything, text me. If you don’t need anything, you don’t have to prove that by staying awake.”
A tired laugh almost gets out of me, but it turns into a breath instead. I turn around as he opens the door. “Dash.”
He looks back, one hand on the knob. He seems too large for the small doorway, but he keeps himself easy there, shoulders relaxed, body angled away from the room he has given me.
“Thank you,” I say, and the words are inadequate enough to ache.
He takes them anyway. “You’re welcome. Lock the door after me.”
When he leaves, I do. I turn the lock, check it once, then press my forehead to the door and listen to his footsteps move down the porch steps and along the path toward the main house.
They fade without turning back. No second knock.
No text asking if I'm settled. No gentle reminder that he's nearby.
He gives me the space and lets it stay mine.
I unpack only what I need to sleep. Toothbrush.
Medication. Pajamas. One sweater folded over the chair near the bed.
The scarf stays in the suitcase because I can't decide whether hiding the bite tonight would comfort me or make the room feel like another place where I'm pretending.
After a long minute, I peel off my sweater in the bathroom and look at the mark in the mirror.
Sloane’s bite sits in my shoulder, faded around the edges but still unmistakable. The skin around it looks irritated from stress, a little red where my body keeps fighting the closed bond. I touch it with two fingers and wait for longing to tell me what to do. It only hurts.
“I’m trying,” I whisper, though I don't know who I'm talking to.
The bed is softer than I expect. The sheets smell like clean cotton and the faint beeswax polish of the room, and through the closed internal door on the other side of the lockoff, I can feel the main house existing without demanding I enter it.
That might be what finally lets my body loosen.
There is an Alpha nearby. There is a lock he can't open.
Those facts should not be able to live beside each other peacefully, but tonight they do.
I sleep with my phone on the nightstand, the new number silent, the old messages buried under the dark screen. For the first time since I left, I don't fall asleep waiting for it to light.