33. Theo
Theo
Morning comes in soft and gray, with the room warmer than it was when we crawled into the nest. Callie’s hand is still wrapped around mine beneath the blanket, and Dash is still behind her, one arm curved over her waist while her cheek rests against his chest.
The nest smells different with Dash in it through morning. His cedar has settled into the blankets instead of sitting on top of them like something temporary, and Callie’s scent is sleep-soft where it folds around him. The place beside her doesn’t smell emptied out or careful or politely abandoned.
Callie stirs before Dash does, her fingers tightening around mine while her face turns into his shirt.
Dash wakes almost immediately, his hand spreading over her waist before he opens his eyes all the way.
He doesn’t move away from her when he realizes where he is, and something in my chest loosens so quickly I have to press my face into the blanket to keep the sound inside.
Callie blinks against him, then lifts her head far enough to look around the room. Her hair has fallen loose from its tie, and one sleeve of Sloane’s shirt has slipped down her arm.
“My charger,” she murmurs.
Dash’s mouth brushes her hair before he seems fully awake. “What?”
“My phone’s almost dead.” She pushes herself up slowly, pausing when the blanket catches around her legs. “And my glasses are in the bag.”
Dash sits up enough to free the blanket from around her ankle. Callie touches his shoulder as she climbs out, sleepy and unthinking, then crosses the room toward the canvas bag she still keeps beside the dresser.
The bag has been there since we came to Dash’s house.
Sometimes she takes things out and puts them back before anyone can notice.
Sometimes Dash washes her clothes and returns them folded beside it, and Callie thanks him without ever putting all of them into the drawers.
I’ve watched her choose from it like she might still need to leave quickly, even after Sloane and Idris started sleeping down the hall and the nest began smelling like everyone at once.
She crouches beside it now, pushing aside a folded sweater until she finds the charger. The cord comes out tangled around a lip balm, and she carries both to the nest before plugging the charger into the outlet beside the mattress.
Her phone goes near the pillow. The lip balm follows.
Then she goes back for her glasses case, the book she has been reading in small pieces before sleep, and two red grading pens she once told Sloane cost enough that theft should carry legal consequences. She puts them beside the phone, adjusting the book twice until it sits where she wants it.
Dash watches from the blankets without saying anything. His hand rests in the warm place Callie left against his chest, and his eyes follow her when she crosses back to the bag again.
I push myself up on one elbow. “Are those staying there?”
Callie looks down at the small pile beside the mattress. For a second, her hand tightens around the edge of the canvas bag, and her scent goes thinner beneath the pear and tea.
“If that’s okay,” she says.
My purr starts before I can answer.
Callie hears it. Her shoulders ease, and she looks back into the bag before pulling out the pale blue pillow from the lockoff room.
I know that pillow. I saw it every time I went into the smaller room, always on the side of the bed where Callie slept before Sloane and Idris found us here.
The pillowcase is soft from washing, pale around the seams, and it carries the lonelier weeks with it, all the nights when Dash was near enough to help but no one else was close enough to reach.
Callie holds it against her middle as she comes back to the nest.
Dash shifts before she reaches him, one knee drawing back like he is already making space for whatever she wants to put down. Callie stops beside the mattress and touches his shoulder with her free hand.
“Don’t leave,” she says.
He stills beneath her palm.
She waits until he settles again before kneeling near the head of the nest. The blue pillow goes between the one I used and the one that still smells like Sloane, tucked close to the place where Callie’s head had been all night.
I crawl closer and drag one of my cushions away from the headboard so the pillow has more room. The cushion catches on the blanket, and Dash reaches across Callie to lift the edge just enough for me to free it. He doesn’t touch the blue pillow until Callie glances at him and nods.
Then he smooths the pillowcase once, careful with the worn seam beneath his thumb, and tucks the blanket along its lower edge so it won’t slide.
Callie watches his hand and the scent of her changes again, softening in a way that makes my throat ache. “I want some of my things here,” she says, quieter than before.
I press my palm to the blue pillow and feel the warmth her hand left in the fabric. “They should be here.”
Dash stays close beside her, his shoulder nearly touching hers. “Where do you want the rest?”
Callie looks toward the charger, the book, the glasses case, and the pens beside the mattress. Her gaze moves over each piece slowly, as if she is checking that the room will hold them after she stops looking.
“The book can stay there.” She points near the phone. “The glasses too. The pens need to go somewhere Theo won’t steal them for the nest.”
I tuck the cushion into place and look up at her. “I don’t steal.”
Callie gives me the red pens.
I hold them for exactly two seconds before putting them beside her book, where she can reach them and where I can still see them. She watches me place them, and the corner of her mouth lifts.
“You moved my green one yesterday,” she says.
“It was too close to the edge.” I catch her opening her mouth and I shake my head. “I know it was on the desk but it could’ve fallen.”
Dash lowers his face for a moment, but I hear the breath he tries to hide. Callie reaches around me and presses one finger against the middle of his chest.
“Don’t encourage him.”
“I’m not.” Dash looks at the pens, then at me. “I do understand the argument.”
Callie shakes her head, though she is smiling when she says, “Of course you do.”
I settle beside the blue pillow, fitting my body around the new shape of the nest. Callie sits near my hip with Sloane’s shirt falling over one shoulder, and Dash remains beside her instead of at the edge.
I wait a moment before leaning into Callie’s side, my purr filling the room while she wraps one arm around my shoulders.
Footsteps sound in the hallway a few minutes later. Idris pauses in the doorway with two glasses of water in one hand and a mug in the other, his hair still damp from the shower and his shirt unbuttoned at the throat.
His eyes move over Callie’s things and the blue pillow tucked into the blankets near my Beta’s head. He steps inside and puts one glass beside me. The mug goes near Dash and then Idris holds the second glass while he looks at Callie.
“Where do you want yours?”
Callie’s arm tightens around me before she nods to the space beside her book, between the charger and the glasses case.
“There.”