36. Calliope
Calliope
Theo has moved three things in my office before I finish answering my first email.
The blue throw pillow disappears from the couch and reappears in the chair beside my desk.
My forest-green cardigan leaves the back of the door and settles over his shoulders.
By the time I look up again, the lunch bag Dash packed has been opened across the coffee table, its contents arranged in careful rows beside two napkins and a pair of plastic forks neither of us needs.
Theo catches me watching and pauses with one hand inside the bag. His hair has fallen over his forehead, and the cardigan sleeves cover most of his fingers. “Dash packed grapes,” he says, holding up the small container as though this explains everything.
My smile comes before I can stop it. “He packed grapes because you told him yesterday that the ones in the dining hall were sour.”
“They were sour.” Theo sets the container beside the sandwiches and nudges the larger one toward my side of the table. “This one has your name on it.”
Dash has written CALLIE in neat block letters across the wrapper. Beneath it, in smaller writing, he added EAT ALL OF IT, which feels unfair coming from a man who watched me finish breakfast less than four hours ago.
The section of my bracelet that belongs to him glows as I pick up the sandwich. Theo notices and smiles, softer than he did a moment ago, before touching the pendant hidden beneath my cardigan. His light joins Dash’s, the two pale sections warming against my wrist.
“He knows you found the note,” Theo says.
“He knows because he planned the timing.”
Theo leans against the couch, pleased enough with Dash’s interference that he does not bother pretending otherwise.
His scent has been sweeter since yesterday, the cardamom warmer and the peach blossom beneath it thickening at the edges, but he is calm.
He had wanted to come to campus with me, and when Idris asked whether he was certain, Theo had taken my hand and answered for himself.
I carry my sandwich to the couch and sit beside him. Theo shifts immediately, pressing his thigh to mine before opening his own lunch. He no longer waits until fear or heat gives him a reason to touch me.
Outside the window, the quad is bright with weak winter sunlight.
Students cross between buildings with scarves loose around their necks and coffee cups tucked beneath their arms. One of my first-year students passes with a book open in front of her face while her friend keeps guiding her around benches without interrupting whatever she is reading aloud.
Theo follows my gaze and watches them disappear toward the library. “You smiled.”
“I didn't.”
“You did.” He rests his cheek against my shoulder, his mouth curved where it presses into the knit of my sweater. “You smile more here.”
The words settle quietly inside me. I look around the office Dash found for me, at the shelves that are beginning to fill with my books and the ceramic mug Sloane replaced after he decided my old pen cup was depressing.
Idris' scarf is folded over the back of my chair because he remembered the building gets cold after lunch, and Theo has already made the couch look as though it belongs to him.
“I like it here,” I say, smoothing my hand over the cardigan sleeve covering Theo’s wrist.
“I like you here.” He lifts his head long enough to look at me, his expression open and certain. Then he lowers it again and steals one of my grapes.
Sloane’s section of the bracelet comes on while I am halfway through the sandwich. The light remains steady long enough that I picture him in the temporary Blackline room across campus, thumb pressed to the slim band on his finger while Kade talks him through another access log or payment trace.
Idris' light follows a few seconds later. Theo notices both and runs one fingertip along the edge of the bracelet without touching the metal directly.
“They’re checking,” he says.
“They have been checking all morning.” I tilt my wrist and watch the three sections glow together. “Sloane touched his during my first class. Idris did it halfway through office hours.”
Theo’s mouth softens again. “Did it help?”
“It reminded me they were close.” I take another bite and let my hand rest between us. “It also made me think they should be doing their jobs instead of staring at their rings.”
Theo presses his lips together, though the smile still reaches his eyes. “They can do both.”
A softer knock pulls my attention as Theo lifts his head from my shoulder, already smiling before the door opens, and that tells me who it is before Sloane steps inside with two paper bags hooked over one wrist and a drink carrier balanced in his other hand.
Idris follows with a folder tucked beneath his arm, though he stops just inside the doorway when he sees my face.
Sloane looks from me to Theo, then down at the food like the bags might explain him better than his mouth can. “We brought lunch.”
“You brought lunch yesterday.”
“We brought better lunch today.” His voice is gentle enough to make my chest ache, and he sets everything on the little table near the window instead of coming straight to me. “Theo said the soup here tastes like beige.”
“It does,” Theo says, already sliding out of my chair so he can inspect the bags. “It tastes like they described chicken to water and hoped for the best.”
Idris’ mouth moves once, but his eyes stay on me.
He has that look again, the careful one, the one that asks before his body has moved and turns every inch between us into something measured.
Sloane has it too, though he’s trying to hide it behind the drinks and the sandwiches and the bright yellow tulip someone has tucked into one of the bags.
I look at the flower, then at Sloane’s hand hovering near the back of my chair, then at Idris standing beside the door with his folder untouched beneath his arm. My throat tightens, and I have to put my sandwich down before I crush the paper around it.
“Sweetheart?” Sloane asks, the word roughening immediately.
“I love that you’re trying.” I make myself say it before either of them can start apologizing for something I haven’t named yet. “I do. I love the food, and the flowers, and the way you keep touching your rings during my classes because you think I won’t notice from across campus.”
Sloane’s face changes, hope and dread crossing it together. Idris finally closes the door, leaving us alone in the office with the food cooling on the table and Theo pressed quietly against my side.
“But I need you to stop treating every normal part of my day like it might break me.” My voice stays soft, though my hands twist together in my lap.
“I need to walk across campus sometimes. I need to forget lunch and remember it myself. I need my phone to ring without wondering if three people are checking whether I survived a meeting.”
Sloane goes pale around the mouth. “I’m trying to fix what I let happen.”
“I know.” I reach for him then, because the hurt in him is too sharp to leave unanswered. “Baby, I know you are.”
He comes to me on the word, crossing the office in two strides before dropping to a crouch in front of my chair. His hands land on my knees, warm and shaking, and the sight of that tremor nearly breaks the careful shape of what I’m trying to say.
“I don’t want space from you,” I tell him. “I want space inside the life I have with you. Those are different things.”
Idris’ breath leaves him slowly. “Calliope.”
I look at him too, because he’s standing so still I can almost see the want caught under his restraint. “And you can come here. You can hold me. You can kiss me in my office and remind me I’m yours. I want that so badly I don’t know what to do with it sometimes.”
His folder lowers to the nearest chair.
“But I can’t have every small thing handled before I touch it,” I say. “I can’t have another life where someone else decides what I need, who I’m allowed to reach, or which parts of me are too fragile to manage. Garrett made everything feel like permission. I need the small things back.”
Theo climbs into my lap without asking, careful with my lunch and utterly sure of his welcome. His arms go around my neck, and I hold him because that part is easy, because Theo has never made wanting me feel like a cage.
Sloane bows his head against my knee. “I miss the way you used to fall into me.”
The confession is so quiet I almost miss it.
I slide one hand into his hair. “I still want to. I just need to know I’m choosing it.”
He nods against my leg, and Idris finally comes closer. He stops beside my chair until I reach for his wrist and pull him down too, fitting him at my other side with Theo warm between us and Sloane breathing hard against my knees.
Idris touches my cheek with the back of his fingers. “Where do we start?”
“With bothering me.” My laugh comes out thin, but real enough that Sloane lifts his head. “With loving me like you used to before everything became a recovery plan. Kiss me because you want to kiss me. Send ridiculous texts. Argue with me about dinner. Let me pay for my own coffee sometimes.”
Sloane’s eyes are wet when his mouth curves. “Coffee is negotiable.”
“Dinner isn’t,” Idris says.
I stare at him.
He doesn’t look remotely sorry. “You asked where we start. We’re starting with dinner still being ours.”
Theo nods solemnly against my shoulder. “I agree with the Alphas.”
“You’re all impossible,” I say, but this time when Sloane rises and bends to kiss me, I meet him halfway.
Idris’ hand settles at the back of my neck, Theo hums happily between us, and for a moment my office smells like food, tulips, and the kind of love that remembers how to reach without closing its fist.
A few minutes later, Sloane and Idris step into the hall to check in with campus security while Theo stays with me and we wait for Zana.
A firm knock sounds at the door before I answer.
Zana steps inside carrying a leather case beneath one arm and two coffees in a cardboard tray.
Her charcoal suit is immaculate, her dark hair pulled away from her face, and the blonde streak near her temple catches the light as she surveys the lunch spread.
“Dash told me I would be arriving during mandatory feeding,” she says, setting the coffees beside the grapes.
“He has developed opinions about my lunch habits.”
“He has evidence.” Zana removes her jacket and lays it over the back of my desk chair before sitting opposite us. Her gaze moves to Theo, then softens slightly when she hands him the cup marked decaf. “Cinnamon, oat milk, one packet of sugar.”
Theo breathes in the steam. “Dash sent instructions.”
“Several.” Zana opens her case and removes a slim folder. “He also told me you would say it didn't matter if I got it wrong, which he identified as untrue.”
Theo’s smile widens, and I feel the warmth of it where his shoulder rests against mine. The room carries coffee, bread, cinnamon, and the faint sweetness of his approaching heat. For a few minutes, the legal folder on the table does not manage to make the office feel cold.
Zana waits until we have both eaten more before beginning. She does not rush Theo when he curls his fingers around the coffee cup or when his gaze drops to the paperwork.
“I want to confirm what happened with the temporary restriction Garrett obtained during your first heat,” she says. “We already have the court file. I need your memory beside it.”
Theo’s body goes still against mine. I place my hand on his knee and leave it there, giving him something warm to lean into without asking him to look at me.
“He said I needed to sign papers,” Theo says after a moment. “He told me they would keep Callie from making things worse. I asked to read them, but he said I was too distressed to understand.”
Zana makes a note. “Did you sign anything?”
“No.” Theo looks into his coffee, his lashes lowering. “The second time, he put a pen in my hand. I dropped it. He told Sloane I could not make decisions because of the heat.”
His voice wavers at the end, and I turn my palm upward on his knee. Theo threads his fingers through mine, holding on hard enough that the bracelet presses into both our hands.
“The court record matches that,” Zana says. Her voice stays plain and even. “Garrett obtained a temporary emergency restriction using a preliminary declaration and his position as head Alpha. The restriction expired when the supporting documents were not filed.”
Theo lifts his eyes. “Because I didn't sign.”
“Because you didn't sign.” Zana closes her pen for a moment and looks directly at him. “Your refusal mattered.”
The breath leaves Theo slowly. His shoulders loosen beneath my cardigan, and he leans closer until his temple rests against mine.
“I thought it did nothing,” he says. “He acted like the paper existed whether I agreed or not.”
“He wanted everyone to believe that.” Zana slides one document from the folder and places it on the table. “The form was real. The authority he claimed after the expiration date was not.”
I recognize the seal before I read a word.
The sandwich turns heavy in my stomach. My fingers go cold around Theo’s hand while the old porch rises around me, complete with the officer’s careful voice and the dead key in my palm.
Theo feels the change immediately. He sets down his coffee and folds both hands around mine. “It expired,” he says quietly. “You are here with me.”
“I know.” My voice is thinner than I want it to be. “I can see the date. My body still remembers the other version.”
Zana leaves the paper where it is. She points to the expiration clause, the missing signature, and the blank space where the order should have been converted. Garrett knew I would believe the seal before I questioned the man holding it.