Chapter 32 #3
I hear footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, the door opens, and Adrian and Bash take in the room in under a second. The layers of blankets. Me standing in the middle of them wearing a hoodie that isn't mine. Elias near the window.
Adrian doesn't say anything. He crosses to the closet, pulls out two more pillows, and brings them to the bed. He places them where they seem to fit, and he does it without asking whether it's what I want. He just knows somehow.
Bash studies the arrangement for a moment, then looks at me before moving around to the right side of the bed.
He starts adjusting the throw layer, smoothing it out and filling in the gap I couldn't reach from that side.
After tucking one corner beneath the edge of the mattress, he slips out the door and returns a minute later with a glass of water, which he sets on the side table.
Elias stays close enough that his scent remains the thing my nervous system keeps orienting toward while the other alphas move around the room.
I watch all three of them. They're moving through the space without exchanging a word, without anyone assigning tasks or asking permission.
They're simply doing what the moment seems to require, and none of them are looking at me like a problem that needs solving or a variable that needs managing.
They're looking at me the way you look at someone whose comfort matters.
The feeling that settles in my chest isn't small.
This is what it looks like. Three people who came upstairs because something felt off, who read the room without needing anything explained, and who immediately started helping. They aren't doing it because an omega is in distress.
They're doing it because it's me.
The realization hits me so hard that something inside me seems to crack. My eyes fill immediately. I press a hand over my mouth as tears spill over my fingers, and for once I don't try to stop them.
Bash stops adjusting the throw. He straightens and looks at me, and his expression softens. Then he crosses the space between us and settles his hands on my shoulders, gentle and steady. “Hey,” he says. “You're okay.”
“I know,” I say, the words muffled behind my hand.
“You don't have to hold everything together by yourself anymore,” he says simply, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world. The words slip straight through every defense I have left. It feels like everything inside me is breaking apart and healing at the same time.
The tears come harder for a moment, and I let them.
Bash keeps his hands on my shoulders while Adrian moves to my other side. Their warmth closes in around me from both directions, and Elias's hand settles against the small of my back.
I breathe slowly and try to calm down.
The phone call. The floor I built over eight months. The fear that followed me from the production office to the car, from the car to the paintball course, and from the paintball course to this room. All of it is still real.
But so is this room.
So are these three alphas who came upstairs without being called. So is the nest my hands built while I wasn't paying attention, full of their scents and already mine.
Eventually the tears stop.
Bash presses his forehead briefly against my temple, his hand moving to the back of my head before he steps away. Then he picks up the glass of water from the side table and presses it into my hands.
“Drink,” he says.
I do.
Adrian settles against the headboard with his legs stretched out, leaving space beside him. I sit down on the bed, and Elias settles on my other side, close enough that I could reach for him if I wanted to.
The room is warm. The blankets are piled around me in an arrangement my hands chose for reasons I'm still only partly beginning to understand.
Our scents are layered throughout the nest in a combination that my body has apparently decided means safety, and it's working.
My heart rate is slow, and the crawling heat beneath my skin has quieted.
Bash adjusts the corner blanket one last time before settling at the foot of the bed with his back against the footboard, as though he's been doing this for years.
Nobody speaks for a while.
I stare at the ceiling and think about what the future looks like, not just tonight or tomorrow, but everything that comes after. The future that used to feel like it was narrowing into a set of choices I never wanted and never made.
It doesn't look like that from here.
That's the thing. It's still uncertain. It's still changing. I'm still going to have to go back into that industry and figure out who I am on a set with my new designation. The conversation with the director will still sting tomorrow.
But I fell apart in this room tonight, and these alphas came upstairs and helped me build a nest.
When I look at the future from inside this warm space layered with their scents, it doesn't look like something I have to survive alone.
I pull the heavy blanket higher. Elias shifts slightly until his shoulder brushes mine, and I lean into him.
Surrounded by these alphas—my alphas—I close my eyes.
The future is still uncertain, but I won't be facing it alone.