9. Calliope
Calliope
I wake to water running and Sloane laughing behind the bathroom door. For a minute, I stay still under the blankets with my cheek pressed into the pillow, letting the sound move through the room before the day can fully reach me.
Sloane’s laugh rises behind the bathroom door, followed by Idris saying something too low for me to catch. I pull on leggings and a loose sweater, then cross the room and ease the door open.
Steam curls into the bedroom around me. Sloane’s backed against the shower wall with Idris’s hand spread over his waist, their mouths moving together beneath the water. Sloane holds Idris by the back of the neck while Idris kisses him slowly enough that neither of them notices me at first.
When Sloane finally sees me, he reaches out with one wet hand. I kiss his knuckles and tell them I’m going downstairs before Garrett drinks all the vanilla tea. Idris smiles against Sloane’s mouth and kisses him once more before promising they’ll follow.
I close the door, steam curling faintly beneath it, and Sloane’s voice drops into something lower that makes my face heat before I even reach the hall. I leave them to it and go downstairs barefoot, following the smell of tea and the soft rustle of paper.
Garrett’s in the sitting room by the window, already awake and dressed down for him, which means rolled sleeves, no tie, and a collar open just enough to suggest he knows the house is still allowed to be a house before Bellwether arrives.
A folder is open on the low table, but his attention comes to me as soon as I step into the room. Beside his mug, a second cup waits near the teapot, steam rising in a thin line.
“Morning, sweetheart,” he says, reaching for the teapot before I can ask. “I was hoping I’d catch you before the house got loud.”
I cross the room and sit near him, tucking my feet under me while he fills the cup. “Is that my vanilla tea?”
“It is.” He passes it over, then reaches for the throw folded over the arm of the sofa and drapes it across my knees. “I put away all of Bellwether’s recommended grocery list this morning, but I made sure your tea didn’t disappear under plain crackers and electrolyte packets.”
My fingers tighten around the warm mug after taking a sip. It tastes perfect: one spoon of honey and one dollop of cream. “You remembered.”
Garrett looks at me over the rim of his own cup. “You sound surprised.”
“I’m not.” I take another sip and let the warmth sit on my tongue before swallowing. “I guess I’m still waking up.”
His expression softens, comfortable silence settling around us, enough that I can hear the heat clicking on and, far above us, the faint shift of pipes as the shower shuts off. Garrett glances toward the ceiling once, then back at me with a small curve at his mouth.
“Sloane?” he asks.
“Better. Still a little… Sloane.” I cut a smile, knowing how easily Sloane can piss off a room when people aren’t in the mood. I’ve caught more than one instance with Garrett and Idris shooting him a glare where I just try not to laugh.
“That’s a generous description for a pre-rut Alpha on his best behavior.
” Garrett sets his mug down and rests his arm along the back of the sofa, giving me room to lean closer if I want.
“I’ll talk to him before Theo arrives this afternoon.
Nothing severe. I just don’t want Theo stepping into the full weight of Sloane trying to welcome someone with his entire body. ”
I laugh before I can help it because that is exactly what Sloane would do, and Garrett’s mouth warms. The moment feels easy in a way I didn’t expect after the past week’s careful tension.
It feels like yesterday in the guest room and then the store actually changed something, or at least let something loosen.
Garrett’s hand settles lightly over the throw near my knee. “I meant what I said yesterday. I really do love what we have, Callie. Home is here. It always has been.” He says it while looking at the room, the tea, the stairs, me curled beside him with my bare feet tucked under a blanket he gave me.
“You were stressed,” I say, trying not to make a big deal of it. I’ve always known a pack finding their Omega is a big deal.
“I was,” he answers. “That explains some of it. It doesn’t excuse all of it.”
I look down at my tea because the steadiness in his voice makes my chest feel too full.
He gives me a minute with the tea, the quiet, the version of him that remembers things and apologizes without making the apology another kind of control.
When he finally reaches for the folder, he turns a page but doesn’t look down at it right away.
“You haven’t brought up Halston much since they called,” he says.
I glance at him, surprised by the turn. “We haven’t really had time. With Theo coming and Bellwether and everything else.”
“That doesn’t make it less important.” Garrett shifts the folder slightly, making room for my mug on the table. “I know we said we’d discuss it after meeting Theo but tell me what they offered. Not the short version or a polite version you think I want to hear.”
I hold the mug between both hands and let myself think past two o’clock for the first time all morning.
“It’s the sister campus, not the main one, but their ethics track has been growing for two years.
They want someone who can build interdisciplinary seminars, not just teach the same intro rotation.
It would still be literature and ethics, but with more room to design the courses properly. ”
“That sounds like the thing you complain universities claim to want until someone asks them to fund it.”
“They actually have funding.” My smile comes faster this time. “That’s the shocking part.”
Garrett listens while I tell him about the department, the students I’d be working with, the seminar model, the chair who sounded tired in the exact way people sound when they have been doing three jobs and finally got approval to hire help.
He asks about the commute, the teaching load, whether the offer is permanent or visiting, whether there is room to negotiate days on campus. They’re all practical questions, but he's taking it seriously enough to inspect the parts that could break.
“You should consider it,” he says once I’ve run out of details I can pretend aren’t memorized. “Seriously, Callie. If Halston is offering something worth wanting, I don’t want you dismissing it because the timing is complicated.”
“With Theo arriving today, complicated feels like an understatement.”
“Then we don’t force the whole answer this morning.
” Garrett folds his hands loosely around his mug.
“After the first visit, we sit down with calendars and the actual offer. We look at what the next few weeks require instead of guessing. Theo’s arrival matters, but your work doesn’t become background noise because the pack is expanding. ”
I watch him for the catch and don’t find one I can name. “One of my students would call postponing a decision its own decision.”
“The waistcoat one?”
“Marcus. Yes.” I smile into my tea, loving that Garrett remembers things at my work just like my other Alphas. It’s always the little things that my previous packs didn’t offer that make me feel safe. “He’d probably accuse us of dressing avoidance in responsible language.”
“He may have a point.”
“He usually does, which is why he’s unbearable.”
Garrett’s laugh is quiet as he flips another page. “Then let’s make sure this is postponement with a date attached, not avoidance. After Theo’s visit, Halston gets its own conversation.”
“Okay,” I say, and this time the word comes easily. I mean it when I say it. I can let Halston wait a few hours if waiting means someone will sit with me and treat the decision like it belongs to me.
Garrett grabs a smaller pack from the table and removes a folded guidance sheet, a contact card, and a white tube with a blue label. He places the paper on the table first, then the tube beside it. The movement is ordinary enough that I don’t tense until I read the words printed along the side.
Scent buffer.
Garrett notices my hand stilling around the mug. “Bellwether included it in the first-contact kit. It’s temporary, and it doesn’t cover your scent. It softens the first edge for a few hours so Theo has room to adjust when he walks in.”
I look at the tube instead of picking it up. “Because my scent is already everywhere.”
“Because this is your home,” Garrett says. He keeps his voice gentle, and I hate how much that helps. “That’s good, sweetheart. The house should smell like you. I don’t want you thinking you did something wrong if Theo freezes in the doorway.”
The thought has already been living somewhere under my ribs.
Theo stepping inside, taking one breath, and locking up because of me.
Because I made the room too much. Because I wanted him to feel welcome and accidentally crowded him before he had a chance to choose anything.
The sheets say he likes pear, but maybe it’s not my pear.
Garrett turns the paper so I can see the instructions, but he doesn’t push it closer.
“A new house can be a lot. New Alphas can be a lot. Sloane is close enough to pre-rut that his pheromones may be heavier than he realizes, and Idris will need to remember that assessing every breath Theo takes still feels like being assessed. I’m going to talk to them too.
This is first-contact preparation for the whole pack. ”
That makes it easier to breathe. I reach for the instruction sheet and scan the first few lines. “Wrists and throat?”
“If you decide to use it. Behind the ears too, but I’d start light.
It wears off in a few hours, and if Theo seems comfortable, there’s no reason to reapply.
” Garrett takes another sip of tea, giving me the space to read without staring at me.
“You can leave it here, Callie. I’m giving you the option because I’d rather you have one than stand there blaming yourself for a reaction that may have nothing to do with you. ”