32. Theo #2
She says it lightly, but I hold onto the words after she leaves.
I hold onto them while I sit in the nest and listen to Sloane talking somewhere down the hall, Idris opening the side door, and Callie’s softer steps moving toward the dining room.
The room still smells like them. The blankets are still warm. The fruit bowl is still beside my hip.
My body starts reaching after her anyway.
I wait as long as I can. I drink water. I eat another piece of peach, then put the bowl down when the sweetness turns too bright on my tongue.
I tuck Callie’s sweater under my chin and count ten breaths.
Then ten more. The sunroom stays careful around me, but the carefulness begins to rub at my skin until I can’t sit still inside it.
I crawl out of the nest with the sweater wrapped around my shoulders.
The hallway is cooler. My bare feet make almost no sound on the hardwood, and for a moment that makes me feel clever, then guilty, then angry that I feel guilty for walking through a house where everyone keeps saying I belong.
I’m halfway past the gallery when Garrett steps out from near the tall windows.
“Theo,” he says.
I stop before I decide to. My fingers tighten around the edges of Callie’s sweater, and the sentence I meant to say disappears from my mouth.
Garrett’s expression is calm. He doesn’t look angry, which makes it harder to feel like I’m allowed to be. He crosses the hall slowly and settles his hand at my nape, cool fingers pressing through my hair with a weight that turns my spine too aware of itself.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“To Callie.” I lift my chin a little because the words are true. “She said I can always find her.”
“She would say that.” His thumb moves once at the back of my neck. “Calliope gives until someone tells her to stop. It is one of the reasons we love her.”
The praise makes my chest loosen for half a second before the rest of it arrives.
“She has her own fragile place here,” he continues. “If you ask her to carry what belongs to a heat room, she will try. That doesn’t mean it is kind to ask.”
I look toward the dining room. I can almost hear the scratch of her pen from here. “I’m not trying to make her carry it.”
“I know.” Garrett’s voice stays patient enough to make the correction feel like care. “You’re trying to feel better. That’s natural when you’re this close to your heat. The spikes will make every comfort feel urgent. Urgency can lie to you.”
My tongue presses hard against the back of my teeth. “She helps me.”
“She does.” His hand leaves my nape and rests briefly against my cheek. The touch feels kind from the outside. Inside my body, it closes doors. “Then let the Alphas carry the heat. Let Calliope keep the place she can survive.”
I want to tell him she isn’t breaking when I reach for her. The words line up clearly, but they won’t move past the pressure in my throat.
Garrett steps back. “Make a careful choice.”
He leaves me there with Callie’s sweater around my shoulders and his voice around everything else. I stand in the hallway until my knees feel strange, then follow the sound of her pen.
Callie is at the dining table with her laptop open, a stack of student essays on one side, and a mug of tea on the other. She has her reading glasses on, and her hair is tucked behind one ear in a way that keeps coming loose. She looks up when I appear in the doorway, and her smile is immediate.
“Hey, Star,” she says, setting her pen down. “Are you okay? Do you need me?”
Yes.
The answer fills my mouth, simple and bright, and then Garrett’s voice closes around it. If you ask her to carry what belongs to a heat room, she will try. That doesn’t mean it is kind to ask.
Callie doesn’t rush me. Her hand stays open on top of the essay she was marking, palm turned slightly upward. “Take your time.”
“I do need you,” I say. My voice is rough, but the words are complete. “I just don’t know how to ask without making it sound like I’m taking something from you.”
Her face changes. She doesn’t stand too fast or ask who told me that. She only pushes her chair back a few inches and lowers her hand until her fingers hang near her knee.
“Okay,” she says. “Come here, then.”
I cross the room, but I don’t climb into her lap.
I can’t make my body do that with Garrett’s words still on my skin.
Instead, I sink to my knees beside her chair and crawl into the cool, shadowed space under the table.
The tablecloth falls around me like a curtain, cutting off the chandelier, the windows, the long polished room.
I sit cross-legged by her feet and rest my cheek against her knee.
Callie’s fingers settle in my hair.
The relief is so sharp I have to close my eyes. Her touch is gentle, but it doesn’t treat me like glass. She strokes from my temple to the crown of my head, again and again, letting the rhythm become a place I can put my breathing.
“You’re allowed to need me,” she says.
I grip the fabric of her pants, then make myself loosen my hand. “Garrett said you would try to carry too much if I asked.”
Her hand pauses for one breath. Then it keeps moving. “Did he?”
“Yes.” I press my face closer to her knee, close enough that the rest of the room blurs. “He said I should let the Alphas carry the heat. He said I should let you keep the place you can survive.”
The chair creaks softly as she shifts. I can feel her looking down, though I don’t open my eyes. For a moment, all I hear is the refrigerator humming in the next room and the scratch of a branch against the dining-room window.
“Star,” she says, and her voice trembles a little around my name. “You aren't hurting me by wanting me.”
My eyes burn. “I believe you when you say it.”
“But it gets hard to hold when he talks.”
I nod against her knee. “Yes.”
She slides her hand lower, fingertips brushing the back of my neck, right where Garrett touched me in the hall. The difference almost makes me cry. “Then you can sit here until it gets easier to hold again.”
“I don’t want to make the heat harder for everyone.”
“You’re under the dining table with your cheek on my knee,” she says, and there’s a thin thread of warmth in her voice, gentle instead of joking. “We can handle that.”
A shaky breath leaves me. Callie’s fingers curl softly in my hair like she feels it and wants to keep me with her. I turn my face enough to see her socks, thick and woolly, one heel tucked under the chair rung.
“I like it here,” I admit.
“Under the table?”