Page 38 of What We Don't Say: Part One

Sloane takes advantage of the moment to steal a piece of dough from the green tea bowl. Callie sees him too late, but Garrett doesn't. Garrett catches Sloane’s wrist with a napkin and turns his hand away from his mouth before the dough can reach him.

“That batch is mine,” Garrett says.

Sloane stares at him. “You’re defending the nasty cookies?”

“I have been promised nasty cookies,” Garrett says, releasing him with a light shove toward the grocery list. “You may continue your work with the fries.”

Sloane goes back to the list with flour on his mouth and triumph in his posture, adding another line while Callie laughs hard enough that she has to set the mixing bowl beside her. I watch the house take the news and fold it into what it was already doing. No one stops to make the moment formal. No one turns Theo into a subject on an agenda. He's coming home tomorrow, so Callie reaches for the next tray, Sloane adds more food than any household needs, Garrett wipes flour from his cuff with the towel she ruined, and I update the arrival schedule with the final counselor name.

The timer near the stove goes off, and Callie slides down from the counter before Sloane can lift her. Her feet hit the floor, and she moves around him with the baking tray in both hands, shoulder brushing his chest as she passes. Sloane follows her as far as the oven and stays there, one hand hovering near the small of her back while she bends to slide the tray inside.

“Don't touch me while I’m holding hot metal,” she says, turning her head enough to aim the warning at him.

Sloane plants his hand flat against the cabinet beside her instead. “I'm a model of restraint.”

“You have flour on your mouth and stolen cheese written under toiletries,” I say, setting the tablet aside now that the final schedule is saved. “Your case is weak.”

Callie shuts the oven door with her hip and turns the timer. The click seems to satisfy something in her. Her shoulders loosen, and she looks around the kitchen at the cooling racks, the grocery list, the tablets, the towel in Garrett’s hand, the flour on her sweater and Sloane’s mouth and Garrett’s sleeve.

“Tomorrow,” she says, quieter now, but the happiness is still in it. “He’s really coming home tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Garrett says from beside me. “Tomorrow, Theo joins the pack.”

Sloane moves the second the oven timer is set. He catches Callie around the waist and lifts her off her feet before she can reach for another bowl. Her laugh comes out startled and bright, both hands grabbing his shoulders while he turns away from the counter with her against his chest.

“Sloane,” she says, still laughing, “I have dishes.”

“No,” Sloane says, carrying her toward the doorway while she leaves flour prints across his shirt. “You have timers, three Alphas, and a tomorrow. The dishes have lost access to you.”

She looks over his shoulder at me, eyes bright and face flushed, but she doesn't ask me to stop him. Her fingers curl into the back of his shirt, and when he kisses the side of her neck on his way out of the kitchen, her laughter softens into something that pulls low under my ribs.

Garrett remains beside the island while their voices drift down the hall, Sloane saying something too low for the words to carry and Callie answering with another breathless laugh. The kitchen feels larger after they leave, the counters cluttered with bowls and trays, the final Bellwether confirmation still open on the tablet, flour floating through the light over the stove.

Garrett folds the towel once, flour still streaked along the edge of his cuff. His gaze stays on the doorway where Sloane carried her out, and when he speaks, his voice belongs to the house rather than the paperwork spread between us.

“Go take care of our Beta.”

I look at him.

He picks up the security tablet but doesn't hand it back to me. “Everything that needed checking has been checked. Tomorrow, we add one more to the pack. Tonight, let her have this.”

Callie laughs again from somewhere beyond the hall, and Sloane’s answering growl is muffled by distance and affection.The oven ticks behind me. The kitchen smells like lemon bars, green tea, sugar, and the dinner Sloane abandoned for celebration.

I leave the tablet with Garrett and follow their voices.

Calliope

The Bellwether van turns into the drive at ten exactly, because apparently the universe has decided punctuality is the only mercy I deserve this morning.

I stand in the foyer with my hands clasped in front of me, trying not to rub my palms against my thighs every three seconds. The whole house is ready. The cards are in their little dishes in the kitchen, sunroom, living room, and Theo’s room. The lemon bars are under glass on the island. The green tea cookies Garrett insists are edible are stacked beside them in atin he already labeled with his name, because Sloane threatened them before breakfast. The suite upstairs has low lamps, soft linens, a nesting platform, extra blankets, and enough space for Theo to decide what kind of quiet he wants.

It should make me feel better. Mostly, it makes me aware of my own breathing.

Sloane paces from the foyer to the front window and back again, stopping every few passes to touch me. A hand at my waist. A thumb over my wrist. His mouth pressed briefly to my hair before he moves away like standing still hurts. He took his rut regulator this morning, but there’s still something bright and restless under his skin, all smoked cedar and brown sugar warming the air every time he looks at the front door.

Idris waits beside the console table, controlled in the way he gets when everyone else is one bad sound from shattering. He checked the route twice after breakfast, then checked the suite, then checked Sloane, then checked me with one long look that made me eat half a protein bar while glaring at him. Now he stands close enough that his knuckles brush mine whenever I shift.

Garrett comes out of the kitchen with two mugs in hand and his sleeves rolled up again. He gives one to Idris, keeps the other, and touches Sloane’s shoulder as he passes him. The gesture makes Sloane stop pacing for half a breath.