I ended up in the middle. Alfie was the little spoon, curled against my chest. Kit was the big spoon behind me, a massive wall of heat. Euan took the foot of the bed, draping his legs over ours, his hand resting on my ankle, keeping contact with the pulse point there.
It was quiet. The bus hummed beneath us.
"No sex," I whispered into the dark. "Just... frequency match."
"Just signal," Euan agreed sleepily.
I closed my eyes. I could feel three heartbeats syncing with mine. Indigo. Earth. Slate.
I slept like I hadn't slept in ten years. No white noise machine. No deadbolts. Just the heavy, living weight of the pack.
When I woke up, the bus was stopped. Bright morning light filtered through the cracks in the blinds.
They were still there. Nobody had left to give me "space."
I carefully untangled myself, climbing over Euan’s legs. I padded to the whiteboard in the front lounge, grabbed the black marker, and pulled the cap off with my teeth.
Under FOXTAIL PROTOCOLS, I wrote a new header.
INTIMACY LOGISTICS
I heard movement behind me. They were waking up.
"We're going to need a rotation schedule," I said to the empty room. "Before you kill each other."
"I heard that," Alfie yawned, stumbling into the lounge, hair sticking up in every direction. He wrapped his arms around mywaist from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder. "Put me down for Mondays. I like Mondays."
"Why Mondays?"
"Start of the week," he murmured, pressing a kiss to my neck. "Set the tone."
"Monday," I wrote.Alfie.
"Wednesday," Euan said, appearing with his tablet, looking crisp despite the sleep in his eyes. "Mid-week calibration. I require structure."
"Wednesday," I wrote.Euan.
"That leaves Friday," Kit rumbled, leaning in the doorway with a mug of coffee. "End of the week. Heavy lifting. I'll take the comedown shift."
"Friday," I wrote.Kit.
I capped the marker. I looked at the schedule.
"And Sunday?" Alfie asked.
I turned to look at them. Three Alphas. My pack.
"Sunday," I said, a slow smile spreading across my face. "Sunday is Pack Night."
TWENTY-NINE
Zia
I clicked the remote, the plastic cool and solid against my palm. Euan’s portable projector hummed to life, the light catching the motes of dust dancing in the dim, indigo atmosphere. The digital projection sat right next to the physical whiteboard, analog meets digital, chaos meets control.
"Intimacy Logistics," I announced, my voice steady, though my heart was hammering against my ribs. I leveled the laser pointer at the header. "Version 1.0."
The three of them sat on the edge of the nest, a collapsible architectural marvel Kit had built from high-density foam and acoustic fabric. They looked up at me, their expressions ranging from amused to devout, like students in a seminar on particle physics.
