And I kiss the tip of his nose.
Soft. Brief. The kind of gesture that a romance novelist would call tender and a cynic would call calculated, but is really just the most honest response I can offer a man who kneeled on a cold floor to tell me he is trying.
"I forgave you long ago, Cal," I say quietly. "Before I walked onto this campus. Before the living arrangement. Before any of this. I forgave you because holding onto resentment toward a boy who was thirteen and desperate to belong would have poisoned me more than it would have punished you. And carrying that poison into my twenties would have made me a smaller person than I want to be."
His eyes widen.
"But if it makes you feel like you are getting a fresh start," I continue, holding his gaze. "Then I will say it to you properly. I forgive you, Callahan Whitmore. For the silence and the complicity and every moment you stood beside someone who made my childhood harder than it needed to be. I forgive you. And I would like the version of you sitting in front of me right now to stick around for a while."
His throat works. His amber eyes glisten behind the dark frames, and for a suspended moment I think he might actually cry, which would make me cry, which would turn this entire living room into an emotional disaster zone that neither of us is equipped to manage.
"Thank you," he says. Simple. Unadorned. Loaded with the weight of a man who did not know how badly he needed those words until they were given.
The front door opens.
Etienne and Raphaël walk in on a draft of cold air and mixed scents. Cedar and pine from Etienne, vanilla ice cream and dark sandalwood from Raphaël, the combined fragrance hitting my Omega senses with a richness that feels like stepping into a bakery located inside a forest. Their hockey bags are slung over their shoulders, their hair damp from post-practice showers, their expressions carrying the particular satisfaction of athletes who have pushed their bodies to the limit and survived.
Etienne tilts his head, his dark eyes surveying the scene. Cal kneeling before me on the floor. My hand still resting beneath Cal's chin. The jersey riding high on my thighs. The general tableau of emotional intimacy interrupted.
Raphaël smirks.
He drops his hockey bag against the wall with a deliberate thud, leans his shoulder against the doorframe, crosses his arms, and delivers his assessment with the casual precision of aman whose French accent makes every observation sound like a verdict.
"If we are interrupting the proposal, we can come back."
"Fuck off," Cal says without turning around.
Raphaël laughs, the sound low and warm and vibrating through the apartment with an ease that tells me he has already become comfortable in this space, in this dynamic, in the particular rhythm of people who bicker because they care.
"What is going on?" Etienne asks, shrugging his bag off and setting it neatly beside the door, because Etienne Laurent respects organizational systems even when his packmates treat the entrance like a luggage carousel.
I huff, holding up the rose gold phone with the exasperation of a woman at war with modernity.
"He is helping me with my phone. I do not know how to use this thing. It is like the triple advanced version of old Beatrice. Every time I tap the screen, it does something I did not ask for. I have accidentally called emergency services twice, subscribed to three newsletters, and somehow enabled a fitness tracker that is now judging me for sitting on this couch for forty-five consecutive minutes."
Etienne laughs, the sound genuine and warm, and crosses the room to settle onto my right side, the couch dipping beneath his weight. His cedar scent envelops me instantly, familiar and grounding, and his thigh presses against mine with the effortless proximity of someone who has stopped second-guessing whether he is allowed to sit close.
Cal pushes up from the floor, rounding the couch to drop into the space on my left, his arm stretching across the cushions behind my shoulders. His ocean salt scent mingles with Etienne's cedar, and for a moment I am bracketed between two Alphas whose combined fragrances create a sensory landscapethat my Omega instincts respond to with an embarrassing surge of contentment.
"Come on," Etienne says, leaning in to peer at the screen. "We can teach you before we have dinner."
"Oh!" I nearly drop the phone. "We are having dinner together today?"
He gives me a look. The patient, slightly amused look of a man who has memorized every rule I established during the first week and intends to hold me accountable to my own standards.
"You said we have to try to have dinner together once a week. It is part of the rules."
I grin, the expression spreading across my face with the satisfaction of a woman whose organizational frameworks are being respected.
"Oh, the rules still apply, hm?"
He chuckles. "For now."
Raphaël pushes off the doorframe and strolls into the living room, dropping into the armchair across from us with the relaxed authority of a man who has claimed that seat as his personal territory and will not be entertaining disputes.
"What are the rules?" he asks, his gray eyes glinting with curiosity beneath the dark auburn hair falling across his forehead.
Cal groans.
