If we do this again.
"Morning," she says.
"Morning." His voice is rough, scraped raw from sleep and everything that came before it.
A phone buzzes somewhere on the floor, vibrating against the hardwood. Iris reaches over the edge of the nest, fishing through the pile of clothes we left scattered last night until she finds it. The screen lights up her face and the shift is immediate, like watching a door close. Her jaw tightens, her shoulders pull inward, all that easy warmth draining out of her body in a second.
"My dad." Her voice goes carefully neutral. "He texted last night asking if I was okay. I didn't respond."
She types something quick and then sets the phone face-down on the floor. The crack in the morning is instant, reality seeping through, and I hate it. I want to pick up that phone and throw it out the window and build a blanket fort around the three of us and never deal with the outside world again. But I'm twenty-one years old and that's not how anything works, no matter how much I wish it were.
"So." Iris sits up, pulling one of the blankets around her shoulders like armor. "What is this?"
The question takes up all the space in the nest. Quentin pushes himself up against the wall, his expression settling into an unreadable mask. I stay lying on my side, because I think better horizontally and also because sitting up feels like admitting the morning is over and I'm not ready for that yet.
"I don't want this to be one night." The words come out of me before I've fully decided to say them, which is on brand. Someone has to go first, and it's always going to be me, because that's how we work. Quentin thinks, I talk, and somewhere in the middle we usually land on the truth. "I know that's a lot. And I know it's complicated. Your dad, the team, the fact that Chad and Kevin definitely saw us leave together—"
"I don't want one night either," Iris pushes out, my heart doing a little flip. It wouldn’t be so embarrassing if my scent didn’t also respond, letting both her and my brother know how I feel about that. "But I need to understand what this is before other people get to have opinions about it." She pulls the blanket tighter around her. "My father is... he's all I have. If he finds out from someone else, from Chad or a teammate, that's different than hearing it from me. I want to tell him on my terms. When I'm ready."
"So we keep it quiet," Quentin says from her other side.
"For now." She looks between us. "Is that okay?"
I glance past Iris to Quentin. He gives me a single nod, barely there. "Yeah," I say. "That's okay."
As long as I get to have Iris, I’m okay.
The tension eases enough that breathing feels normal again. Iris unfolds from the nest first, padding barefoot to the bathroom, the water running a moment later. Quentin and I get dressed, pulling on last night's clothes, navigating around each other without talking. The silence feels too heavy for words and anything I say will just cheapen the moment.
I scramble around for my shoes, grumbling when I find one tucked underneath the dresser. Quentin delivers a soft kick to my side and then groans when I jab at his ankle. “Fuck, I haven’t done the walk of shame since Freshman year.”
Iris pops out of the bathroom in just a large shirt, my eyes immediately dipping to her legs and then back to her face. The smile that spreads across her lips makes me blush as she just gestures to the front door. I scurry toward it, wanting to bury myself back into my room but I barely make it down the hall before Iris catches my wrist.
An embarrassing squeak falls from my lips as she twists me around and presses her mouth to mine one more time, her lips curving into a smile before she pulls away. "Bye, Milo."
My brain short-circuits for a solid two seconds. "Bye. Yep. Goodbye. Leaving now."
She turns to Quentin, the energy shifting from the playful moment with me to something a bit darker. He doesn't wait for her to lean in. His hand finds her waist, pulling her forward, and he kisses her the way he does everything, completely in control. When he pulls back, his thumb drags across her bottom lip, and Iris raises a brow in jest.
"I'll see you at practice," he muses.
"You will."
He holds her gaze for a beat longer than necessary, then turns and walks out. I scramble after him because apparently I've lost all motor function and basic social skills in the span of twelve hours. I make it approximately four steps down the sidewalk before my fist shoots into the air and a sound comes out of me that I can only describe as a triumphant Omega shrieking.
"Milo." Quentin doesn't break stride. "You know whatsecretmeans, right?"
"Obviously, I know what secret means."
"It means you can't tell anybody."
"I'm not going to tell anybody."
"It also means you can't make it obvious." He glances at me sideways. "No staring. No touching. No whispered conversations. No fist-pumping on public sidewalks."
"I wasn't—" My scent chooses that exact moment to spike, going honey-sweet and lovesick, broadcasting my feelings to the entire street like a neon billboard. Quentin stops walking, looks at me, and laughs, the real kind that changes his whole face.
"I think it's time you start taking those scent blockers again," he says.
