Footsteps on the stairs. Knox.
He appears in the doorway the way he does every morning. Jeans, t-shirt, squinting. He walks to the coffee maker. Starts it. Stands with his back to me while it brews.
I wait.
Knox pours his coffee. Takes a sip. Turns around. His eyes track down from my face to the sweatpants, gray, too short, a brand Nico would buy and I never would, then back up.
"Those aren't yours," Knox says.
"No."
He takes another sip. "Nice hickey."
"Thank you."
"Wasn't a compliment." He heads for the office. Stops in the doorway. Doesn't turn around. "He better be worth it."
"He is."
Knox nods. Goes into his office. Closes the door.
That's it. That's the conversation. Twenty words and a closed door. Knox has been my alpha for a decade and that's exactly the right amount of commentary — enough to sayI see this, I care about how it goes, don't make me worry about you.Anything more would be intrusion. Anything less would be neglect.
I take my tea upstairs and shower. Wash off the hotel soap — reluctantly, because my lion growls at the loss of Nico's scent, which is ridiculous and I'm not entertaining it. Put on my own clothes. Come back downstairs feeling like myself again, except for the part where I'm not myself at all. I'm some new version of myself who rode a motorcycle home at dawn and can still feel someone's hands on his hips.
Silas comes down at eight. Looks at me. Looks at me again.
"You're different," he says.
"I'm the same."
"You're humming."
I stop humming. I didn't know I was humming.
"What song?" Silas asks.
"I don't know."
Silas considers this. Opens his book. "It was Taylor Swift," he says, and turns a page.
I am absolutely not humming Taylor Swift. Except, yeah I am. Since his sister called last week. It's been living in my head rent-free. I'm in deep trouble.
* * *
Nico walks in at eleven-thirty.
He looks different. Not physically, same chinos, same sweater, same laptop bag. But there's something loosened in him. The professional composure is still there, the posture, the controlled way he moves through a room. But the edges are softer. Like a document that was all sharp corners and someone ran a finger along the margins.
He comes straight to the bar. Not the booth. Sits on the stool next to mine, the one that's been empty, the one that's two feet from where I work.
"Morning," he says.
"It's eleven-thirty."
"Morning is a state of mind."
Jason, behind the bar, looks at Nico on the stool next to me. Looks at the empty booth by the window. Looks at me. His entire face is doing something that he thinks is subtle and is not subtle at all.
