"It's a philosophical one."
She rolls her eyes in the specific way that means she's not actually annoyed, and I drink the milk because she's right and I'm not going to say that out loud. It's cold and clean and tastes like someone who cares about me decided to intervene in my self-neglect, which—that's just milk from a grocery store but somehow it lands that way at midnight when you've worked since seven in the morning and you're about to do it again.
"Maybe you'll meet some rich Alphas who actually want to take something from you instead of leaving something on you." Elowen is back at the counter now, tidying, the way she always tidies while she talks—hands occupied, voice light. "The kind who pay bills instead of creating them. Who holds doors. Who do those ridiculous romantic things you read about in those books you pretend you're not obsessed with?"
"Those are just books," I say.
"Are they."
"Yes, Elowen, they're fiction, they are literally by definition not real?—"
"Mila."
"I know what the fantasy is, okay? I've read enough of them." I pick up my toast. "Any Omega wants to believe it. The whole thing—the Alpha who looks at you like you matter, who showsup without being asked, who would rather build something with you than extract something from you. The domestic, quiet miracle of it. The part where the Omega just—exists—and that's enough. That's more than enough."
You've read every one of those books that Hazel keeps stacked at the café counter. Every single one. You've read them in the fifteen minutes between orders when it's slow, and you close them like someone who's been caught doing something private.
"But that's not what my life looks like." I set the toast down. "My life looks like a plank that trips me. It looks like a government envelope on a kitchen island. It looks like double shifts and blockers and a savings account that could be described, generously, as aspirational." I gesture at the envelope. "That's real life. The books are fairytales. Or maybe just luck."
"Maybe you're right," Elowen says. She doesn't sound defeated about it—she sounds like someone taking a tactical pause. "But." She holds up one finger. "St. Patrick's Day is coming up."
I narrow my eyes at her.
"And maybe it's your lucky season." She's smiling now—small and specific, the one that means she's already three moves ahead and is simply waiting for me to see the board. "Think of it like that Bridgerton show. The masquerade one. Emerald silks, candlelight, the whole thing."
"That is a streaming drama, Elowen."
"And the envelope is a real thing sitting right next to your milk." She tilts her head toward it. "One night. That's all. Eat, get ready for your shift, and when you're done—I'll have something for you."
"Something."
"A lucky heirloom." She winks. "Maybe it'll turn things around."
I look at her. Then at the envelope. Then at the milk, which I've somehow finished without noticing.
Then at the eggs, which are perfect, which she made at midnight because I texted from the street that I had thirty minutes.
She believes in this more than you believe in anything right now.
She drove here on a Tuesday night and cooked eggs and didn't even make you ask.
I shake my head slowly, the way I do when I've already lost an argument but haven't been willing to confirm it out loud.
"Eat," Elowen says, already moving back toward the living room to retrieve her jacket. "We'll talk about the envelope when you're back."
She disappears around the corner.
I pick up my fork.
The apartment settles around me—small and messy and mine, smelling like scrambled eggs and Elowen's lingering peonies and the faint vanilla-warmth of my own scent underneath it all, honey and whiskey and lime zest, the signature I've carried since I presented and have never quite figured out what to do with. I look at the government envelope on the counter.
A mixer.
Another curated, government-sanctioned parade through the humiliation of standing in a room full of Alphas who look at Omegas the way investors look at properties—potential or liability, asset or overhead. Another night of my scent being read by strangers and found either appealing or wanting, of navigating the particular social physics of a room where your biology is the entire premise.
Rosemarie went and came home with a pack who loves her.
I eat the rest of the food, I drink the last traces of milk from the glass because Elowen put it there, and the message in that matters more than my opinions about dairy at midnight.
