By evening the anxiety has gone low-grade and miserable, the kind that just has to be waited through.
"We need a movie," Alex says. Like a conclusion he's already reached.
"Okay," I say.
Finn's face lights up and what follows is Finn—pure, enthusiastic, deeply committed Finn—disappearing into the kitchen and returning with popcorn, then chips, then a bowl of mixed nuts nobody asked for. Then drinks and a bag of gummy bears presented like a long-awaited gift.
"Finn," Malcolm says.
"What?"
"We're watching a movie. Not preparing for a siege."
"Snacks set the tone." He adjusts the gummy bears on the coffee table with the gravity of someone arranging something important. "The tone is crucial."
I cover my mouth with my hand.
I love movie nights. Iusedto love them. We had them every week in Ragon's house, back when things were good. Back when movie nights meant piling onto the big sectional with my alphas, arguing over what to watch and someone always ending up with their head in someone else's lap before everyone forgot the plot around the halfway point because the company was better than the film.
Until Marie arrived.
Then movie nights meant sitting in the chair they'd moved slightly to the side to accommodate everyone else on the sectional while I was exiled to the outside. The chair where I’d watch my alphas pull her in close. Ragon's arm around her. Drake's chin on her shoulder. Nobody's head in my lap.
I blink it away.
We find a comedy. Light and stupid and exactly right.
I end up in the middle of the couch. Finn drops down on my left without ceremony. Rhys settles on my right, taking up considerably more of the couch than a standard-sized person would, which means I end up pressed close to him, and I find I don't mind at all. Malcolm takes the armchair nearest the window. Alex takes the other armchair, legs stretched out in front of him, sprawled and loose in a way I haven't seen before. I’ve seen Alex in crisis mode, Alex vigilant, Alex careful, and now this version, almost comfortable, and it does warmth and strange to my chest.
Drake is in the chair at the outer edge of the room. Separate. Watching.
The film is genuinely funny. Finn laughs loudly. Somewhere in the first half hour Finn's shoulder presses into mine and Rhys's arm shifts along the back of the couch behind me with a casual certainty that makes me want to lean into it, which I do.
I shiver though I'm not really cold. My body is just releasing something it's been holding.
Alex unfolds himself from his armchair, disappears down the hall and comes back with an enormous blanket. He shakes it out and drapes it over the three of us without a word. I look up at him and he meets my eyes for just a second.
"Thank you," I say.
He goes back to his armchair. I tuck the blanket up to my chin and settle in. Malcolm's purr starts up across the room, low and absentminded, and Rhys's starts too—broken and stutteringand deep, the two of them layering together in a way that reaches everywhere.
I close my eyes.
Just for a second.
The movie is completely different when I open them.
Different characters. Different everything.
"What happened?" My voice comes out slightly wrecked.
Finn is grinning at me. "You fell asleep."
"I didn't—" I look at the screen. Definitely a different film. "For how long?"
"The rest of the movie. We started another one."
"I'm so sorry." I push myself upright off Rhys's chest, mortified.
