I choose not to. I feel the pull and I don't move. The fact that Icando that sends a stab of anger through me at Drake. Hehad the same choice. He had Ragon barking orders and biology pulling at him and years of real love with me on the other side of that pull.
He chose anyway. Every single time. He chose anyway.
"Do you want to talk?" he asks. His eyes are steady on mine, patient in a way that doesn't feel like waiting for me to break. "I know you have a lot on your mind."
I shake my head. "Not yet."
"Okay."
That's it. Just okay.
Not like Ragon, who would have pushed. Who would have insisted we process, talk it through, deal with it right now because my feelings were inconvenient and he needed them resolved so he could stop worrying about me and focus on more important things.
Alex just accepts my answer. He stands up, brushes dirt off his jeans, and walks back inside without making it into a whole production.
I notice the difference.
I notice, and I put it away next to all the other small kindnesses accumulating like stones in my pockets.
This pack lied to me for months. I see now they had reasons. I know there's more I don't know yet. I'm not ready to forgive them, not yet. But for now I can exist in their space.
It's nice to be seen again.
***
That evening, the pack argues about the hot water heater.
I'm on the couch with a book I'm not really reading when it starts. Something broke, someone needs to fix it, and no one wants to be the one to do it.
"I fixed it last time," Malcolm says from the kitchen doorway.
"You took it apart and couldn't put it back together," Finn counters from where he's sprawled in the armchair. "I fixed it last time. At our house."
"You called a guy."
"Calling a guy is fixing it."
"That's outsourcing, not fixing."
"That's being smart enough to know when you're in over your head."
Alex pinches the bridge of his nose like he's being tested by higher powers. "We're not calling a guy for a pilot light."
"The pilot light is a metaphor," Finn says.
"For what?"
"For the fact that Malcolm refuses to admit he doesn't actually know how appliances work."
"I know how appliances work."
"You think microwaves are magic boxes."
"Theyaremagic boxes."
I watch from the couch, book forgotten in my lap. They argue like people who've argued before and will again, like this is a familiar dance they all know the steps to. There's no venom in it. No real consequences. They’re three people who know each other well enough to push buttons without breaking things.
It occurs to me as I watch them—a certainty that I can simply exist here without consequence. I don't need to step between them or smooth things over. No one expects me to play peacemaker, and no other omega waits in the wings to render my presence unnecessary. I can just be here, breathing, witnessing their familiar rhythm without becoming part of it.
