But Evander kept going, steady and calm, like the sound of his voice alone was meant to help me stay anchored. And maybe it did, because the room didn’t feel as sharp around the edges anymore.
He asked if I liked the soup. I nodded.
He mentioned he’d found a new brand of tea he thought was decent. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything.
He talked about how quiet the neighborhood has been lately. I blinked at him, unsure why he was telling me that, but he didn’t seem to expect a response.
Every time I didn’t answer, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t sigh or frown or correct me. He just kept the conversation drifting like a slow current, something I could float in without drowning.
And that, more than the medication, more than the food, was what made me feel unsteady. Because I didn’t know how to exist in a world where an Alpha didn’t demand anything from me.
He told me how this house was on part of his parents' land, and if I looked out the back door from the kitchen, I’d be able to see their house just half a mile away.
He went on to tell me how his parents wanted to keep their children close, but most of them had moved on to different towns over the years, leaving Evander the last to stick by.
He talked about how his mother liked to keep the flowers growing year to year. How the blue ones were the most precious ones out of the bunch, because they meant something different to her than all the other flowers ever could.
He said that when I was strong enough to take a walk, we’d visit the flowers and I could see for myself how well his mother took care of them.
He went on to see how his brother, who was five years older than himself, sometimes worked in the area and liked to stop by from time to time. Mostly because he was a noisy pushy brother who had to make sure that Evander was keeping himself out of trouble.
Eventually, Evander ran out of random things to say, and the room settled into a quiet that didn’t feel heavy. The show playing in the background reached its end; the credits rolling in slow lines across the TV screen. I didn’t really watch them. My gaze drifted instead to the Alpha across the room.
He sat on the couch with one leg crossed over the other, his foot resting on the coffee table in front of him. His posture was relaxed in a way I didn’t know how to read. It was open, unguarded, nothing like the rigid dominance I’d been taught to expect. His glass of water sat forgotten on the side table; the ice long since melted into a thin layer at the bottom.
He looked…normal. Not like an Alpha waiting for me to mess up. Not like someone calculating what he wanted from me. Just a man sitting on a couch after lunch, watching the end of a show he probably didn’t care about.
I let my eyes linger on him longer than I meant to. He didn’t notice at first, his attention was on the TV, or maybe just the quiet. But when he glanced my way, his expression softened.Not with pity or expectations, but something gentler. Something steady.
It made the unsteady feeling inside me twist again.
How was it possible to feel safe and off balance at the same time? How could someone look so harmless and still make every instinct in me scramble to figure out what I was supposed to do next?
I didn’t know. But I couldn’t look away from him either. After a moment, I forced my gaze away, heat prickling at the back of my neck the moment Evander’s eyes connected with mind.
It was too intimate, too revealing, like I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t have done.
Don’t look at an Alpha in the eyes.
I stared at my lap, where my knees were bent to the side, fingers twisting in the blanket and pretending I hadn’t been watching the Alpha at all.
But even then, my mind kept circling back to Evander. I took in the broadness of his shoulders, the way he filled the couch without seeming to loom. The relaxed sprawl of his legs. The strength in his forearms that rested casually against his stomach. The faint scruff along his jaw. The way his chest rose and fell in an easy, steady rhythm that made the whole room feel calmer.
He wasn’t big, not like the pictures of the Alphas I’d seen in textbooks. He wasn’t gruff looking with that hardened life look.
No. Evander was all Alpha; I didn’t doubt that all. But he was bigger than me, wider, and wiser for sure.
He looked...solid. Not imposing. Not dangerous. Just solid in a way that made something inside me loosen and lighten at the same time.
Evander reminded me of someone I couldn’t name. Someone from long ago that gave off the exact same feelings.
I wasn’t supposed to notice any of that, though. I was only taught how to predict what an Alpha wanted or desired, and nearly all that came down to sex, willing or not on my part. That’s what Alphas would always want.
But not this one.
My gaze flicked up again before I could stop it. Just a quick glance, barely a second, and I caught the soft curve of Evander’s mouth, the relaxed line of his shoulders and the quiet patience in a way that he watched the fading credits.
I jerked my eyes away, knowing how wrong it was.
