“And I can't figure out why that makes it worse,” I admit. “If he'd been a problem, at least I'd know what to do with that. But he isn't. He genuinely thought he was helping, and the result is still that the second my designation became visible, I got removed from the floor I'd been running for eight months.”
My voice is slipping in a way I can't quite control.
“And someday he'll hire me back when I've, quote, settled down, unquote.” I shake my head. “And that's probably how it's going to go every time. Someone well-meaning who thinks they're protecting me.”
I sigh heavily. “And I don't know how to go back,” I say. “Into the industry. Into another set. I don't know how to walk in as exactly the same person I've always been and have anyone see that before they see my designation. I spent years learning how to be the person who solves problems, and now I'm—”
I stop and swallow. “I don't know who I am in that building anymore,” I say. “I built my whole career on being the one who kept everything running and nobody noticed, because betas don't get noticed. And now everyone notices me, and it's for the exact wrong reason.”
Elias is very still. His gaze has gone thoughtful as I've talked.
I look down and realize I'm holding the hoodie tightly against my chest. I try to set it down.
His hand comes forward and presses it gently back toward me. “Keep it,” he says.
My throat goes tight, and I press the fabric against my face and breathe in cedar and warmth before closing my eyes for a second.
And then suddenly I want more.
I don't only want to hold the hoodie. I want the scent surrounding me.
I'm already moving before I've fully registered what I'm doing. I pull the hoodie over my head, turn toward the bed, and reach for the heaviest blanket even though I'm already wearing a hoodie and the room already smells like them. There is no logical reason for my hands to be moving the way they are as I gather Bash's throw and pull it closer before pressing my face into Elias's blanket and breathing it in.
Then I stop.
I'm standing in the middle of the bed surrounded by layers of rearranged blankets. I'm wearing a borrowed hoodie and holding a fourth blanket against my face.
“Oh,” I say.
Elias says nothing.
“I'm nesting,” I say out loud, as though saying it will somehow make it more or less true.
He still doesn't say anything, but his expression has softened.
“I've been doing it for the last twenty minutes,” I continue. “I didn't realize I was doing it.”
“I know,” he says.
The embarrassment arrives first. A hot flush follows the realization that I've spent the last twenty minutes rearranging blankets and gathering scents while spiraling about a phone call, and that none of it was a conscious decision. Something in me has been making choices without waiting for permission.
But underneath the embarrassment is something else.
Every movement I made in this room was toward safety. I didn't know that was what I was doing, but some part of me did. While I thought I was sorting blankets and pacing through a problem, I was building something that made me feel secure.
“Do you need more?” Elias asks. Thankfully, he doesn't make it weird.
I look at him. “There’s a throw I left in the living room,” I say hesitantly.
“I'll get it.” He moves toward the door immediately, then pauses. “Anything else?”
I think for a moment. “Bash has a hoodie hanging on the bathroom hook.”
He nods and leaves my nest. I stand in the room for a moment after the door closes, looking at what I've built. The layers. The arrangement my hands settled on for reasons my brain can't fully explain. The heaviest blanket sits in the center where I'll sleep. The lighter ones are spread to either side, and the pile of pillows creates a kind of wall along the right edge.
It's a nest.
A real nest.
