The silence that follows is the kind that settles over a conversation when there is nowhere left for it to go.
Jordan tries anyway. He reframes, begins something about the industry moving forward and the project's commitment to inclusive practices, and reaches for a middle ground that doesn't exist.
I stand.
“We'll fulfill everything on the current project,” I say. “All contractual obligations through the premiere and the press cycle. We take those seriously.” I pick up my copy of the schedule from the corner of the table where I'd left it when I came in. “We'll see you at the premiere.”
I say it the same way I'd confirm any logistical detail.
Then I turn toward the door.
Bash is already there, pulling it open, and we walk out.
The hallway between the production office and the stage smells like recycled air and industrial cleaner. Set noise filters through the far door.
I stop for a moment and take a deep breath. I hadn't realized I was carrying any tension until now.
Bash turns and reads my face, then his fist comes up, and I knock mine against it in a fist bump.
He’s smiling. “Double rate,” he says, dry.
“Very generous,” I say flatly.
He barks out a laugh.
We look at each other for a moment, and I realize there's nothing left to discuss. We made the same call. We both know it was the right one.
“Four more hours and we're done,” he says.
“Four more hours,” I agree.
We go back through the stage door. The floor is louder than when we left, the mid-morning energy building as the first setup locks into place. From twenty feet away, I can see that the monitor station still has the coffee cup on it, the staging zone still isn't quite right, and the crew is still operating at about sixty percent of the coordination it should have.
Bash moves to the staging zone without being asked and spends forty-five seconds repositioning two of the background actors. A PA appears at the monitor station carrying what looks like aprinted schedule and begins setting up the corner with the brisk focus of someone doing their best to fill a gap.
It isn't Maya's system, but it doesn't need to be. The production only has four hours left to get through, and what they're building now will hold long enough to finish the job.
Four more hours to go.
Then we can go home to our omega.
Chapter 36
Maya
I sleep without dreaming. The kind of sleep that pulls you all the way under, the kind I haven’t had in weeks. My body is heavy. Warm. The blankets I spent hours arranging have settled around me in layers that feel exactly right, and I don’t remember falling asleep but I remember the moment I stopped fighting it.
Bash’s hoodie is still pressed against my chest. My fingers have curled into the fabric sometime during the night. Adrian’s blanket covers my shoulder, the cedar-amber woven so deep into the knit that I can feel it against my skin even with my eyes closed. Elias’s blanket lies across my legs, heavy and cool, the mineral edge of his scent grounding everything beneath it.
The room smells like us.
All four of us, woven together until I can’t separate the threads anymore. Vanilla-citrus from my own skin, cedar and amber from Adrian’s blanket, bergamot and dark spice from Bash’s hoodie, the clean stone-musk of Elias—all of it layered through the nest I built with my own hands until the room feels lived in. Claimed. Safe.
The lamp in the corner casts a soft gold glow across the wall. I moved it there this morning. It was in the hallway for two days and it bothered me every time I passed it until I finally carried it upstairs and put it exactly where it belonged. The decorative pillow from the living room couch sits near the foot of the nest. I stole it. I don’t regret it.
My limbs are warm and loose. The exhaustion from a full day of nesting sits in my muscles like something earned. I’ve never slept this deeply. The kind of sleep where you forget your own name.
Then a sound reaches me.
