I stare at her. “How did you—”
“Because I’ve been watching you with them for weeks.” Her voice is gentle. “Long before you presented. Long before any of this became biological. You light up around Adrian in a way you don’t with anyone else. You match Bash’s energy without even trying. Elias settles something in you that nothing else touches. If this were just instinct, you’d feel that way around any compatible alphas. You don’t. You only feel it around them.”
The truth of it sits between us, impossible to argue with.
“I’m not pushing you toward them,” Nadia says. “That’s not what this is. I’m pushing you toward honesty. With yourself, first. Then with them, when you’re ready. But you need to stop pretending this is happening to you instead of something you’re choosing. Because at some point, Maya, you did choose them. Maybe not consciously. Maybe not in the way you thought choosing would look. But you keep reaching for them. You keep letting them closer. You keep finding reasons to be near them even when your brain is screaming about distance.”
She squeezes my hand once, then lets go. “Whatever you decide, I’m here. Supplies, preparation, information, backup plans—whatever you need. But you don’t have much time left to decide.”
I swallow hard. “Nadia—”
She shakes her head gently. “You already know more than you think you do, Maya.”
Then she smiles, small and knowing. “You just need to stop arguing with yourself long enough to hear it.”
She leaves me there, the door closing softly behind her, and I stand in the empty production office with her words settling into all the places I've been trying very hard not to look.
The rest of the day passes in a blur. Setups. Resets. The particular chaos of a filming day where everything takes twice as long as it should and nobody has the energy to complain about it anymore. I move through it mechanically, doing my job, solving problems, keeping things running the way I always have.
But something has shifted.
I catch myself watching the three of them throughout the afternoon. Adrian standing beside the director, his eyes finding mine across the room every few minutes. Bash, joking with a PA by craft services, his smile bright and easy in a way that makes my chest tighten when it’s directed at me. Elias, positioned near the security checkpoint, his presence a constant at the edges of my awareness.
They’re already a unit. The nod I noticed this morning wasn’t a one-time thing. It’s the visible expression of something that’s been building between them for longer than I’ve been paying attention.
And for the first time, I find myself looking at it and wondering what happens if I stop standing at the edge of it.
Chapter 24
Maya
The muffins are still warm. Blueberry, sugar-dusted, the kind from the bakery three blocks from my apartment that Elias somehow knows are my favorite even though I’ve never told him. He sets the paper bag between us on the center console, the smell of sugar and butter filling the car before he even pulls out of the parking lot.
“You can eat these as we drive since we are running a bit late,” he says.
Like it’s his responsibility to make sure I eat. I guess it’s something that happens now, part of the landscape of my mornings the same way his presence has become part of my evenings.
I take one from the bag. Break it in half. The blueberries inside are still soft, the sugar catching the morning light through the windshield.
“Thanks,” I say.
He nods once. Doesn’t make a thing of it.
We’ve been doing this for days now. The two of us moving through my small kitchen like we’ve established territories—him by the coffee maker, me at the counter, both of us reaching for things without bumping into each other because we’ve learned each other’s patterns without trying. This morning I loaded thedishwasher while he wiped down the counter. He handed me a dishcloth without looking up from the sink. I took it without saying thank you because thank you started feeling redundant. It’s the easiest thing in the world to be domestic with Elias.
I eat the muffin slowly, watching the city pass outside the window.
After yesterday—after the strange alpha who made my entire body recoil—the specificity of what I feel for these three men sits differently in my chest. It’s not just compatibility. Not just biology. It’s them. The warm amber of Adrian, the sharp bergamot of Bash, the grounding stone of Elias.
For days, I kept telling myself this was instinct. That my omega was making choices my brain hadn't agreed to yet.
Now I'm not sure that's true.
Maybe my omega just recognized something I wasn't ready to admit.
Nadia’s voice echoes from yesterday’s conversation.You keep doing this. Separating yourself from her. Talking about your omega like she’s some outside force instead of part of you.
She’s right.
