And these three men built me a room.
“You should eat,” Elias says from the hallway. His voice is low, cutting through the moment without disrupting it. “It’s been hours.”
He’s right. I haven’t eaten since the muffin this morning, and my body is starting to remind me of that fact with a hollow feeling in my stomach.
We move downstairs together. The kitchen is brightly lit, copper pots hanging from a rack above the island, the smell of something already simmering on the stove. Adrian moves toward the refrigerator while Bash reaches for a cabinet and pulls down plates. Elias fills a glass with water and sets it on the counter beside me.
None of them discuss who does what. They simply move, falling into familiar positions around the kitchen.
I stand at the island and watch them. Adrian's hand brushes the small of my back as he passes behind me, the contact brief. Bash leans into my shoulder while reaching for a spice jar on the shelf above my head, his body pressing lightly against mine before he steps away. Elias stations himself at the cutting board to my left, close enough that I find myself shifting slightly toward him without thinking.
My body seeks them out.
The realization no longer feels as complicated as it once did.
“We’re making pasta,” Adrian says, already pulling a pot from the cabinet. “ Its simple. Carbs and garlic. The kind of food that makes everything feel slightly less terrible.”
“Sounds perfect,” I say.
Bash hands me a knife and a clove of garlic. “You’re on peeling duty. No arguments.”
I take the knife. Our fingers brush in the exchange, and the contact sends a tingle through my hand that I no longer feel the need to analyze.
We cook. The four of us moving through the kitchen together feels nothing like the careful interactions of last time. Adrian tells a story about a director he worked with three years ago, his voice animated, his hands gesturing while the pasta water boils. Bash teases him about a detail he gets wrong, Adrian throws a dish towel at him, and Bash catches it one-handed without looking.
Elias chops vegetables, his movements efficient and controlled. He slides the finished pile toward Bash without speaking, and Bash incorporates them into the pan with a flick of his wrist that suggests he’s done this a thousand times.
I stand between them, peeling garlic and listening, and the domesticity of it fills a space I hadn't realized was empty.
Adrian's hand settles briefly at my waist as he reaches past me for the salt. Bash’s shoulder presses into mine when he leans across to stir the sauce. Elias stands close enough that the stone-and-musk of him becomes part of the air I’m breathing, and I don’t move away.
I lean into it instead.
I realize this no longer feels temporary.
We eat at the island because the dining room feels too formal for the kind of exhausted, loose-limbed comfort we’ve settled into. The pasta is garlicky and rich and exactly what my body needed. Conversation drifts, the topics all light and safe. The kind of talk that exists for the sake of connection rather than content. Bash tells a story about a location scout who got lost in the desert for six hours. Adrian laughs so hard he nearly knocks over his glass. Even Elias’s mouth curves at the edges, the closest thing to a smile I’ve seen from him all day.
I listen and eat while existing in the circle of their attention without constantly monitoring my own reactions. Adrian switches on a lamp in the corner, and the room is covered in shadow. Bash leans against the counter while Elias rinses the last pot at the sink.
The emotional weight of the day catches up with me all at once.
Not the spiraling anxiety I've been fighting since this started. Something heavier. The production meeting. James Chen's careful, kind voice telling me I was being redistributed. Crying in Nadia's arms until my face hurt. The clinic, the examination, the blood draw, hearing everything about my body stated in clinical terms that made it impossible to deny. The room upstairs with its blankets and soft light and the devastating evidence that I am wanted here.
The memories press in from every direction, leaving me with the sudden urge to move. I need air, or space, or something that isn't the thickness gathering in my throat.
I drift toward the hallway without fully deciding to. My feet carry me upstairs, back toward the blue room, drawn by the same instinct that pulled me toward the house after that production meeting. My desire for safety, comfort, and somewhere soft to put down everything I've been carrying.
The alphas notice immediately.
Adrian’s voice follows me from the kitchen, gentle and concerned. “Maya? You okay?”
“Fine,” I call back. It's not entirely a lie. Nothing is wrong exactly. I'm just full. Too full to hold anything else.
Bash appears at the bottom of the stairs. “Tea? Water? There’s those electrolyte things the doctor mentioned, or I could make—”
“I’m good,” I say. “Just tired.”
He nods, reading whatever is on my face with an accuracy that should frighten me but doesn’t. “Okay. Yell if that changes.”
