He looks at the counter. Then at me. Then he sets down the cloth he's been holding. He comes around the island and sits on the stool with a huff, like he’s proving a point. “Happy?”
“You look like you’re going to start cleaning the stool you’re sitting on.” I tease.
The corner of his mouth twitches. He doesn’t deny it.
I come and sit beside him, pulling my feet up onto the rungs. Outside a bird starts chirping somewhere in the garden.
“People are usually surprised,” he says, after a while. He says it to the counter, not quite to me. “When they actually get to know me.”
I wait.
“They expect something different.” He rolls one shoulder, loose. “A Loud alpha that needs everything handled for him and takes up all the space. That’s what they expect.” He glances at me sideways. “That’s not me.”
“I know,” I say.
“You didn’t when we started.” He’s not challenging it, just stating it accurately. “You kept waiting for me to become a problem.”
I can’t argue that.
“Growing up,” he says, then pauses, choosing his words with more care than he usually does. “If I was useful, people wanted me around. If I noticed things before anyone asked, if I kept things running, if I stayed ahead of what people needed.” He looks down at his hands. “It became instinct. It’s just how I am now.”
His words resonate with me in a place where I keep the parts of myself I haven’t shown anyone.
Because I know that calculation. I’ve been running it my entire career. Stay useful, stay efficient, anticipate every need before it’s spoken, make yourself indispensable. Earn the space you take up by making sure it’s always worth something to someone else.
I’ve been doing it since my first production job at twenty-two, when I figured out that the betas who made no demands and solved every problem were the ones who got called back. I built an entire professional identity around it without ever examining whether I’d had a choice.
“I do it too,” I say.
He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Yeah. I know.”
We sit in silence for a moment.
Eventually, Bash gets to his feet and holds out a hand.
I eye it suspiciously.
“Trust me,” he says.
“That has never once reassured anyone,” I inform him.
His grin widens, and I take his hand anyway.
He leads me into the living room, and the moment we reach the couch he grabs the remote.
“We’re watching something,” he says. “Non-negotiable.”
“What are we watching?” I ask, already fighting a smile.
He pulls up a streaming menu and navigates with purpose. I catch the title a second before it loads and I turn to look at him.
“You’re not serious,” I say.
He looks at me with complete seriousness. “It’s a cultural artifact.”
“It is a terrible reality competition show from fifteen years ago where people try to survive on a fake deserted island and it’s very obvious nothing about the island is actually deserted.”
“The production design is interesting.”
