The heat in my face intensifies. He says it so matter-of-factly, like he isn't referring to the biological equivalent of a natural disaster.
We manage to finish putting dinner together. I don't do much of the work, and Bash doesn't argue about it a second time. Elias sets the table. Adrian pours water into four glasses.
Somehow, the kitchen finds its rhythm again.
Dinner is quiet. All three of them sit around me at the table. Adrian is on my left, Elias across from me, and Bash beside him. At some point, my knee comes to rest against Adrian's beneath the table. Neither of us moves away.
I keep thinking about the moment I grabbed him. The strength of the reaction. My body had an opinion, and it expressed that opinion before I had any say in the matter.
This is my alpha.
I need his scent right now.
End of discussion.
Not any alpha.
Him.
I poke at the food on my plate. The sauce is actually good, Bash’s cooking philosophy secrecy aside. I eat most of it before I realize I’ve been eating, which probably tells me something about how depleted I actually am.
Bash’s hand loosely settles over mine on the table. He doesn’t say anything. I turn my hand beneath his, and he threads his fingers through mine.
We stay like that through the rest of dinner.
After the plates are cleared, the kitchen gets wiped down, and the house settles into its evening sounds. Bash puts something on in the living room at a low volume.
Elias takes one end of the couch. I settle beside him. Adrian sits on my other side while Bash claims the opposite corner, stretching out like he owns the furniture.
At some point, Adrian takes one of my hands. Elias ends up holding the other. Neither of them makes a thing of it, and after everything that happened in the kitchen, neither do I.
Around nine, Adrian stands, stretches, and meets my eyes. “Try to sleep,” he says. He squeezes my hand once. “We’ll be here.”
He means it literally. That’s the part that keeps surprising me. It’s not a figure of speech. They will be here. Down the hall, in the same house, under the same roof, for whatever the next few days bring.
Elias stands a moment later and says goodnight as well. His eyes hold mine for a second, and his expression says everything he doesn’t put into words.
I get to my feet and hesitate.
My empty nest is upstairs waiting.
I'd be alone with my thoughts for the first time all day, with nothing to distract me from the reality that I’d been dismissed from the set.
“Bash,” I say.
He’s just pushing himself up from the couch. He pauses and looks at me.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” My voice drops on the question even though there’s no reason for it. “I just... I don’t want to be in there alone.”
He’s silent for a second.
Then he smiles.
“Yeah,” he says. “Of course I will.”
Relief moves through me so quickly my knees almost go weak.
We linger in the living room for a few more minutes, then turn off the lights and head upstairs together.
