“We all care whether you make it home, Sable.”
She looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw something vulnerable in her expression. “I know. That’s what scares me.”
I wanted to ask what she meant. Wanted to push for more honesty, more openness, more of whatever was happening between the four of us. But I’d learned that Sable shared things in her own time, and pushing only made her retreat.
“Same time tomorrow?” I asked instead.
“Same time.” She picked up her coffee. “And Beau? I’m glad you keep showing up. Even when I’m terrible at saying thank you.”
“You just did.”
That afternoon, I got a message from Silas.Lunch with Sable. She’s asking about scent compatibility. I think her suppressants are failing again.
I stared at that message, my heart rate picking up. Scent compatibility. The thing all three of us had noticed but none of us had mentioned. The reason we could all be in the same room without our alphas competing. The reason her scent called to all of us in ways that shouldn’t be possible.
Dane’s response came quickly.Don’t push. Let her process.
Silas replied.I’m not pushing. I’m just telling her that sometimes your body knows what it wants before your head catches up.
Smart. Honest. The kind of answer that gave her information without pressure.
My response was simpler.How did she react?
Silas took a few minutes to reply.Scared. But also curious. I think she’s figuring it out.
Figuring out that we were scent-compatible. All four of us. The kind of rare match that most people spent their lives searching for.
Figuring out that the friendship we’d been building for the past six weeks had a foundation in biology as much as choice.
Figuring out that maybe, just maybe, the three alphas who kept showing up in her life weren’t going away.
That evening, I drove past her apartment without meaning to. Didn’t stop. Didn’t text. Just needed to know she’d made it home safely, the same way Dane apparently needed to know.
Her lights were on. She was safe.
I kept driving, but something had shifted. We’d moved past friendship into something that felt inevitable. Something that terrified me as much as it pulled me forward.
Because Sable mattered. Not just as an interesting omega or a professional colleague. She mattered in the way that meant failing her would break something fundamental inside me.
And I’d already failed once. Already knew what it felt like to be too slow, too careful, too focused on doing things right instead of just doing them.
But when I thought about Sable, I didn’t think about failure. I thought about coffee at six in the morning. About quiet conversations that made nightmares feel less overwhelming. About the way she looked at me sometimes like she saw past the guilt to the person I’d been before that rescue went wrong.
Like maybe I could be that person again, if she was willing to help me find him.
My phone buzzed with a message from the group text.
Dane had sent it. Just two words.
She’s safe.
Because he’d driven past her apartment too. Because we were all doing the same thing, checking on her in our own ways, making sure she was okay.
Silas’s response came immediately.We’re all disasters.
My reply was honest.Yeah. But at least we’re coordinated disasters.
Dane’s final message made me smile despite everything.Semper Fi.
