Page 72 of What We Don't Say: Part One

Garrett’s mouth tightens. “Hierarchy isn’t a dirty word.”

“It is when it decides where Calliope is allowed to reach.”

His eyes sharpen. For a moment, the reasonable mask thins, and I see frustration underneath it, clean and cold. Then he smooths it away and glances back toward the den.

“I’m trying to keep anyone from being hurt,” he says.

“So am I.”

We stand there with the den warm behind us, listening to Sloane murmur something low to Calliope and Theo answer with a soft sound. Garrett hears an Omega close to heat, two Alphas on edge, and a Beta who might take too much onto herself. I hear the same room and see Theo choosing Calliope’s hand after every one of us has spent the morning proving he can trust our bodies.

Garrett steps back first. “Then we’ll keep watching.”

Theo

Garrett’s office smells like cold mint, leather, paper, and the polish he uses on the desk when he wants the room to feel less like work. I know that because I’ve been in here twice now, and both times he’s let me touch things without making me feel like I’m being tested.

I try to sit in the chair across from him. I put my hands in my lap and keep my ankles crossed, but my skin feels too full today, too aware of the hallway, the kitchen, the stairs, every sound that might be Callie moving through the house. Garrett doesn’t tellme to sit still. He only glances up when my hand finds the small brass compass on the shelf near the framed photograph of the lake house.

“That one opens,” he says, his pen still moving over the document in front of him. He looks back down like he trusts me with it, and that makes my chest loosen enough for me to breathe.

I turn the compass carefully until the lid clicks. The needle trembles beneath the glass, restless even though I’m standing still, and I like that too much. Something can be held safely in a round brass case and still want to move.

Garrett signs the bottom of a page and slides it into one of the neat stacks on his desk. “Idris has been reviewing the security language for the Rourke transition file, and Sloane keeps pretending he’s not still the only person alive who can make sense of Kade’s archive system. I’m beginning to suspect competence is his favorite form of martyrdom.”

I look over at him because Sloane’s name always pulls my attention. Garrett’s mouth curves like he knows it, but the smile doesn’t feel sharp. It feels like he’s letting me sit near the part of the house that keeps moving when everyone else is asleep.

“Everyone here has work they should probably complain about less,” Garrett says, opening another folder and tapping the edge of the papers into place. “Idris has contracts. Sloane has old ghosts in server rooms. I have clients who think calling me six times turns panic into strategy.”

My thumb follows the cool ridge of the compass. The question slips out small, barely more than breath, but Garrett hears it anyway. “Callie?”

His pen pauses for less than a second. Then he keeps writing, his voice even and easy. “Calliope teaches literature and ethics, which sounds quieter than it is. Students in crisis, conductpanels, department politics, all of it wrapped in committee language so no one has to admit it’s messy.”

“She’s good,” I say, and my face warms because it comes out too fast. I know the way she reads emails with her mouth pressed tight and then answers them gently anyway. I know the way her students’ names stay in her head after she closes the laptop.

“She is.” Garrett reaches for a gray folder near his elbow and glances through the top page. “She’s good enough that Halston sent over an offer for her to consider. Stronger department, better title, more room to grow. She’s earned that.”

My head lifts before I know I’ve moved. The compass goes still in my hands, the brass suddenly too hard against my palm, and Garrett notices because he notices everything. He turns one page, thoughtful and calm, like this is ordinary house talk.

“It’s far, of course,” he says. “Farther than I’d like, selfishly. Still, I think it may be good for her.”

The compass clicks shut too hard.

The sound cracks through the office, bright and wrong, and my fingers lock around the brass until the edge presses into my palm. Garrett looks at my hand, then at my face, and the concern in his expression makes my throat close faster.

“Theo,” he says softly. “Careful.”

I put the compass back on the shelf. My hand misses the first time and bumps the wood, but I get it settled in its place before Garrett can stand. “Water,” I say, because that’s smaller than asking where Halston is.

“There’s water in the den.” Garrett leans back in his chair, watching me in a way that feels warm until it feels too warm. “Do you want me to walk with you?”

I shake my head. “I’m okay.” The words scrape a little, but they come out clear enough, so I use them to get myself into the hall before the room can ask more of me.

The hallway is too bright after Garrett’s office. The house isn’t loud, but every sound has a secret under it now: water moving upstairs, a delivery truck passing outside, the faint clink of a spoon against ceramic near the kitchen. Then Callie laughs once, soft and surprised, and my whole body turns toward it.

She’s home because she doesn’t have afternoon classes today. She said that at breakfast, smiling over her mug while Sloane tried to steal toast from her plate and Idris told him to act like someone had fed him before. She said she’d grade from the house and complain about commas where people could hear her.

She’s home, and there’s an offer somewhere far away with her name on it. She’s home, and the house suddenly feels like something I need to hold together with both hands before it changes shape around me.