I finish the marble. Heavy pot, lower shelf, left side. Good knives back on the strip, widest to narrowest. Herb garden trimmings in the compost bin. Full pass, end to end.
Then I make tea from whatever is in the cloth bags in the pantry, which turns out to be a local herb blend that takes three sips to win me over but does eventually win me over, and I take it to the window.
The sunset is doing the most.
Genuinely. Orange going deep pink going something I don't have a name for, the water below the garden wall catching all of it and throwing it back in pieces. My old apartment had a window that faced the side wall of the building next door. Eight inches of sky if you stood at the right angle. In winter, one hour of direct light in the afternoon if you were lucky. I used to plan my coffee break around it.
Eight inches.
I stand here with my tea and look at the whole sky going absolutely feral with color and I think about the baby the way I do sometimes now, not the three-in-the-morning version that requires talking down, not the logistics version, not the panic version. The other one. The one where she's just real. Mine and real, and the future is somewhere I'm walking toward instead of something sitting on my chest.
She shifts.
"I know," I say. "It's a lot."
The breeze comes off the garden, warm and salt-sweet, and then underneath it, just for a second, something else. Dark and clean, like good wood with heat underneath. My nose finds it and holds it before it moves on, gone before I can decide what to do about it.
I know that scent.
Again!
Matteo.
I stand exactly where I am, both hands around the mug, and I wait until my nose confirms it's gone. Which it does. Eventually.
My omega sulks briefly.
I rinse the mug, put it back where it belongs, turn off the kitchen light, and walk back up the shell path to my room. The water is just audible below the hill. The stars are doing their excessive island thing overhead, more than feels reasonable, like the sky has been saving them up.
I get into bed, pull the covers up, and stare at the ceiling fan.
At least the billionaires kept their distance tonight, I think. I should feel good about that. I do feel good about that.
My omega snorts.
"You're a terrible liar," she says.
"Good night," I tell her.
There’s a knock at my door, and I think maybe Matteo has decided to stop being a stalker and just come to the door.
Oh, it’s not Matteo, but even better, it’s Elara.
She’s in the corridor with her natural hair down and a cardigan that has seen better days and an expression of someone who fully expects to be told no and is asking anyway.
"Card game," she says. "If you're still up for it. No pressure if you're too tired."
I am, but I could do with company too.
"Give me five minutes," I say.
She beams.
The staff common room is at the far end of the building, a low-ceilinged room with mismatched chairs and a table that has clearly been used for exactly this purpose many times before, its surface ringed with the evidence of previous Friday nights. A ceiling fan turns overhead. Someone has brought a portable speaker that is playing something with a good bass line at a reasonable volume.
There are six of them when I walk in.
Miguel is already at the table, shuffling with the practiced ease of a man who takes cards seriously. Beside him is a woman named Priya, beta, early thirties, who runs the guest laundry and has the composed manner of someone who has seen the inside of enough strangers' suitcases to be permanently unshockable. Across from her is a young alpha named Dario, barely twenty, broad-shouldered and still growing into himself, who works the dock with Miguel and goes slightly pink when introduced to me, which I find extremely endearing. Next to him is Bea, an older beta woman with silver-streaked locs who manages the housekeeping rotation and who looks at me with the assessing calm of someone deciding whether I am going to be a problem or an asset.