Last week, Santos found the crackers I've been craving.
He had an entire crate of them delivered to the island. The crate appeared on the kitchen counter one morning withno note. Just the crate, three sleeves visible through the slats, exactly the right brand, exactly the right flavor.
I stood there looking at it for a moment. Then I opened a sleeve and ate one standing at the counter.
Santos came in twenty minutes later. He poured himself coffee from the pot, leaned against the counter, and looked at the crate.
"Good?" he said.
"Perfect," I said.
He nodded once, satisfied, and we stood there in companionable silence while I ate another cracker and he drank his coffee and neither of us said anything else about it. Then he left. I ate four more crackers.
Tomas doesn't do gestures, he's different from Santos in that way. What he did was find the taco truck. It had so many outstanding fines on it that Ricardo had simply walked away from it. Tomas cleared every one, down to the last dime. He mentioned it once, in passing, and did not bring it up again.
Matteo sorted out the contract. He ensured I had money in my bank account and structured everything so I would feel safe and independent at the same time. I read every clause. We went back and forth on a few I didn't like.
"This clause," I said, pointing to it across the desk.
"What about it?" he said.
"Change it," I said.
He changed it. Then I signed it, left it on the counter, and when I came back it was gone.
The other thing that has not changed, despite the bonding and the pack and the contract and all of it, is Friday nights.
I still go to play cards with the staff. Bea claims I hustled her because I've started to win.
"You're a poor loser, Bea," I told her last week.
"I don't like losing, that's for sure," she said, without a trace of apology.
I wish I actually was a hustler. Then I wouldn't have ended up on this island desperate for money and a place to live. I've just had time on my hands to up my game. Miguel still shuffles as if his life depends on it. Dario still goes slightly pink when I beat him, which I find endearing every single time. I have been studying Pepe's tell and it is definitely the left shoulder.
Matteo was not happy about it when he found out.
"It's not a good idea," he said, "you spending your evenings playing cards with the ground staff."
I put my tea down.
"They are people, Matteo," I said. "Not just staff. They are people who work hard on this island and have been kind to me since the moment I arrived. Elara is my friend. Bea made me a cake when I went through my preheat and didn't ask a single question about it. I am going to play cards with them on Friday nights for as long as they will have me."
He was quiet for a moment.
"You're right," he said.
This is when I understood that Matteo can occasionally be a little bit of a snob, but to his credit he heard me and adjusted. Last week he asked how the game went. Santos made focaccia to send along with me, and everybody ate it, and Bea said it was decent, which from Bea is high praise.
It has been good. Having somewhere else to be on Friday evenings. Having people to talk to who are not my alphas and are not Anna on the phone.
My omega has nothing to say about any of this.
She has been quiet for three weeks. Not suppressed, just settled. At peace in the way of something that has found what it was looking for and stopped searching. It makes me feel good in a way I did not know I was missing.
"Morning beautiful, do you need a hand?" Santos asks as he enters.
I shake my head. "It's all in hand."