Page 10 of The Alpha Under My Bed

Telling myself he had always been like this.

That nothing had changed.

Because I couldn’t face myself if it had.

Three

MALCOLM

Ellie’s apartmentwas too fucking small.

I’d known it from the first time I stepped inside. One cramped little room with no real walls—just a half-formed kitchen, a couch shoved into the corner, and a sad excuse for a nest she had to tear down every morning just to make space.

It wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. Omegas were supposed to have rooms for their nests—realones, permanent spaces, somewhere safe and untouched, somewhere no one else could go.

Not this.

I tightened the wrench in my grip, forcing my fingers to loosen before I snapped the fucking thing in half.

“This faucet’s a piece of shit,” I muttered, twisting the rusted pipe under her sink.

Ellie glanced up from her phone, frowning. “Mal, you don’t have to?—”

“I got it,” I cut in, not looking at her.

She sighed, but I could feel her watching me—feel the way she hesitated, like she wanted to argue but knew it wouldn’t doany good. Because it wouldn’t. I wasn’t going to sit here and watch her live like this. She deserved more.

I had spent the past three years fixing every fucking thing I could for her—changing her air filters, oiling the squeaky hinges on her doors, replacing burnt-out light bulbs before she even noticed they were out. Anything to make her life easier. Anything to keep her safe. Because if she wasn’t okay, nothing was okay.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to focus on the task in front of me, but my chest was too tight, my skin too hot. Every time I left, the hollow ache in my ribs got worse. Every time she looked at me like I was just her friend, the sharp edge of it sank in deeper.

She was my everything. And she didn’t even fucking know it.

“Mal.” Her voice was softer this time. I heard the way she shifted, the small sound of her phone being set on the counter.

I didn’t look up. Didn’t want to see whatever expression was on her face—grateful, confused, something else. Instead, I turned the wrench again, felt the pipe finally give, the last bit of rust cracking under my grip.

Fixed.

Just like everything else. Just like what she did to me.

“There,” I said, wiping my hands on the rag beside me before pushing to my feet. “It won’t leak anymore.”

Ellie shook her head, a soft smile playing at her lips. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

I hummed, grabbing a beer from her fridge like it was mine. Because it was. Because I stocked it.

She watched me, her phone lighting up where she’d left it on the counter.

I already knew what it was before she even reached for it. I took a slow sip, waiting.

I knew the second she got the notification. She made this little noise, barely a sound, but I caught it—the tiny hitch in her breath, the flicker of excitement that tightened her shoulders before she forced herself to relax.

I rolled the bottle between my fingers as she opened the TCI app.

I hated that fucking thing. Hated the way it gave her hope, like it was anything more than a system designed to set her up for disappointment. As if I’d ever let a match work out because a lab said that my Ellie was compatible with some fucking douchebag.

But I said nothing. I just let my eyes skim over her face, tracking every little change as she read the results.

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