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How could I trust him?
He could literally be having a heart attack, and he would still sit there and tell me everything was fine.
“Dada!” Kyla hollered, shaking me from my internal war. She came barging into the kitchen and babbled rapidly about something only Archie understood.
He picked her up, positioning her on his hip, and went over to stir whatever was cooking in the pot. I was guessing soup.
“I know, darling. I know. It’s a travesty,” he was saying. “However, this is the rule. When you start yawning, I’m dropping you on the bed. Your nap time is sacred to me. Do you understand?”
Kyla continued babbling—and gesturing. She might not be biologically Master Greer’s, but man, she took after our loud New Yorker already. I’d seen him gesture like that.
“Do you understand a word she’s saying?” I asked, a little amused.
“Approximately two words out of a hundred,” Archie laughed softly. “Right now, I know she’s gearing up to fight nap time. Like she does every other day after her lunch. I sit her down in front of the TV to tire her out a bit, and then she will either fight me or just doze off.”
That wasn’t entirely unlike Noa after heavy play when KC ordered him to nap.
* * *
One day, Kyla would learn that you couldn’t send an exhausted army into battle. She put up a brave fight but dropped within five minutes, and by the time Archie came back from putting her down for her nap, lunch was ready.
I wasn’t allowed to do anything, something that made me feel restless. I just sat down at the dining room table and waited.
Master Greer had built this table. It was sturdy, like his presence. Solid, heavy, could take a beating. The dark wooden surface held traces of condensation rings, cuts, and possibly some kids’ outbursts with forks.
Archie set a bowl of soup in front of me, and a bread basket ended up in the middle. The soup smelled incredible—it had chicken and vegetables in it.
After a quick return to the kitchen, Archie was back with spoons and drinks.
He went all out like I enjoyed doing for my family. It was Macklin who’d once taught me that everything nonalcoholic should still look like something you could charge for. Lemonade should look like a cocktail, with crushed ice and a slice of fruit—whatever your Owner preferred.
Lucian liked cherries. And cranberry juice. Grapes too—he loved grapes. Sometimes, I froze them to act like ice cubes. He liked that.
I took a sip of the lemonade, and an exotic burst awoke all my senses. Lemon, lime, pineapple.
“Do you have a recipe for this?” I asked.
“The lemonade?” Archie sat down across from me. “No, you just throw all the fruit that’s about to expire into your blender, add water, a little bit of honey or agave syrup—and if you run a household of kids who make faces at pulp, pour it through a strainer before it goes into the pitcher.”
I managed to match his quick grin. A little bit of honey or agave syrup—I was gonna remember that. It sure beat a truckload of sugar. Master couldn’t have too much sugar anyway. Or red meat, or saturated fats, or…
Too much work.
I sighed internally and dropped my gaze to the food.
It didn’t fucking matter how many adjustments I made to Lucian’s diet, because what he ate wasn’t a major problem. Not that his takeout lunches with Noa did him any favors, but a burger was nothing compared to working overtime for twenty freaking years.
I had some wonderful friends in our community, and I’d learned a lot from them. Like Macklin and Tate—they’d told me a bunch about stress and burnout symptoms. How much of an impact stress had on one’s heart. But did it fucking matter? I could stand there in the kitchen all hours of the day and come up with healthier options, and then Lucian would go off to work, reassure me everything was fine, and then he’d keel over in between meetings, maybe pop a pill or two, and keep going.
That was the future I saw. His career meant so much to him, and it fucking broke me.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
I looked up from my food, and the sympathy—the knowing—in his eyes made me too tired to bullshit. It was why I’d asked to come here anyway. To talk to Archie. And I’d thought I was done; I’d cried on his shoulder till three in the morning, so he had all the details. He knew everything that’d happened and how shit had gone sideways. My fucking God, I’d rambled like Noa hopped up on sugar. When we had to remind him to breathe.
“I don’t know what to say, other than…” I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat. “I have to prepare myself for more of this—more of what happened last night—because I can’t see him slowing down.”
“And you can’t leave him,” he deduced.
