He doesn't ask why half the nest's under his desk. He doesn't ask what Victor said, or whether Dorian did something, or whether I'm sure I'm not overreacting.
He walks to the edge of the blankets and crouches in front of me. His hand comes to the back of my neck, warm and heavy, thumb pressing once beneath my hair.
"Good," he says, voice low with fatigue. "Stay close."
Luther stands after a moment and steps carefully over Samuel's dinosaur sweatshirt. He sits at his desk without moving a single blanket. His laptop opens with a soft click, and the blue-white glow catches along the edge of his jaw, but he doesn't turn on the overhead light. He doesn't ask us to shift. He works around the shape my fear has made.
10
Luther
By the second day of Luca's nest staying in my office, I stop treating it like a temporary adjustment.
The first blanket had appeared behind my chair after the meeting with Victor and Dorian. The blue one followed before lunch, dragged from the family lounge because Samuel insisted it was the only blanket with "proper wall strength." By the end of the day, Rosalie's rabbit was tucked against the left leg of my desk, James's notebook rested beside a pillow, and Luca hadmade three separate claims about the light being better here, even though my office is dimmer than Blake's and half shadowed by legal shelves Maceo's been threatening to reorganize for years.
Luca's explanations matter less than his shoulders. Every time he steps into my office, they lower. Every time Victor's people step off the elevator, they rise again.
I stand at my conference table with the merger deck open across two screens and the marked contract packet spread under my hand. Outside the glass wall, Keller Industries keeps moving, but the floor's changed around us. People still cross the bullpen with tablets and coffee. Blake's developers still gather near the whiteboards, arguing quietly over launch stability and platform load. Phones ring, printers spit out revisions, and someone down the hall laughs too loudly at something that isn't funny enough to deserve it.
Underneath all of that, my family keeps shifting.
Blake's pulse is the easiest thing to see because he hates that I see it. He tucks his wrist under his cuff when the monitor vibrates. He grips his stylus until his knuckles pale, then catches himself and loosens his hand with deliberate care. He's perfected the art of looking composed while his body tells a different story. I let him keep the performance when he needs it because stripping every defense away at once only makes him build higher walls.
Maceo's stopped sitting anywhere without a sightline. He stands at the edge of conversations with his body angled toward the elevators. He answers calls while watching the hall. When he brings me coffee without being asked, his gaze stays on the bullpen beyond my office, tracking movement through the glass. I take the cup, catch his wrist for one second before he can step away, and hold him there. His eyes meet mine. Nothing needsto be said. He understands the thanks, the warning, and the instruction to stay ready before I let him go.
Grayson worries me differently.
He's spent the morning carrying things. Luca's tea, Rosalie's shoes, Samuel's ribbon, a stack of napkins, Blake's charger, James's notebook after James abandoned it near the lounge window and then panicked when he couldn't find it. Every time I see him, his hands are full. Every time someone asks whether he needs help, he's already moving toward someone else. His smile comes quickly, warm and easy enough that the children believe it, but when he thinks no one's watching, his mouth falls into a tired line.
I find him near the kitchenette with two paper cups balanced in one hand and the blue blanket folded over his other arm. He turns before I say his name.
"Luca asked for tea," he says, then tips his head toward the lounge, voice low so it doesn't carry. "Rosalie heard Victor's assistant by the elevator and climbed into Blake's arms so fast he nearly dropped his tablet. James asked me if some people can smell wrong, and Samuel told the receptionist he doesn't like the shiny man."
The last part settles heavily between us. Samuel's language is blunt because he's five and because five-year-olds don't waste time sanding the edges off instinct.
"What did you tell James?" I ask.
Grayson's fingers tighten around the cups. "That sometimes our bodies notice things before we can explain them, and he should always tell us when someone makes him feel unsafe." He glances past me toward the hall, already looking for the next person who might need him. "I think he wanted a more scientific answer."
"That was the right one."
He exhales, but his body stays braced. Samuel runs past the doorway with Rosalie's ribbon looped around his wrist and calls out that he's "checking perimeters," and Grayson's attention snaps after him before the boy even finishes the sentence. I take the cups from Grayson's hand and set them on the counter. He looks at me in faint surprise, as if I've interrupted a process he didn't realize he was trapped inside.
I put my hand at the back of his neck and draw him close.
He comes because he trusts me, but he doesn't stop watching the hall. His eyes track Samuel's movement, then shift toward Blake's office, then toward the lounge where Luca's reading to the kids in a voice soft enough to settle everyone except himself. I press my thumb into the tense muscle below Grayson's skull, and only then does he close his eyes.
"Gray," I say against his hair.
"I'm okay."
"You answered before I asked."
That makes him quiet, and the quiet's worth more than another denial. I kiss his temple, then the corner of his mouth. He leans into me for half a breath, one hand closing around my sleeve, the other still caught in the blanket. The office continues around us. Someone's phone rings. Blake says Rosalie's name in the tone that means she's climbing something. Maceo's shoes pass the doorway and pause, then continue when he sees Grayson against me.
Grayson's voice is quieter when he speaks again. "Blake's worse today."
"I know."
