"I know," Luther answers, and the two words are quiet enough that they don't become a performance.
Grayson carries me down the hall. The children's voices follow for a few seconds before Luther redirects them. Rosalie askswhether Papa drank the tea. Luther says he did. Samuel asks if the dinosaur can visit me because it also had a medical morning. James tells him that's not how medical relevance works, which means he's worried enough to organize the conversation around facts.
I close my eyes and let Grayson carry me. By the time we reach the bedroom, my chest hurts in the slow, deep way that means I'll have to admit it if anyone asks the right question. Grayson lowers me onto the bed with more care than I deserve at the moment. Luca's already there, moved from the office nest without waking fully, curled beneath the blankets with one of Grayson's sweaters tucked under his cheek. His face's pale with exhaustion, but his breathing's even.
I reach for him too quickly and Grayson catches my wrist gently. "Slow, babe."
The correction's quiet, and because it's quiet, I hear it. I shift closer to Luca with care, sliding under the blanket beside him instead of pulling him into me like proof. Luca stirs when I settle, his eyes opening only halfway.
"Bear?" he whispers.
"I'm here." My voice breaks around the words, and I press my lips to his forehead before I can say too much and wake him all the way. "I'm here, Cupcake. I'm sorry."
His hand finds the front of my shirt and curls there, small and warm and trusting even half-asleep. "Stay."
"I am."
Grayson sits on the edge of the bed with a plate in one hand, and the sight of it makes my stomach turn before hunger can do anything useful. Toast, eggs, sliced fruit, the kind of food arranged by someone who knows I'll do better if I don't have to choose. He doesn't push it toward me yet. He only sits where I can see him and rests the plate on his lap.
"When your stomach settles, you're going to eat some of this," he says, his voice low enough not to pull Luca fully awake. "Not all of it if you can't. Enough that Quentin doesn't show up here with that disappointed doctor face you hate."
I nod because arguing would take more energy than the food. Maceo appears in the doorway a few minutes later. He doesn't bring the laptop in, and the absence of it makes my fingers flex against the blanket before I can stop them. He sets a glass of water beside the plate, then puts my monitor charger on the nightstand. My phone's still not visible.
"Where is it?" I ask.
"In my pocket."
"Maceo."
"No work messages come into this room right now." His voice is calm, but there's nothing negotiable under it. "If there's a real emergency, Luther'll hear about it before you do. If there's a fake emergency dressed like one, I'll enjoy deleting it."
Under other circumstances, that might make me smile. Right now, I'm too tired to do anything but let my eyes close for a second. Luca shifts closer, his forehead pressing against my chest, and I put my hand carefully over his back.
Grayson watches me for a long moment. When he speaks again, the firmness hasn't left him, but the hurt's there too, quieter now that the room's not full of screens and children and the sound I made at him. "You scared me."
I open my eyes to see the tension around his mouth. The tiredness beneath his eyes. The fact that he's got food in his lap and one hand on my shin because even angry, even hurt, he's still making sure I'm warm.
"I know," I say. "I'm sorry. I need you to know that I know it mattered. I'm not sorry because you're upset with me. I'm sorry because I put something in the room that should never have been aimed at you."
Grayson's throat moves. He looks down at the plate for a second, then back at me. "I know you're sorry, and I know you love us. I also need you to let this be serious without turning it into another thing you punish yourself for. Rest first. Food when you can. Then we talk when you're not half-conscious and trying to confess your way out of needing care."
The words are too much and exactly enough.
Maceo steps into the room, not toward me, but toward the chair by the window where I apparently left my laptop bag yesterday. I'd forgotten it was there. Of course he hadn't. He lifts it by the strap and carries it out without comment and leaves the bedroom door open.
16
Blake
The nest's quiet when I wake, but not in a way that lets me stay asleep. Luca's curled near the center with Rosalie tucked against his side and both boys sprawled across the blankets, Samuel's foot pressed against James's thigh and James's hand resting on Luca's wrist like some part of him's still checking that everyone stayed where they were supposed to. Rosalie's crown sits on the pillow above her head, crooked and glittering in the low light from the hall.
It should settle me. For a few seconds, I lie still and try to let it. My heart's not racing, which feels like a small mercy I don't trust. There's only pressure behind my ribs, dull and steady, the kind that doesn't set off alarms but still makes me aware of every breath I take. Luca's scent is soft and sweet, threaded through with sleep. The children breathe in uneven little rhythms around him, safe enough that the room should feel full.
Luther and Maceo aren't in the bed.
That's what woke me. I turn my head toward the spaces where they should be and stare at the shadows for another breath, waiting for one of them to appear in the doorway with water, a blanket, or some explanation that doesn't make the bond feel pulled tight in the dark. No one comes. The house is still, but somewhere beyond the bedroom there's a low murmur of voices, too faint to make out at first, then clearer when I sit up and the blanket slides from my shoulder.
Luther. Maceo.
