Luca pulls back enough to look at me, his thumb brushing my jaw as his expression shifts from fond to hurt. "That's a lot of afters, Gray."
"I'm an ambitious man."
"You're a tired man." He says it gently, but it lands harder than the jokes. I help him down from the counter before he can make it softer, and he lets me, though he stays close while I reach for the tray and slide the first batch into the oven. His attention follows my hands. I know it does. I can feel it every time my fingers hesitate or overcorrect.
I make it through the first tray, the second bowl of frosting, and half of the cleanup before I need the pantry again. Sprinkles, I think. Or napkins. Or the little star toppers Rosalie chose and then abandoned when dragons became more important. The pantry's dimmer than the kitchen, and the relief of that nearly knocks the breath out of me. I reach for the pink sugar on the upper shelf and miss it the first time, my palm landing flat against the wood instead. For a few seconds, I stand there with my hand braced on the shelf, breathing through the sudden gray wash at the edge of my vision and listening to Luca move around the kitchen like normal life's still happening a few feet away.
Luther fills the pantry doorway without saying anything at first. He's in dark slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, his hair still damp from a shower he probably cut short because he felt something through the bond he didn't like. His gaze drops to my hand on the shelf, then to the jar I failed to grab, then to my face. I give him the smile I used on Luca earlier, though it feels thinner now. "Before you ask, the sprinkle situation's under control. The pink sugar and I are having a private strategy meeting."
Luther reaches past me, takes the jar down, and sets it on the lower shelf. Then his hand settles at my waist, gentle but firm, and he guides me back until my shoulders meet the pantry shelves. The movement's careful. That almost makes it worse. "Gray," he says, and my name in his mouth carries all the things he's been watching and waiting to say.
I lean into him before he can say any of them. My hands slide to his belt, my mouth finding the warm skin at his throat where his pulse is steady under my lips. He smells like clean soap, cedar, and the restraint he's been wearing all week. I kiss him there because I know exactly how his body answers me, and because wanting him's easier than letting him look at me like I'm one more thing in this house that might break.
For a minute, Luther lets the kiss linger. His hand spreads low on my back, his body warm and solid in the narrow pantry, and when I drag my mouth slowly up the side of his throat, his breath changes against my hair. My fingers curl tighter at his belt. I can feel his want, familiar and immediate, threaded through with worry he's trying not to turn into control. It'd be so easy to tip the moment into something I understand better than exhaustion. It'd be easy to make him want me enough that he forgets why he came in here.
Then his hand slides into my hair, fingers gentle at my scalp, and he draws me back from his throat with a care that makes it impossible to pretend he's rejecting me. His other hand catches my wrist and eases it away from his belt, holding it lightly against the shelf beside my hip. "No, baby," he says, close enough that his breath touches my mouth. "Not here. Not like this."
I try to smile, but it barely holds. "That's rude."
Luther doesn't laugh. His thumb moves over the inside of my wrist, right where my pulse is jumping, and his eyes stay on mineuntil the joke's got nowhere left to go. "You're using my want to dodge the question."
The breath leaves me slowly. My body still wants to lean back into him. It wants the kiss, the heat, the proof that I can still give him something he needs. Luther knows that. He knows me too well to mistake surrender for honesty when I'm this tired. I look away first, toward the shelves crowded with cereal boxes and party plates, and say, "I'm handling it."
"You're moving faster than anyone can stop you," he says, voice low enough that it doesn't become a fight. "The cupcakes can wait. Blake can drink the smoothie I already made him. Maceo can take the kitchen for ten minutes. Luca can sit with you."
I close my eyes. "The kids are going to wake up."
"Then they'll see us take care of you." Luther lets go of my wrist to cup my jaw, his thumb brushing once beneath my eye. "You hate lying to me. Don't start practicing now."
That gets through more cleanly than anything else. I touch the front of his shirt, fingers curling in the fabric because I need to hold on to something and because he's still offering me himself, just not the part I tried to use. "Ten minutes," I say, and it sounds like a bargain with a doctor.
"Ten minutes after you bring the sprinkles out," Luther says, kissing my forehead first and then my mouth, slow and brief and nothing like the kiss I started. This kiss gives instead of letting me take myself somewhere easier. "Then I'm counting."
I make it less than ten minutes.
The children come down in a burst of feet and morning noise, Samuel first in dinosaur socks, James behind him with his hair sticking up on one side, and Rosalie last with her crown crooked over her curls and a stuffed koala dressed in a pink doll tutu tucked under her arm. Samuel slides on flour and catches himself on the island, announcing that he smelled cupcakesfrom upstairs and that this is evidence of powers. Luca sets the cooling tray farther back before Samuel can reach it, while James stops beside me and studies my hands instead of the food.
"Why are you shaking?" James asks, his small face serious enough that the room seems to quiet around him. "Is the kitchen cold?"
I set the spatula down carefully because the shaking's harder to hide when a child names it. "Too much coffee, buddy. Birthday mornings require fuel."
James doesn't accept that. His gaze moves from my fingers to my face, then to the pantry door where Luther's standing with his arms folded and a look that says he heard the lie and hates it. Samuel climbs onto a stool and squints at me with equal seriousness. "You look sleep-angry," he says. "Like Papa Luther when he says he's fine but his eyebrows are fighting."
Luca turns toward the sink, and I can see his shoulders move with the effort of holding back a laugh that's tangled up with worry. I want to tell Samuel that my eyebrows are peaceful, actually, but Rosalie steps into my space before I can. Her crown slips over one eye, and she pushes it back with the weary authority of a person who's governed this family for almost four years.
"You are too bright," she says.
The words take the smile right out of my mouth. I crouch in front of her because standing suddenly feels too far away, and the floor tilts just enough that I brace one hand on the cabinet beside me. Rosalie puts her sticky palm on my cheek and frowns with Luther's exact disapproval. "Too bright?" I ask, keeping my voice soft.
She nods. "Like the big lights. You smile loud."
Luca comes closer, but he doesn't interrupt her. Luther stays by the pantry, jaw tight. James looks at the floor like he's trying to decide whether the house itself is shaking, and Samuelwhispers that he told us it was sleep-angry. The worst part's that none of them looks scared of me. They look worried for me, and somehow that's harder to stand under.
Maceo moves then. He's been in the doorway long enough that I don't know when he arrived, charcoal shirt buttoned, hair neat, eyes taking in the counters, the oven, the children, Luca's bitten lip, Luther's posture, and me on one knee with Rosalie's hand on my face. He says nothing at first. He simply crosses the kitchen, takes the frosting bowl from Luca, turns the oven off, moves the cooling trays away from Samuel, and hands James the stack of blank cupcake labels.
"Maceo," I begin, already pushing myself upright because the meal still needs prep and Blake still needs food and I haven't checked the allergy list against the school email.
He looks at me over the island while he wets a cloth under the faucet. "Sit down, Grayson."
