Page 97 of What We Become

“Good art challenges people.”

He dashes for the stairs before any of us agree, and because our collective response to Milo doing something alarming is apparently to follow him toward it, we clear the table and go after him.

He’s waiting in the master suite when I step out of the elevator, standing at the foot of the enormous bed with a long parcel wrapped in one of the kitchen towels. The fire is burning low in the stone surround, warming the room against the cold gathering on the other side of the glass, and Milo has turned on every lamp as if he’s about to auction something illegal.

Which, knowing him, he might be.

“Kitten.” He holds out his bandaged hand. “Front and center.”

I move closer while the others spread through the room behind me. Holden stays by the elevator with his arms folded, already braced for property damage. Knox takes up position by the fireplace, his attention fixed on the parcel.

“Before the unveiling, I’d like to explain my creative journey.” Milo lifts the parcel. “It began with disappointment. John Grisham gave me a judge who complained for several hundred pages and not one useful felony. Then I found the blue-mask book and, finally, an author brave enough to ask the important questions.”

“What questions?” I ask.

“What if knife, but sex?”

Holden looks at the ceiling like it might intervene.

Milo unwraps the parcel with a flourish, his bandaged hand wrapped firmly around the handle.

The blade is long and bright, polished until the firelight slides along its edge. What I can see of the handle is a pale honey-colored wood, sanded smooth and sealed to a deep shine. Even gripped in his hand, I can see the hours he’s put into it.

Milo made me a knife.

“The book had this scene,” he says, too excited to notice that every man behind me has gone still. “With a knife.”

“A sex scene?” Micah asks.

“Yes. And it’s excellent in theory but deeply irresponsible in execution. I went downstairs to inspect Odin’s knives and discovered that most commercially manufactured handles are a vaginal disaster. There are rivets. Seams. Aggressive angles. One had a decorative ridge that could sand the finish off a table.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “You were worried about my vagina?”

“Your delicate insides,” he corrects. “I learned a lot about the female reproductive system when I researched your menstrual cycle. Cuts, abrasions, and infections are all mood killers. So I found the smoothest wood available, designed a more anatomically considerate handle, sanded it through eight grades, and applied three coats of body-safe resin.”

Eli’s attention snaps to the knife in Milo’s bandaged hand. “How long did you let that cure?”

“For exactly as long as it needed. I’m chaotic, not negligent.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive,” Holden mutters.

“I also created a sanitation protocol, because the blade can still be used for murder.” Milo flips the towel over to reveal a hand-drawn chart. “Murder and masturbation are separate hygienic events. I can’t believe I need to say that.”

“You didn’t need to at all,” Micah says.

“I absolutely did. Some of you heathens have a blood kink.” He looks pointedly at Holden.

“Okay, you’ve obviously put a lot of thought into this,” Eli says, still eyeing the knife. “But what are you genuinely expecting to happen here?”

“This.” Milo places one knee on the corner of the bed, raises the knife, and drives the blade into the mattress.

The entire room freezes.

The handle stands upright in the corner, and now that it’s positioned the way he intended, there is no mistaking what he’s carved. The smooth wooden shaft has a slight upward curve, a defined head, and enough careful attention to proportion that I’m forced to reassess the artistic merit of the tax-paying cat carving downstairs.

Holden is the first to find his voice.

“You just fucking stabbed a hole in a mattress on a bed that isn’t ours.”