Chapter 16 #3
"He's not always coping," I say. "Sometimes he's just moving so no one notices he needs someone to take things out of his hands."
Luther looks toward the house, where the upstairs windows glow warm against the dark. "Then we notice."
Maceo nods. "Then we take things out of his hands."
The house is warm when we step inside, too warm against my face and hands.
I kick off the useless sneakers and hold very still when blood starts returning to my toes.
Luther looks like he's about to say something about my feet.
I lift one finger. He closes his mouth. Maceo goes straight to the kitchen cabinet where Grayson keeps the medication tray organized, and Luther keeps one hand at the back of my neck as we follow.
The domestic simplicity of it makes something in my chest twist. Maceo opens the small labeled compartment, checks the pill against the schedule, and fills a glass of water.
He doesn't lecture me. That almost makes it worse.
Luther stands beside me, close enough that his warmth presses along my arm, and neither of them lets the moment become optional.
Maceo places the pill in my palm. "Take it."
I stare at it for one second too long, not because I don't intend to, but because there's something humiliating about the proof sitting there in my hand.
My body's not a theory. My promises aren't a substitute for medication.
The anger that dragged us outside doesn't make me less responsible for the thing I forgot.
I put the pill on my tongue and swallow it with half the water.
Maceo watches my throat, then takes the glass when I hand it back. "Thank you."
The words surprise me.
Luther's hand moves once over the back of my neck. "That's part of the pact too, love. Not just telling us after something goes wrong. Letting us help before it does."
I nod. I can't make myself answer right away, so I lean into him for two breaths and let that be enough.
We move toward the Nest together.
The door's open. The room's soft with low light and the deep, layered scent of sleeping family.
Luca's in the center of the bed with Rosalie tucked against his chest, her crown back on her head because she apparently put it there before surrendering to sleep.
Samuel's asleep sideways across the lower blankets, one arm flung over a dinosaur.
James is curled on Luca's other side, his notebook trapped under his elbow and a pencil still caught loosely in his fingers.
Grayson's sitting up beside them.
For a second, I think he's awake. His back's against the headboard, one hand resting on James's ankle, the other on Samuel's calf.
A half-read book lies open in his lap. His head's tipped slightly to one side, hair falling over his face, mouth parted in sleep.
He looks uncomfortable. He looks pale under the softness of the lamplight.
He looks like he stayed upright because lying down would mean admitting he was done.
Luther stops beside me.
I don't say anything.
I don't have to.
He looks at Grayson, then at Luca and the kids, then back at Grayson's hands still keeping count of small bodies even in sleep. Whatever he sees lands heavily enough that his scent changes. Not anger. Not guilt alone. Recognition, sharp and painful.
"You were right," he says quietly.
It should feel satisfying. It doesn't. I don't want to be right about this. I want Grayson to have been secretly fine. I want all of us to have more room than we do.
Maceo moves first. He crosses to the bed and eases the book from Grayson's lap, slow enough not to startle him.
Luther goes to the other side and slides one arm behind Grayson's shoulders.
Grayson makes a soft, exhausted sound, barely waking, and his hand tightens automatically around James's ankle before Luther presses a kiss to his temple.
"I've got him," Luther murmurs.
That reaches whatever part of Grayson's still counting. His fingers loosen.
Maceo lifts Grayson's legs onto the bed while Luther guides him down into the pillows.
Grayson doesn't wake fully. He only turns toward the warmth, one hand finding Luther's sleeve, then falling open when Maceo pulls a blanket over him.
Luca shifts in his sleep and reaches back without opening his eyes, fingers brushing Grayson's arm like he knows exactly who's been placed beside him.
I stand there for one more second with Luther's coat heavy over my shoulders and the medicine sitting like a small, necessary truth in my stomach.
Then I climb in carefully, sliding into the space between Luca and Grayson. Luca's hand finds mine immediately. Grayson's breathing is deep and uneven, the kind of sleep that catches hard after being fought too long. I rest my other hand on his chest, feeling the slow rise and fall beneath my palm.
Luther settles behind Luca, careful around Rosalie.
Maceo takes the outer edge near the boys, one hand resting lightly over Samuel's blanket before he stills.
No one turns the moment into a speech. No one promises we'll be better forever because forever's too big a thing to claim when everyone's this tired.
But Luther looks over Luca's sleeping head, catches my eyes, and nods once.
I close my eyes with my hand still on Grayson's chest and Luca's fingers wrapped around mine.
The fear's still there. It'll be there in the morning with the merger draft, with Victor's clauses, with Luca's careful quiet and my unreliable heart.
But it's not moving through the bond alone anymore, and for tonight, that's the first honest thing we've managed to hold.