Chapter 19 #2
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 mine until 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 cupcakes from 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 Samuel whispers 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."
"I was going to do the roast before Luther's call, and Blake still has to drink the smoothie, and the school cupcakes need the labels because James wanted to help with them.
" I hear how fast the words are coming, but I can't seem to slow them until Luther steps forward with the smoothie already in his hand and James lifts the labels like proof that the world can keep moving without my fingers on every piece of it.
Maceo wipes flour from the counter in one clean motion. "The roast can wait. Luther's got Blake's smoothie. James has the labels. Luca's got the cupcakes. I've got the kitchen." He pauses then, not for drama, but because he wants the next words to land. "You're loved. Sit down."
The room goes quiet in the way a room does when everyone's heard the same truth and no one can pretend it was only a suggestion.
I look at the trays, the bowls, the lists, the children, Luca's worried face, Luther holding the smoothie, and Maceo taking over with the calm certainty of someone who isn't asking for permission to care for me.
The spatula slips from my hand onto the counter.
I lower myself to the floor with my back against the cabinets before my legs can make a worse decision for me.