Chapter 19 #3
Luca's beside me almost immediately, sliding down until his shoulder presses against mine.
Rosalie climbs into my lap with her koala wedged between us, all warm weight and crooked crown and stubborn little hands.
Samuel watches from the stool with frosting on his thumb, and James stands very still with the labels held against his chest. I rest my head back against the cabinet and close my eyes because the words are easier without everyone's faces attached to them. "I'm tired," I say.
No one rushes to soften it. No one tells me they know or that it's okay or that I should've said something sooner.
Luca's fingers slide between mine on the tile, and Rosalie pats my chest like I'm the one who needs putting down for a nap.
After a few breaths, Luca leans his cheek against my shoulder and says, "Thank you for telling us," which is somehow worse and better than all the things he could've said.
I open my eyes and look at him. "I didn't mean to make everyone carry it."
"You didn't make us," he says. "You let us see it."
Maceo keeps working while we sit there. The cupcakes cool.
The oven stays off. The children eat banana slices and toast while James writes careful labels and Samuel makes the same letter backward three times before deciding that makes it a dragon letter.
Luther takes the smoothie down the hall to Blake and comes back a few minutes later with Blake behind him, pale and quiet in a sweater that hangs too loose at his wrists.
Blake stops just inside the kitchen, his eyes moving from Maceo at the sink to Luca on the floor, Rosalie in my lap, and my head against the cabinet.
Guilt changes his face before he can hide it.
I try to straighten because Blake's already got enough to carry, but Rosalie presses both hands to my chest and says, "No.
Nap." Blake's mouth tightens, not with irritation, and he lowers himself slowly onto the floor in front of me despite the way Luther's hand hovers near his back.
He doesn't make a speech. He only reaches out and touches my knee.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly.
I shake my head, but the motion makes the room sway a little, so I stop. "Don't."
Blake's fingers tighten once on my knee before he lets go. "I saw you doing it. I let it be useful."
That hurts because it's honest. Luther stands behind him with one hand on his shoulder, and Maceo's gone still at the sink, towel in hand, listening without turning the moment into one more task.
Luca's thumb moves against mine. Rosalie leans her full weight into my chest like she can personally hold me in place.
"We all did," Luther says, voice rougher than it was in the pantry. "Now we stop."
There's nothing bright enough in me to answer that.
I nod because it's all I can manage, and Luther takes that as permission to move.
He crouches, lifts Rosalie carefully from my lap despite her protest, and passes her to Luca.
Then he hooks one arm behind my back and the other beneath my knees, lifting me before I can turn getting up into another performance of being fine.
I grumble because some part of me has to. "I can walk."
"I know." Luther holds me tighter against his chest. "You're not."
Maceo doesn't look up from rinsing the bowl when he says, "The kitchen's handled. The children are handled. The cupcakes are handled badly, but they're handled." His voice is dry enough that Samuel laughs, Luca finally breathes, and even Blake's face shifts with the smallest flicker of relief.
Luther carries me out before I can find another reason to stay.
The walk to the Nest's quiet except for the soft sounds of the house continuing behind us.
Luca tells Rosalie she can bring the koala but not the frosting bowl.
Samuel asks Maceo whether dragon letters count as spelling.
James says he needs a ruler for the labels.
Blake follows us slower than usual, and I know he's there because his worry's got a shape in the bond I could find with my eyes closed.
The Nest smells like sleep, cedar, Luca's blankets, and the faint sweetness of the lotion Grayson-from-yesterday put on Rosalie after her bath.
The bed's messy from the kids climbing into it earlier, pillows shoved toward the foot and one small sock tucked under Luther's side.
Luther sets me down like I might bruise, then follows me in before I can roll back toward the edge.
His body settles against mine, heavy and warm, one arm around my waist and one hand in my hair.
"Sleep, Gray," he murmurs against my temple. "Let us take the rest."
I want to tell him about the food, the school labels, the call, the way Maceo's quiet still worries me, the way Blake looked in the kitchen, the way Luca's voice cracked when he thanked me.
The list rises automatically, but my body no longer has the strength to chase it.
Luther's hand moves slowly through my hair, and I relax beneath his touch.