Chapter 13 Ray #2
Shaw notices. I can see him notice — his eyes flick between me and Miles, a quick assessment. Then he nods, his shoulders ease, and the rest of the meeting goes smoothly.
When it's over, Shaw shakes Miles's hand again. "Solid work, Covington. I think we'll get along fine." He looks at me. "Good instinct on the phasing, Mr. Garcia."
"Just reading the room, sir."
"That's a valuable skill." He says it like he means it. "Not everyone in this business has it."
We walk out of the conference room and I'm riding high on the meeting and on Shaw's approval and on watching Miles be the most impressive person in any room he enters, and then I hear my name from across the lobby.
"Ray! Hey, Ray!"
Lawson Shaw is coming through the front door with a toddler on his hip.
Noah's got Lawson's sandy hair and Kole's big eyes and he's chewing on a set of plastic keys.
Lawson's in jeans and a sweater, so far from the firm's aesthetic he looks like he wandered in off the street, and he's grinning like seeing me just made his day.
"Lawson, hey." I meet him halfway and he pulls me into a one-armed hug, the toddler between us grabbing at my tie. "How's it going, man?"
"Good, good. Just dropping in to see my dad. Noah has a doctor's appointment across the street and Kole's parking the car." He shifts Noah on his hip. "How's Devon? How's Gabriel? Last I saw him he was trying to eat Alex's shoe."
"That hasn't changed. Dev sends him to daycare with bite marks on his sneakers." I reach out and let Noah grab my finger, his tiny fist wrapping around it with surprising force. "Hey, buddy. You got big."
Noah babbles something at me and I babble something back and he laughs — this big, open, whole-body laugh — and I bounce his hand gently and make a face at him and he laughs again.
I'm good with kids. I've always been good with kids.
Gabriel climbs me like a jungle gym every time I walk through Devon's door, and I love it.
I glance over my shoulder to include Miles in the moment and something stops me.
He's standing a few feet behind me with his hands at his sides, watching me hold Noah's finger, and the look on his face is — I don't know what it is.
It's not the professional mask and it's not the heat-vulnerability I saw at the resort.
It's something else. His mouth is pressed thin and his eyes are too bright and it's gone before I can name it, replaced by blankness, and then the smooth professional surface slides back into place.
It makes me want to ask him what's wrong.
It makes me want to reach for him. But the lobby of a law firm with his colleague's toddler between us isn't the place, so I file it away, same as I've been filing things about Miles — the scar, the way he cut himself off mid-sentence at the resort, this look — in the growing folder of things I don't understand yet.
"He's a monster. He ate an entire banana this morning and then screamed for twenty minutes because the banana was gone." Lawson laughs. "Oh, sorry — this your colleague?"
"Miles Covington," Miles says, offering his hand. His voice is steady. Whatever I saw on his face is completely gone. "I'm leading the Whitfield-Crane matter."
"Lawson Shaw." Lawson shakes it warmly, no alpha posturing, no corporate stiffness. "Ah, so you're the one working with my dad. Good luck — he's a pain in the ass but he's fair."
"He seems thorough," Miles says, and it's so diplomatically bland that Lawson laughs.
"Yeah, that's one way to put it." Lawson bounces Noah, who has moved on from my finger and is now trying to eat his own shoe.
"Hey, you guys should come over for dinner this weekend.
Kole's been wanting to have people over and we never do because, you know—" He gestures at the shoe-eating toddler.
"But it'd be fun. Devon and Alex too. We'll order way too much food and the babies can destroy the living room together. "
"That sounds great," I say, and I mean it. Lawson and Kole's place, Devon and Alex there, the whole group. Miles meeting everyone. The thought fills me up — warm, uncomplicated, easy.
"Yeah?" Lawson looks at Miles. "You in?"
Miles's expression fractures. I watch it happen in real time — a flicker of longing, crushed immediately by what I can only call fear, smoothed over by the professional mask so fast that Lawson probably doesn't catch any of it.
"That's very kind," Miles says. "Sure."
"Awesome. Saturday? I'll text you the details, Ray." Lawson grins, and Noah throws his plastic keys on the floor, and Lawson crouches to pick them up, and the whole thing is so normal, so messy and alive, that I want to bottle it.
We say goodbye and walk to the car and Miles doesn't say a word.
I pull out of the parking garage and we're three blocks away before I break the silence.
"That went well. The meeting, I mean. Shaw seemed impressed."
"He's reserving judgment." Miles is looking straight ahead. "But yes. It was a productive start."
"Whitaker's going to be the problem. He's territorial about the diligence."
"I know. Your phasing idea was good." He says it like he'd say "the sky is blue" — flat, factual, not a compliment so much as an acknowledgment of reality. I'll take it.
"So Saturday," I say, trying to keep my voice casual. "Lawson and Kole's. It'll be fun. Devon's probably going to bring those empanadas he's been obsessing over. Alex will sit in the corner being intense and holding the baby."
Miles doesn't respond.
"Kole's cool. You'll like him. He's an omega, actually — bonded to Lawson. Used to work in corporate before Noah."
Still nothing.
"Miles?"
"I heard you." His voice is quiet. Not cold. Just quiet. "Saturday."
I don't push. I drive and talk about the case — next steps, the framework we need to draft, the phasing structure for Whitaker.
Safe territory. Miles engages on the professional stuff, his voice getting more animated as we get into the details, and I realize this is how he's comfortable — the work.
The work is where he lives. Everything else is enemy territory.
I pull up in front of the firm and put the car in park. Miles gathers the case file and reaches for the door handle and stops.
He's looking down at his lap. The case file is in his hands and his thumb is running along the edge of the folder, back and forth, this small repetitive motion that he doesn't seem to know he's doing.
His shoulders are tight under his suit jacket but his face, in profile, is unguarded in a way I haven't seen since the resort.
Not the sharp mask. Not the ice. Just a guy sitting in a car, tired, carrying something heavy, trying to figure out how to open the door and put the armor back on.
His hand drifts to his shoulder. He presses his fingers against the spot where I know the bruise is, under his shirt, and holds them there for a second. Then he takes a breath, straightens, opens the door, and gets out.
"Today went well," he says through the open door. All business. "I'll send you the follow-up memo by end of day."
He closes the door and walks into the building without looking back.
I sit in my car and watch him go and I don't start the engine for a long time.