Chapter 9
Tobias
“Good morning,” Cove chirped, a little breathless from the walk up the stairs, though whether from exertion or anticipation I could not determine. His smile lingered as he reached the landing and held both bags more securely against his shoulder. “Hi, Ben.”
“Morning,” Ben replied easily beside me. “Welcome back.”
“Yes,” Cove said, glancing between us. “It feels weird being here like this.”
“Like what?” Ben asked.
“Like I’m supposed to be here,” he said, then flushed faintly as though he had not intended to say that aloud.
“You are supposed to be here,” I replied.
His expression softened at that in a way I found immediately gratifying.
We stepped aside to allow him space to move through the entry hall, and as he crossed the threshold, I watched the way his gaze lifted instinctively toward the ceiling and the long corridor of glass beyond it, the same way it had the first time he visited.
He still looked as astonished as before.
That pleased me as well.
He shifted his shoulder bag again as we began walking, and his smaller insulated container knocked lightly against his hip.
I spared a glance at it, which he happened to catch.
“Oh,” he said quickly, cheeks warming. “I wasn’t sure how food was going to work, so I brought lunch just in case.”
There was hesitation in the explanation, as though he expected he might have done something incorrect.
“You will not need to do that,” I said, clarifying. “I will be providing breakfast and lunch while you are here. And dinner as well, if your work extends later into the evening.”
His steps faltered as he listened.
“Wait, really?”
“Yes.”
“That’s really generous,” he said, his eyes wide. “Thank you.”
“It is practical,” I replied. “Your work requires consistency. It would be inefficient for you to leave during the day.”
“That makes sense,” he admitted, though he looked a little overwhelmed by the adjustment.
Ben made a quiet sound beside us that I chose not to interpret.
We continued down the corridor toward the main aquarium wing, stopping at the door to his new office.
Pushing it open, I told him, “This will be your workspace.”
Cove looked taken aback as he entered, his gaze flicking from the desk to the monitors, to the couch, the windows, and the bathroom door.
“Wow,” he murmured. “I wasn’t expecting an office at all, let alone one so… nice.”
He set his shoulder bag down beside the chair, eyes catching on the monitors. The screens reflected faint movement across his face as the tank feeds shifted in real time.
“You can see everything from here…” he said.
“Yes. I wanted to make it so that you don’t have to be constantly going around to check on things.”
“That’s—” Cove stopped, looking back at the monitors again as if he hadn’t quite finished absorbing what they were showing him. “That’s really helpful.”
He stepped closer to the desk, leaning forward without sitting yet, his attention already shifting across the different feeds with the quiet focus I had come to expect from him.
He set the smaller insulated bag down beside his shoulder bag at last, almost absently, as though the movement had only occurred because his hands required somewhere to put it while his attention reorganized itself around the room.
“This is going to make it a lot easier to keep track of things,” he continued, still studying the screens. “Especially with the predator systems running on different cycles from the reef tanks.”
“That was the intention. I’m glad to hear it will be helpful.”
He nodded faintly, then turned to me as if remembering something.
“I should probably—um—figure out what I’m supposed to start with today,” he mumbled quickly. “Like if there’s a schedule you want me to follow or if you want me to just start doing rounds first or—”
“Have you eaten breakfast?” I asked.
He blinked, taking a second to respond as if my question had completely derailed his train of thought. After a moment, he said, “Yes… um, before I left this morning.”
“That is good.”
He added with a small, almost apologetic smile, “I could go for a coffee though.”
“There is cold brew in your refrigerator,” I told him.
His nose crinkled cutely in confusion.
“In my…?”
“In your refrigerator,” I repeated.
His gaze skittered across the room as though he were trying to locate what I meant. It finally settled on the little counter and fridge underneath.
“Huh…”
He got up and crossed the room, crouching to open the refrigeration drawer, and the surprise on his face when he saw what was inside was both immediate and entirely unguarded.
“This is the second time you’ve had something stocked and ready for me.”
Was that bad?
I hesitated to answer, not knowing what the proper response would be, but luckily, I had Ben.
He stepped forward from where he’d been lingering just outside the doorway.
“Mr. Kelly wished to be prepared fully for your arrival, so that you’d have all you needed to comfortably get started right away,” he explained, his expression friendly and welcoming.
Cove’s fingers hovered briefly over the bottles inside as though he was uncertain whether he was actually meant to take one.
“Please help yourself. The kitchen is available to you as well,” I said, relieved when his fingers finally wrapped around one of the cold brew bottles.
“This is… really thoughtful,” he said, softer now. “Thank you.”
I nodded.
Ben stepped further into the room, reaching over to pick up a slim matte badge attached to a short retractable clip, and the envelope beside it.
“Before we get too far into things,” Ben said to Cove, handing the items over to him, “we should get you set up with this.”
“Okay,” Cove approved as he examined the badge, turning it over and running his thumb across the engraving of his name.
“That’s for the front gate,” Ben continued, stepping closer to the doorway again and gesturing toward the corridor.
“Also, the front entrance into the home and the interior access point for entrance into the aquarium wing. Some areas are restricted unless Tobias adds clearance later, but anything you’ll need regularly should already be active. ”
Cove nodded seriously, attention fully engaged.
“And the scanners?” he asked.
“Touch panel readers,” Ben said. “You’ll see them beside the doors. Just hold the badge near the sensor. If something doesn’t open that you think should, tell me.”
“Okay.”
“There’s a secondary chip in that envelope. If your badge is lost or damaged, you can use it instead until a replacement is ordered.”
“Alright.”
“I’m usually somewhere nearby,” Ben added kindly. “If you need anything—tools, access adjustments, supplies—just ask.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
Ben then glanced at me, as if confirming there was nothing else I required from him in the moment. When I gave no further instruction, he stepped backward toward the hall.
“Right. I’ll leave you two to it, then,” he said lightly, giving Cove another friendly smile before walking off.
Once he was gone, I gestured toward the desk chair.
“You should sit,” I said.
Cove did so as I crossed the room and took the sofa opposite him.
“We should discuss expectations,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed quickly, straightening into the posture he adopted whenever he was preparing to absorb information. “Please.”
“There is a baseline schedule prepared for you,” I continued. “It is in the folder on the desk.”
He reached for it and immediately began scanning the pages inside.
“This is really detailed,” he said after flipping through.
“Yes, it was originally for my past caretakers. As I’ve mentioned, since the last one left us, Ben and I have been working to keep up with everything. But as you can see, the original schedule is… well—”
“A full-time job,” Cove finished, his fingers resting lightly against the edge of the folder as he continued reading.
“Exactly. But you should understand,” I added, “that the schedule is not intended to remain fixed.”
He glanced up.
“I would like you to adjust it.”
“Adjust it?”
“Yes. You’re the expert here.”
His brows pulled together.
“I want you to take full responsibility for the systems,” I clarified. “All tanks. All animals. All maintenance sequencing.”
He stared at me for a second.
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
“That’s—” he stopped, clearly recalibrating the scale of what I had just given him. “That’s a lot of trust.”
“It is appropriate trust.”
His gaze dropped briefly back to the folder again, though I could see he was no longer reading the schedule itself.
He was thinking about the implications of it.
“You’re sure?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.”
There had never been any uncertainty about that.
* * *
By the time the gate closed behind him, the house already felt different.
Quieter.
Not in the ordinary way a house becomes quiet after a visitor leaves, but in the particular way a space changes once someone has begun to belong inside it and then abruptly isn’t there anymore.
I typically preferred the quiet.
But right now, it just felt as if I’d lost something.
It hurt my chest in a way I’d never felt before.
I remained standing in the entry corridor far longer than necessary, listening to the fading sound of the stupid rideshare vehicle descending the access road toward the main highway below the cliffs.
I’d tried to convince him to let Ben drive him home, but he’d refused, and I hadn’t wanted to push too hard.
After I could no longer hear the car at all, I turned and walked back toward my private study.
When I entered, the three displays on the wall above my desk were still showing the live feeds from Cove’s office and other cameras situated around the home. There were several in the main aquarium wing alone.
It’d made me infinitely more relaxed to be able to look up from my work and see Cove where he belonged. In fact, Ben had even commented on how much better my calls had gone.
Ben had not been exaggerating.
My calls had gone better.
It was difficult to quantify precisely why that had been the case, but the difference was measurable. My attention had not wandered. My irritation tolerance had remained higher than usual. I had not ended a single meeting early.
Each time my gaze lifted from the documents on my desk, Cove had been somewhere within reach of sight.
Sometimes he had been seated in the office I prepared for him, but mostly he’d been out by the tanks.
There was one instance when he’d sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the box jellies’ tank, his back against the tank across from them.
He’d sat there for close to twenty minutes, just existing in their presence.
The look of serenity on his face had been so captivating that I had abandoned the conversation I was meant to be following entirely and watched him instead.
The development associate on the other line benefited from this display, as I dropped close to double the amount of my standard donation.
A knock against the study’s door pulled me out of my thoughts.
“You’re still watching the cameras,” Ben chuckled, not waiting for permission before striding into the room to take a seat in front of my desk. “You know he left already, right?”
“Yes, I was there, Ben.”
“He’s good for the house.”
“He is good for the collection,” I answered.
“He’s good for you,” Ben corrected gently.
I grunted, my gaze returning to the monitors again despite the fact that they now showed only empty corridors and rooms that had felt distinctly more alive that morning.
Ben leaned forward then, resting his elbows on his knees as he studied me with an expression that was far too thoughtful for someone who had, only moments earlier, been teasing me.
“There’s something else,” he said.
“Yes, what is it?”
“I’ve been thinking,” he continued, drawing the words, “those rideshare drivers coming up here every morning and evening aren’t ideal.”
I turned toward him, a line between my brows. “You said they were acceptable.”
“I did.”
“And now they are not?”
“Mhm,” he hummed, drawing a frown to my lips.
He watched me for a moment, clearly waiting for something that I did not immediately supply.
“Speak clearly. You told me there was no meaningful security risk.”
“Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t,” he mused. “But I believe it would be prudent,” he continued, as though the answer should already have been obvious, “for us to transport Cove ourselves.”
I stared at him. “Have you hit your head, Ben? I wanted you to drive him, but he refused. And you said that was fine.”
“I know,” Ben replied.
“Then what are you suggesting?”
Ben smirked, studying me with open amusement now.
“I’m suggesting,” he said, “that whether or not there’s an actual security concern…
he wouldn’t know the difference. You live on a private coastal access road with restricted entry points, multiple surveillance layers, and are a bloody billionaire.
It would not be unreasonable to explain that limiting unknown drivers approaching the property is simply good practice. ”
“So, instead of giving him the choice, you want to..?”
“He won’t complain about it if he believes we need to take over his transport for safety concerns. You won’t be forcing him to accept rides because security concerns are out of your control.”
I considered this.
He watched my expression change with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had been waiting for me to reach exactly this conclusion.
I exhaled slowly.
It would be safer.
It would be reasonable.
It would ensure he arrived consistently and on time.
It would also mean he no longer spent the beginning and end of every day in the company of strangers.
“I don’t understand why you couldn’t have told me earlier.”
Ben shrugged loosely. “I wasn’t sure how serious you were about him and didn’t want to waste my time. But after meeting him and watching you watch him, I get it. I get it, and I want to help.”