Chapter 6 #2
Authenticity. Rescue narrative. Social impact.
Family-forward. Every phrase is polished clean, but beneath it I hear doors opening where walls should be.
I think of Luca walking barefoot through Ember House, of the young Omegas who still flinch when delivery trucks pull up, of Wilson's warning about people learning to call access by softer names.
Blake catches it too. I see it in the set of his jaw. But I also see the numbers on the screen reflected in his glasses. Endowment growth. Launch protection. A machine large enough that he could stop being the only thing standing between Ember House and another budget crisis.
"We'll take the materials," I say before Dorian can press the point further. "Maceo will review legal access and resident protection language. Blake will review operational scope. We don't make decisions in this family because a deck looks expensive."
Victor stands when I do, smile still intact. "Prudent. That's why your position is so strong." His eyes move to Blake then, a beat late. "Both of your positions."
Blake's expression remains calm. Only I'm close enough to feel the anger simmering under it.
When the elevator doors finally close behind them and their scents begin to thin in the ventilation, the boardroom feels too bright.
Blake stays at the table, tablet still in his hand, staring down at the slide Dorian left open.
A global rollout map spreads across the screen in clean lines and bright projections.
"They did exactly what the email did," he says.
"I know."
"They talked to you like you own the room and talked to me like I painted the walls."
I move closer, stopping beside his chair rather than behind it. "You corrected them."
He huffs once, a tired sound with no humor in it. "Dorian complimented me like I was a gifted child at a science fair. It was very elegant. I almost wanted to thank him for letting me use the grown-up scissors."
My jaw tightens, but I keep my voice even. "Do you think it was intentional?"
"I think it doesn't matter as much as it should." Blake looks up at me then, and the conflict in his face hits harder than anger would. "Because the offer's good."
That's the worst part. It's not an obvious trap. It's not laughable. It's not easy to dismiss. It's a door opening exactly where Blake's been throwing himself against a wall for years.
"They'd triple the Ember House endowment," he says, quieter now. "They'd take localization off our internal team. Animation could carry Starlight Falls into markets we can't reach alone. The launch would be enormous, Luther. Not just successful. Protected."
"You don't have to sell pieces of yourself to be protected."
His mouth tightens. "I know that."
But he doesn't sound certain, and I hate Victor Hale for making my mate doubt a truth we spent years teaching him to believe.
Dinner's louder than the boardroom and more honest by far.
The long kitchen table's covered in takeout containers from the deli, wraps, salads, fries, sliced fruit, the extra protein bowls Quentin keeps insisting we order, and three different sauces Samuel's decided need to be compared for "global purposes.
" Rosalie's in my lap, crown crooked, stealing from my plate with quiet determination.
She presses a fry into ketchup, considers it, then eats the entire thing while looking at Blake as if daring him to stop her. Blake's too distracted to notice.
James sits beside Grayson with his slider taken apart into layers. "What's a merger?" he asks, arranging pickles in a line. "Is it when companies get stuck together like magnets?"
Grayson reaches for a napkin and wipes sauce from Samuel's wrist before it gets on the table. He looks tired tonight, the kind of tired that makes his smile come a second late. "Sometimes. It's when two companies decide they can do more together than apart, but they have to agree on who does what."
James thinks about that. "Magnets can repel."
"Yes," Maceo says from the far end of the table, where he's got the preliminary clause packet beside his plate and hasn't touched his salad in several minutes. "That's also relevant."
Samuel leans toward Luca with a fry in each hand. "If Starlight Falls goes global, does that mean snacks go global too? Because if people everywhere can play the game, we should have snacks from everywhere. That's fair."
Luca's laugh is soft, but his eyes are on Blake. He's been watching him since we sat down, tracking the untouched food, the hand near his chest, the way Blake keeps looking at the printed deck as if it might rearrange itself into something less insulting if he stares long enough.
"You can make a snack proposal," Luca tells Samuel, smoothing a hand over his curls. "With drawings."
Samuel accepts this responsibility immediately.
Rosalie reaches for another fry from my plate and settles deeper into my lap, sticky fingers resting against my wrist. Her weight's warm and grounding.
I press a kiss to the top of her head while watching my family circle the issue from different angles, none of us ready to touch the center too hard.
Blake does it first.
"They called me a creative lead," he says, and every adult at the table stills.
He doesn't look up from the container he's barely opened.
"Again. Not in those exact words this time, but that was the shape of it.
Victor looked at Luther every time governance came up.
Dorian looked at me every time emotion did. "
Luca's face changes. The softness drains from it, leaving something protective and quiet behind. "I hate that."
"So do I," Blake says. "But I hate more that I still want the deal."
Grayson leans back in his chair, one hand still resting near Samuel's cup in case it tips. "Wanting the resources isn't the same as trusting the people offering them."
"No," Blake says. "But resources matter.
Ember House needs stable funding. The intake suites need to be finished before winter.
We've got calls coming from three counties over.
Starlight Falls III is big, but it's still one launch.
One launch carrying the company, the sanctuary, the staff, the kids' future, everything.
I know we keep saying we'll find the money. This is the money."
His voice doesn't rise, but it pulls tight. I see the strain in his shoulders, the familiar pressure of his mind trying to turn love into math. Luca reaches under the table for his hand. Blake lets him take it.
"Dorian made my skin feel strange," Luca says after a moment.
The sentence lands more heavily because he says it so simply. No one interrupts him. Even Samuel, who's started drawing a snack cabinet on the back of a napkin, stays quiet.
"He was polite," Luca continues, looking down at his plate. "That almost made it worse. I don't know how to explain it. He looked at me like he already knew what part of me would photograph well."
Grayson's hand closes around the back of Luca's chair. His scent shifts, warm cedar sharpening at the edges, but he keeps his voice gentle when he speaks. "Then that matters."
"I know." Luca looks at Blake, and there's no accusation in it. Only worry. "I want Ember House safe. I want the residents safe. I want you safe too, Bear. I just don't want the price to be letting strangers decide which parts of our pain are useful."
Blake's eyes close briefly.
Maceo turns a page in the packet. His voice remains calm, which makes the room steadier.
"The problem's the access language. 'Impact-related materials' is undefined.
Their deck says resident participation would be voluntary, but voluntary becomes complicated when the organization controlling funding also controls visibility.
Who approves social-impact campaigns? Who defines resident-facing material?
Does Ember House retain veto power? Does partner access survive termination?
Are resident stories excluded by default or included until someone objects? "
Blake rubs the bridge of his nose. "They had answers in the meeting."
"They had language," Maceo says. "That's not the same thing."
I glance at him. "Can it be fixed?"
"Maybe." Maceo folds his hands over the document.
"But only if we begin from no access and make them earn specific, revocable exceptions.
Resident stories excluded by default. No photography in intake areas.
No donor walkthroughs without Ember House approval.
No use of Luca, the children, or any resident history in campaign materials without separate written consent that can be withdrawn.
No penalty for refusal. No implied consent through program participation. "
Blake listens to every word. So does Luca.
Grayson shifts, eyes moving from Maceo to Blake. "Even if they agree to all of that, I'm worried this doesn't take work off your plate. I think it puts a bigger machine around you and then everyone says you have help while you become responsible for keeping the machine from hurting us."
Blake's jaw works. "That's unfair."
"No," Grayson says, and there's no heat in it.
"It's what you do. You turn help into another system you have to manage.
You'll read every contract, every deck, every campaign, every localization file, every animation note, every sanctuary funding report, and you'll tell us it's fine because at least the bills are paid. "
Blake looks away.
Rosalie pushes a fry against my mouth. I take it because my hands need something simple to do, and because refusing her would start a separate negotiation none of us have the energy for.
Victor Hale's offer sits in the middle of the table even though the man himself is gone.
It's in the numbers Blake can't ignore, in Luca's tightened fingers, in Maceo's marked clauses, in Grayson's exhausted worry.
It's in my own chest too, in the place that responds to every mention of less weight on Blake's shoulders.
"We're not deciding tonight," I say.