Chapter 9 #3
"Dorian," I say anyway, because the name needs somewhere to go.
"Victor's awful, but I understand what kind of awful he is.
Dorian makes me feel stupid for being afraid.
He doesn't do enough for me to name it. He keeps everything clean.
His hands. His voice. The words he chooses.
" I swallow. "He crouched in front of Rosalie and didn't touch her.
He didn't even reach for her. And she still hid. "
Grayson lowers himself to the floor beside me, his back against the chair, one knee bent. "I saw."
"James watched his hands."
"I saw that too."
"Samuel stepped between them." My voice thins. "He's five, Gray."
Grayson's jaw tightens, but his hand stays gentle where it rests against my hair. "Yes."
The confirmation hurts worse than comfort should.
I press both hands around the cup of tea he brought, letting the heat bite into my palms. "Nobody did anything.
That's the part I can't get around. Victor was patronizing.
Dorian was polite. They said careful things in careful voices, and I still wanted to take the kids and hide under Luther's desk like the world had ended.
" My laugh breaks before it becomes anything useful.
"I don't have a reason that sounds like a reason. "
Grayson's thumb moves once along my temple. "Instincts don't need a court brief to be real, Luca."
My eyes sting.
He says it so simply. No indulgence. No careful tone people use when they think an Omega's become overwhelmed by a room too large for him. Grayson doesn't make my fear smaller so he can hold it. He takes it at the size it arrives.
"I should be stronger than this," I say.
"You moved the children somewhere your body believed was safer." His gaze moves over the blankets, the pillows, Rosalie's rabbit tucked against the wall, Samuel's hand still resting near his sister's ankle. "That's not weakness."
"It feels like panic."
"It can be panic and still be information."
The words settle slowly through me.
I look at the door. Then at the nest. Then at Grayson, sitting on the floor in his work clothes, one shoulder against Luther's chair, hair half-fallen around his face because he's been caring for everyone else all day.
"You believe me," I say.
His expression softens, not with surprise, but with something that looks almost wounded that I need to hear it aloud. "Always."
I close my eyes. The relief's sharp enough to hurt.
Grayson shifts closer and pulls me gently against his side.
I go because the children are sleeping, because the door's closed, because his shirt smells like home and worry and a kind of steadiness I can borrow without explaining why.
His fingers return to my curls, combing through the messy places until my scalp stops prickling.
For a while, we don't talk.
That helps too.
The office stays dim around us. The building keeps moving beyond the door, distant voices and elevators and phones and the low hum of a company trying to become something bigger than any of us can hold in our hands.
Inside Luther's office, James sleeps with his notebook under his cheek.
Rosalie's crown has slipped sideways. Samuel's finally stopped guarding her long enough to drool on his sleeve.
Grayson stays on the floor with me.
He could be working. He should be somewhere else, probably.
There's always somewhere else one of us should be.
The company, the kids, Ember House, the garden, the kitchen, the next crisis waiting with its mouth open.
But he stays, one arm around me, his other hand resting near Rosalie's foot, as if the shape of our safety matters more than any meeting still happening without us.
By the time the door opens again, the shadows have lengthened across the rug.
Luther steps in and stops.
His tie's loosened. His sleeves are pushed up. The day's all over him, in the set of his shoulders and the controlled exhaustion around his eyes. Behind him, the corridor's too bright. He closes the door before the light can spill far into the room.
I hold my breath.
There are blankets under his desk. Pillows behind his chair.
Toys where legal files should be. His office has become a nest because I couldn't make myself keep the children anywhere more exposed, and for one awful second, shame rises hot in me.
Old shame. Useless shame. The kind that says need is disruption, fear is inconvenience, safety's something I'm allowed only when it doesn't take up too much space.
He doesn't ask why half the nest's under his desk. He doesn't ask what Victor said, or whether Dorian did something, or whether I'm sure I'm not overreacting.
He walks to the edge of the blankets and crouches in front of me. His hand comes to the back of my neck, warm and heavy, thumb pressing once beneath my hair.
"Good," he says, voice low with fatigue. "Stay close."
Luther stands after a moment and steps carefully over Samuel's dinosaur sweatshirt.
He sits at his desk without moving a single blanket.
His laptop opens with a soft click, and the blue-white glow catches along the edge of his jaw, but he doesn't turn on the overhead light.
He doesn't ask us to shift. He works around the shape my fear has made.