6. Grayson
Grayson
I track the house by its sounds. I know when Blake’s cane catches on the rug in the hallway, and I know when Luca stops breathing for a few seconds because he’s looking at a bill he didn’t expect.
I pull a tray of vegetables from the oven and glance toward the legal pad tucked behind the flour jar. I started the list after Victor called Luther and sounded less controlled than usual. Since then, I’ve written down only what I know happened, without trying to explain any of it.
None of the entries belongs beside the others for any reason I can prove. I write them down because too many details have disappeared beneath ordinary days when I trusted myself to remember them later.
The kitchen door opens, and Blake comes in wearing his charcoal suit. He doesn’t reach for the coffee. He walks to the island and leans against it with both palms flat on the counter.
“Victor again?”
Blake keeps his eyes on the marble. “He wants the board to begin discussing executive wellness standards. Nothing formal yet. He spent ten minutes asking whether I’ve resumed my full schedule and whether Maceo’s role is temporary.”
“He’s testing how far he can push the health issue.”
“He’s testing whether anyone else will repeat it for him.” Blake finally looks at me. “He didn’t sound confident. He sounded prepared.”
I move beside him without touching him, close enough that he can reach for me if he wants to. His fingers flex once against the counter before he turns his hand toward mine.
I lace our fingers together. “Luca mentioned that Josie asked about bite removal during training.”
Blake’s grip tightens slightly. “Was it connected to a case?”
“He said it was. The question made sense when he explained it, but she also asked whether the packs helping with bite removal understood the legal risk.”
Blake considers that before glancing toward the flour jar. “Write down what Luca told you. Don’t decide what it means yet.”
“I haven’t.”
“I know.”
He keeps hold of my hand until the oven timer sounds, then releases me so I can pull out the next tray.
Later that night, after the house has gone quiet, I take the portfolio from behind the old tax returns in the small office off the kitchen. I spread the sketches across the desk and adjust the lamp so the light falls over the pages.
They aren’t construction plans. I don’t have the training for that. They’re ideas for how the Ember House expansion should feel and how residents might move through it without being pushed into spaces before they’re ready.
The hallways curve gently rather than running in long institutional lines, but there aren’t any blind corners.
The entrances to the common rooms widen in stages, giving someone time to stop before entering.
I’ve marked smaller seating areas between the private suites and the larger communal spaces, along with deep window seats positioned so a resident can look outside without losing sight of the nearest door.
The colors are deep greens, warm ochre, and muted shades that won’t turn the entire wing into another beige facility.
The lighting stays indirect in the hallways, with brighter options in the rooms where residents can control it themselves.
I’ve sketched a communal kitchen, a quiet room, a library with space for a nest, and a garden path that can be seen from inside before anyone chooses to step outdoors.
“The light in here is terrible.”
I look up to find Luther standing in the doorway in his sleep pants. His gaze moves from me to the pages spread across the desk.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I say. “I was only going through a few things.”
He comes into the room and pulls the other chair beside mine. Instead of gathering the sketches or shifting them around, he studies them in the order I laid them out. His attention settles on the wide entrance to the common room, then follows the curved hall toward the private suites.
“How long have you been working on these?”
“A few weeks. They aren’t construction plans. I’ve been thinking about how the rooms should feel and how people will move through them.”
He touches the edge of the page showing the window seats. “You kept the doors visible.”
“A resident shouldn’t have to choose between privacy and knowing how to leave. The hallways curve, but there aren’t any blind corners. The common spaces open gradually instead of dropping someone into the middle of a room.”
Luther moves through the color studies and lighting notes before returning to the first page. “Why haven’t you shown anyone?”
I’ve kept the pages hidden because Blake is still recovering, Luca is trying to keep the expansion funded, and Keller Industries is being pushed from several directions. Every time I consider bringing the portfolio out, something else feels more urgent.
“It matters even when nobody is bleeding.” Luther shifts closer and rests his hand over mine. “Keep the list if writing things down helps you separate what happened from what you fear happened. But don’t hide this work beside it. Show Blake, and show Luca when Luca has enough room to see it.”
“The money isn’t there yet.”
“Then the plans will be ready when it is.” He lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles before setting it back on the desk. “You don’t have to make your contribution smaller because everyone else is louder about theirs.”
I look down at the pages again. “I don’t know whether Blake will have the energy for this.”
“You can ask him.”
Luther straightens the top page, returning it to the same angle it held before he entered.
He stays with me for another few minutes, asking about the quiet room and why I placed the garden entrance beside the library instead of the common room.
When he leaves, he kisses my forehead and tells me not to stay awake much longer.
The next afternoon, the children are at a playdate, and Blake is in the den with his cane resting against his thigh. There’s no laptop open beside him and no stack of documents on the table, so I carry the portfolio in before I can decide to wait for a better time.
“Can I show you something?”
Blake looks at the folder in my hands and shifts forward. “Of course.”
I sit on the ottoman and place the first pages on the coffee table. “They’re for the Ember House expansion. Not blueprints. I’ve been working through how the rooms could function and how the whole wing should feel.”
Blake sets his glasses more firmly on his nose and draws the first page closer. He spends several minutes moving between the floor plan and the color studies before pointing to the widening hallway outside the communal kitchen.
“You changed the scale here.”
“I didn’t want someone leaving a private room to walk straight into a crowd. The space opens in stages, and the smaller seating areas give them somewhere to stop before joining everyone else.”
Blake traces the curved line with the capped end of his pen. “The exits stay visible from every stopping point.”
“That was intentional.”
He turns to the suite pages and asks why some window seats face the garden while others are angled toward the doors. I explain that privacy means different things to different people, and that the final rooms shouldn’t force the same version of comfort on everyone.
Blake reaches for the pen in his pocket, then pauses. “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead.”
He begins making notes in the margins, asking about the lighting controls, the communal kitchen, and whether the suites could support more than one arrangement without changing the structure.
His questions move quickly, but he waits for my answers instead of treating the sketches as something he can take over.
“If we build a planning tool,” he says, drawing a small rectangle beside one of the suite pages, “residents could choose between several room layouts before construction begins. Seating position, lighting level, where the bed or nest faces.”
“Those can’t be the only choices.”
Blake looks at me.
“There needs to be a way to reject every preset and explain what they want instead. Otherwise, we’re still deciding which versions of comfort they’re allowed to choose.”
He crosses out the bottom of his sketch and redraws it with an open field beneath the room options. “Like this?”
I lean closer and adjust the label. “Less technical.”
Blake changes it again, and we stay over the pages longer than either of us intends. His pen moves between my drawings while I correct his wording, our shoulders pressed together above the coffee table.
“I missed this,” I say when we finally reach the last page. “Working beside you without one of us checking your pulse or arguing about how long you’ve been standing.”
Blake lays the pen across the portfolio and turns toward me. “I missed you disagreeing with me about something that wasn’t keeping me alive.”
I smile as he cups the side of my neck and draws me into a kiss. It begins softly, but he keeps me close when I start to pull away, his thumb moving beneath my jaw.
“Show Luca,” he says when we separate. “Not tonight if he’s already carrying too much, but don’t leave these hidden in your office.”
“I won’t.”
The front door opens while I’m returning the pages to the portfolio.
Luca is still on the phone in the foyer, reminding Josie that the open evening is less than two weeks away and that Blossom wants every training employee paired with an established staff member throughout the event.
He tells her they’ll review the guest list, resident permissions, and restricted areas together before anyone arrives.
He pauses while Josie speaks, then tells her Blossom will review the Thompson paperwork with her tomorrow before either of them speaks to the resident again.
The conversation sounds ordinary until Luca tells her that the Thompson paperwork doesn't confirm whether a Welfare Board investigation can extend to a pack that supported bite removal.
He says Blossom will check the legal guidance before they add anything to the intake notes.
Blake looks toward the foyer, then back at me. He doesn’t tell me what to think, and I don’t offer him a conclusion.
Later, after dinner, I take the legal pad from behind the flour jar and add the date beneath the earlier entries.
March 16: Josie asked whether the Welfare Board could investigate a pack that supported bite removal. Luca said the question came from the Thompson case.
I read the four entries once before closing the pad.
Victor’s call, Luca’s funding, Maceo’s attention, and Josie’s questions may have nothing to do with one another.
Writing them down doesn’t make them evidence.
It only keeps me from changing the details later to match whatever I eventually decide they mean.
I return the pad behind the flour jar and leave the portfolio in the office. Blake has seen it now. Luca will see it when there is enough room for the designs to feel like a possibility instead of another expense he has to solve.