26. Grayson
Grayson
One Month Before the Wedding
I carry the lasagna from the counter while Quentin finishes listing the restrictions Luca has already agreed to twice.
Luca sits at the table with his phone propped against the water pitcher, one hand resting beneath the slight curve of his stomach while Blake watches the screen from the opposite end.
Maceo’s beside Luca’s chair with the cap already loosened on his water bottle, as Luther divides the salad among the plates without pretending he isn’t listening.
“No lifting anything heavier than Rosalie,” Quentin says through the speaker. “No moving furniture, no skipping meals because you’re busy, and call me if the nausea gets worse instead of deciding it’s normal.”
Luca glances toward the sitting room, where the armchair has changed positions twice this month. “I said I’d stop moving it.”
“You said you’d stop moving it alone,” I remind him as I lower the lasagna onto the table. “That isn’t the same promise.”
His mouth curves as he looks up at me. “I knew you were listening.”
“We were all listening,” Blake says. He lifts his glass toward Luca before setting it down again. “No lifting, no skipping meals, and no pretending the baby isn’t using your bladder as a chair.”
Luca lets out a soft giggle as he lowers his phone beside his plate once Quentin ends the call.
“Blake, you’re definitely better at giving orders than taking them.
” Blake playfully throws Luca a finger as I rest my hand briefly against the back of Luca’s neck when I pass behind him, and he leans into the touch before supporting the underside of his stomach and shifting closer to the table.
“He also said everything looks normal,” Luca says.
“Normal for you,” Maceo corrects. He fills Luca’s glass and places it within easy reach. “That came with several conditions and another appointment.”
Luther sets the salad bowl between them. “Did he narrow the delivery range?”
Luca shakes his head. “Not enough to give us a date. The baby’s developing more like Rosalie than the twins did.”
I pause with the serving spoon above Blake’s plate. “Rosalie was a little over four months.”
“And this one might be close to that,” Luca says. His fingers move slowly across the curve beneath his shirt. “Quentin thinks we’ll probably make it through the ceremony before the baby decides he’s done waiting, but he won’t promise it.”
Oliver’s voice rises from Blake’s phone, which is propped beside the flower samples at the far end of the table. I forgot he was even still present, the Omega remaining on mute through the appointment.
“Probably is not a word I accept from anyone involved in my event schedule, Luca.”
Luca laughs and reaches for his fork. “Then don’t ask Quentin.”
“I intend to ask him several more specific questions,” Oliver says. “Beginning with whether the Omega carrying the baby should be allowed near furniture he keeps trying to relocate.”
I serve Luca before taking the chair beside him. “He shouldn’t.”
Luca turns his head and kisses my shoulder as I settle. “Traitor.”
I just shake my head as I grab a plate for myself, steam rising from the lasagna when I cut into it again.
I take the first bite before checking whether anyone needs another napkin or more water.
Luca reaches for his nearly empty iced tea, and my body prepares to move before I stop it.
Luther picks up the pitcher, refills the glass, and returns to his conversation with Oliver without looking at me.
Oliver gestures with a garlic knot. “The peonies need more water. I don’t trust a florist who keeps using the word minimal.”
Nicholas moves Oliver’s bread farther from Samuel’s reaching hand. “The florist has a cooling van.”
“That doesn’t mean she understands abundance.”
Across the table, Samuel demonstrates his ring-bearer walk for Bartholomew, lifting his knees with unnecessary seriousness as he crosses the space between the dining room and the living room.
“I’m not gonna trip,” he says. “I practiced.”
James holds the small cushion he designed for the rings. He has added a narrow ribbon across the center and keeps testing the knot with his fingers.
“I shook it really hard,” he says. “The ring didn’t fall off.”
Rosalie sits beside Luca with her crown tipped slightly to one side. One hand rests against the curve of his stomach while she studies the cake sketch on the table.
“The dragon has to be pink,” she says. “Not red. Not orange.”
Luca laughs and kisses the top of her head, one hand resting beneath his stomach. “The baker knows, Rosie. Pink dragon.”
Blake catches my eye from the end of the table, his cane resting beside his chair. He lifts his glass toward me before returning to the argument about flowers.
The Ember House expansion began as sketches I worked on quietly after everyone else was asleep. Now residents are using the rooms I drew, and I have stopped pretending the work only matters when every other task is finished first.
Nicholas glances toward me while Oliver continues explaining why the florist cannot be trusted with peonies. “What are you going to design next?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I say. “But I’m not putting the sketchbook away again.”
Blake reaches for another garlic knot while Oliver resumes objecting to the flowers.
Luther checks the vendor schedule beside his plate and confirms the final transportation times without joining the flower argument.
Rosalie asks whether the cake has its own car, and he adds a note to verify the delivery window before answering her.
Maceo sits on Luca’s other side, listening while the conversation moves around him.
His phone remains facedown beside his plate.
When Samuel begins another practice walk behind the chairs, Maceo shifts closer to the table to clear a path and returns to his dinner without checking the windows or interrupting the room.
After dinner, the children disappear toward the living room with Bartholomew and a box of wedding decorations. The house fills with the scrape of cushions, Rosalie’s instructions, and Samuel arguing that a ceremony march should include turns.
Blake and I take the final ceremony plans into the sunroom.
The table is covered with floor plans, fabric swatches, and lighting diagrams. The Ember House expansion plans used to occupy the same surface. Now the ceremony layout spreads across it instead.
“I want the seating to curve,” I say, drawing the line around the central space. “No straight rows. I want everyone gathered around us instead of watching from one direction.”
Blake leans over the plan, his shoulder brushing mine as he studies the curved seating.
“The photographers will need a clear sightline,” he says.
I trace the outer edge of the layout. “They can work from outside the circle. I don’t want the guests arranged in straight rows.”
Blake takes my pencil and widens the aisle nearest the center. “Then this needs more room.”
I check the measurements. “There’s enough space.”
His gaze drops briefly to the cane beside the table before returning to the page. “There is now.”
I look at the altered line and realize I narrowed it again without noticing. I erase my original mark and redraw the curve around his adjustment.
Blake moves to the lighting plan and circles the brightest fixture. “This one will wash out the center.”
“I thought we needed it.”
“We needed it before we changed the seating.”
I replace it with two softer lights along the outer edge while he adjusts the procession path beside me.
We argue over the seating angles, the order of the procession, and whether Oliver should be allowed near the flowers before the ceremony begins. Blake adds small interactive details along the edges of the plan while I work through the lighting progression into the center.
Blake changes position, reaches for his cane, and moves to the other side of the table to inspect the lighting plan. We work until the revised layout fills the center of the page.
Blake closes the design folder but leaves his vow notebook open. Three versions fill the pages, each crossed through before the end.
He rests his hand beside them. “I keep trying to explain everything we survived, and it starts sounding like a report.”
Luca enters with tea and sets the tray on the edge of the table. He looks over the revised ceremony plans before his attention moves to the open notebook.
“You don’t have to explain all fifteen years,” Luca says. “Start with the fake Alpha contacts.”
Blake looks up at him. The memory softens his expression before he glances back at the pages.
We had all heard pieces of the story before. Blake and Luca had listed each other beneath invented Alpha names because official paperwork demanded the appearance of protection neither of them had.
“We kept changing the details because we were afraid someone would check,” Blake says.
Luca rests his hand on the edge of the table. “We couldn’t promise that we could fix anything. We could only promise that we’d answer.”
Blake turns to a clean page.
“That was the first vow,” Luca says quietly.
Blake writes the words down before looking at him again. “Then that’s where I start.”
Blake looks at the crossed-out pages for several seconds before writing a new line beneath them. I rest my hand briefly on Luca’s shoulder while Blake continues.
The finalized Ember House governance confirmation arrives later that week. Luca reads it once at the kitchen counter, forwards it to the board, and returns to arguing with Rosalie about whether the ceremony needs one pink dragon or three.
By Friday evening, Oliver and Nicholas come over for dinner with Bartholomew and enough dessert for twice the number of people in the house. Wilson arrives shortly after them.
Before anyone sits down, Lorenzo sends a message declaring the selected wine unacceptable and promising to bring something better for the wedding.
Oliver reads the message over Nicholas’s shoulder. “He’s right.”
“You haven’t tasted the wine,” Nicholas says.
“I don’t need to.”
Bartholomew joins James, Samuel, and Rosalie on the living-room floor. They build a game from cushions, paper crowns, and the security-dragon drawing, then change the rules every time one of the adults begins to understand them.
Rosalie assigns the dragon to guard the cake. Samuel insists the ring bearer should be allowed to command it. James says commands require a system and starts drawing one.
Wilson pauses beside Luther in the kitchen and looks toward the children.
“I used to think a room this loud meant something bad was about to happen,” he says.
Luther passes him the salad bowl. “Now it means they’re building a fort where we planned to sit.”
Wilson takes the bowl, smiling despite himself. “That too.”
Oliver objects to the wine before tasting it, Nicholas steals half his dessert, and the children alter the rules of their game again when Samuel declares the dragon has eaten the wedding rings.
Nobody discusses investigations, charges, or strategy. The loudest argument concerns whether pink dragons can outrank queens.
By the time dinner winds down, wrapping paper and empty plates cover most of the living room.
Oliver and Nicholas gather Bartholomew and the remains of the dessert before leaving.
Wilson carries the last empty dish to the kitchen before heading home, while Lorenzo’s earlier complaint about the wine remains unanswered in the family chat.
I collect two glasses from the coffee table, then stop when Blake takes one from my hand.
“Leave the rest,” he says. “Come upstairs.”
I glance toward the remaining dishes and Blake sets both glasses on the side table and waits.
The counter can stay cluttered until morning. The cushions can remain wherever the children abandoned them. Nobody is waiting for me to restore the house before I’m allowed to rest.
I turn off the living-room light and follow him.