21 | Nepo Baby
The power outage transformed four adults into people who had never encountered electricity before.
We made it upstairs using the emergency light from the studio and the flashlight on my phone. By the time we reached the kitchen, Wesley had opened the refrigerator twice.
“Stop doing that.”
“I’m checking what we have.”
“Every time you open it, you let the cold air out.”
He closed the door, then rested one hand on the handle while trying to remember whether anything important remained unseen.
Leo appeared beside him. “We should eat everything before it goes bad.”
“The food has been without power for three minutes.”
“Exactly. Time is limited.”
He opened the freezer.
I slapped it shut.
The storm had intensified beyond the windows, turning the night into shifting white against black glass.
Wind pressed against the lodge hard enough to make the beams creak.
The string lights on the enclosed porch were dark.
Snow had already begun covering the lower half of the windows, erasing the view that had allowed someone outside to record us.
That improvement had arrived too late.
Kadir found the main electrical panel near the utility room. None of the breakers had tripped. He pulled on boots and a coat, then went outside to check the backup generator while the rest of us searched the kitchen drawers for emergency supplies.
The lodge contained thirty-seven candles and one working flashlight.
The flashlight had a weak beam and a loose battery cover Leo immediately held beneath his chin.
His face appeared from the darkness, lit from below.
“Tell us what happened in the video, Dasha.”
I shoved the light away. “Do that again and you’re sleeping outside.”
Wesley found a box of matches and began arranging candles along the island. He lit too many at once, creating enough soft light for the kitchen to resemble a restaurant that charged by the size of the plate.
The atmosphere would’ve been pleasant if my father hadn’t called to warn me that my career might be collapsing online.
I stood near the island with my phone in one hand, watching the loading symbol fail repeatedly. Cell service appeared for a few seconds, then vanished before any page opened.
Wesley opened the refrigerator again.
I stared at him.
“I need the frozen food.”
“That’s in the freezer.”
He moved his hand to the other door. “Right.”
“Why do you need frozen food?”
“We should cook it.”
Leo nodded as though Wesley had presented a solid emergency plan. “Start with anything expensive.”
They began removing boxes before I could stop them. Frozen pizza, dumplings, several containers of chicken, and a bag of vegetables accumulated across the counter.
The gas stove still worked if a flame was brought to it. Wesley stood over one burner with a match and the frozen dumplings while Leo tried to decide whether pizza could be cooked directly over a flame.
Kadir returned covered in snow before either of them created another insurance claim.
“The generator won’t start.”
He shut the door behind him and brushed snow from his shoulders. Cold air followed him into the kitchen.
“Fuel?” I asked.
“Could be the line. Could be frozen. I can’t see enough.”
Leo lifted the flashlight. “I can come help.”
Kadir looked at the weak yellow beam.
“No.”
Wesley held up the bag of dumplings. “We’re saving these.”
Kadir took the bag from him, examined the pan, then turned off the burner.
“You were going to burn the outside and leave the middle frozen.”
“That’s still cooked in sections.”
Kadir removed his coat and took control of the stove.
Within ten minutes, he had found soup, bread, and enough ingredients to make something that didn’t require experimenting with raw chicken during a blackout. Wesley was assigned to slicing bread. Leo opened wine and claimed he had contributed to the emergency response.
I carried candles into the living room.
The gas fireplace lit after several attempts, filling the room with an immediate warmth that failed to reach beyond the sectional.
The bedrooms upstairs would become colder as the night continued.
We had no idea how long the outage would last, but the storm had already buried the drive and shut down enough cell service to prevent the label from reaching me.
The meeting couldn’t happen tomorrow if we had no power or internet.
The delay gave my imagination more time.
By the time Kadir brought the soup into the living room, I had invented six versions of the meeting.
In two, I was reassigned. In one, I was fired.
In another, my father defended me and damaged his own credibility in the process.
The most optimistic version involved the label allowing me to finish the retreat before quietly moving me somewhere nobody would notice.
The men ate around the coffee table beneath layers of blankets.
They were quieter than usual. Nobody had forgotten the frozen frame on my phone or the fact that I had been pale when I returned to the studio.
They were waiting for me.
I continued eating until the silence felt more obvious than the explanation.
After dinner, Kadir pulled me onto his lap near the fireplace. His legs stretched beneath the blanket, one arm wrapped securely around my waist. The position had become familiar enough that I settled against him without thinking.
Wesley sat beside us and began separating strands of my hair with his fingers, working through a small knot near the ends. Leo took the other end of the sectional and pulled my feet into his lap.
My socks had begun unraveling near one ankle.
He found the loose thread and tugged it.
“Stop.”
“It’s bothering me.”
“You’re making it longer.”
“I’m finding the source.”
He gave the thread another small pull.
Kadir’s arm tightened around me before I could kick Leo.
The four of us had arranged ourselves around the fire like this was an ordinary evening. Kadir’s chest warmed my back. Wesley played with my hair. Leo’s thumb moved absently against the sole of my foot through the sock he was actively destroying.
“We can only do this for two more weeks,” I said.
Every hand stopped.
Leo still held the loose thread. Wesley’s fingers remained tangled in my hair. Kadir went still behind me.
All three looked down at the exact arrangement I had interrupted.
I almost laughed because the visual made my point horribly. Nothing about us looked temporary.
Leo released the thread. “Why?”
“The retreat ends.”
“You’re still our manager after the retreat.”
“That doesn’t mean this continues.”
Wesley’s fingers resumed moving, slower now. “I assumed it did.”
The casual answer reached somewhere I had kept deliberately unexamined.
I had built the original rule because six weeks had edges. The lodge created a contained environment where consequences could be postponed, privacy could be mistaken for safety, and three relationships could develop without requiring anyone to explain how they would work in real life.
The calendar remained the only boundary none of us had crossed.
Kadir’s hand spread over my stomach beneath the blanket. “You’re deciding again.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“You’re deciding what happens before anyone else speaks.”
The connection to his bass line was obvious. I had accused him of rejecting his own ideas before the band could touch them. Now I was doing the same thing with us.
I stared at the unlit television.
“My dad called.”
Wesley let go of my hair and leaned forward. Leo stopped touching my foot.
I explained the footage as clearly as I could.
Someone connected to the property had recorded us during the half-party.
The video showed enough physical affection to turn Lodge Girl from fan fiction into something difficult to dismiss.
The label had seen it. Publicity had seen it.
My father had warned me that a formal meeting was scheduled for tomorrow.
Kadir’s jaw tightened behind me.
“He recorded through the windows?”
“From outside.”
“That’s definitely illegal,” Wesley said.
“Maybe. It depends where he was standing, who owns the footage, and several other things I don’t currently have enough service to investigate. Either way, I’m screwed.”
Leo reached for my phone. The video still refused to load beyond the frozen frame.
“He sold this?”
“I don’t know. He might have sent it to someone. Somebody posted it.”
Leo’s anger arrived quickly. He wanted the person’s name, the property company, and a lawyer. Wesley wanted to know whether the lodge had exterior cameras that might show who recorded it. Kadir remained quieter, but the arm around me had become rigid.
Their outrage focused on the invasion.
Mine remained with the label.
“The recording is already online. Finding out who took it won’t undo that.”
Leo looked at me. “The label should be worried about someone filming their artists through a window.”
“They’re worried about what the footage shows.”
Wesley looked toward the dark windows as if imagining the angle.
“We weren’t doing anything wrong.”
“I was working as your manager while having… an arrangement with all three of you. The label is allowed to call that a conflict.”
The situation sounded easier to judge when described that way. I had become personally involved with the artists whose professional recovery I had been assigned to manage. I never disclosed it. My father held a senior position at the label and had placed me in the role.
Those facts existed independently of how right the situation felt.
“The best outcome is probably reassignment,” I said. “They might let me stay with the label and give me someone else. An artist with less attention. Less risk.”
Leo’s face hardened. “We won’t work with a replacement.”
“That isn’t entirely your decision.”
“It is if we refuse to record.”
“That would prove the label’s concerns. They’d think I compromised your judgment.”
“You improved our judgment.”
“Leo.”
“You did.”
Wesley leaned closer. His usual instinct would have been to soften the disagreement, reassure me that we would solve it later, and say whatever kept everyone calm.
“Another manager would undo this.”