Page 49 of Forever We Embrace: The Later Years
Grayson catches my hand when I begin turning my ring again. He brings my fingers to his mouth and kisses the back of them before holding my palm against his chest. “Blossom only needsyour answer about the revised intake schedule tomorrow. The rest of the security changes are already moving.”
“Oliver said the same thing about the wedding.” I feel Grayson’s heartbeat beneath my palm while Maceo’s mouth touches the side of my head. “He’s bringing me decisions one at a time.”
“Then everyone has finally agreed on a system,” Maceo says, his hand settling more firmly around my thigh. “You answer what’s directly in front of you. The rest stays with us until it’s ready.”
I lean across his chest and kiss him. It starts as a small touch against the corner of his mouth, but Maceo turns his face and catches me properly, one hand sliding beneath my jaw while Grayson keeps an arm wrapped around my waist. When I draw back, Grayson tips my chin toward him and kisses me more slowly, his thumb resting against my jaw.
“I hate that he saw it,” I say, resting between them again. “He didn’t deserve to stand there and look at what the residents made.”
Maceo’s glasses have shifted crookedly in the cramped space. I reach up to straighten them while he watches me. “He saw a building and tried to measure the access it gave him. He didn’t understand what he was looking at.”
Grayson keeps my hand pressed against his chest. “He saw the plans. He didn’t see the resident meetings that changed every one of them.”
My breathing steadies while their bodies remain pressed around mine. Maceo’s knee is trapped beneath the drawer, Grayson’s shoulder is wedged against the side panel, and one of Rosalie’s stuffed animals keeps falling onto my leg whenever I move. Neither of them suggests leaving for somewhere more comfortable.
I tell them about Oliver’s call, including Barty stealing the ribbon and Lorenzo shouting from the other room. Grayson smooths my hair while he listens, and Maceo adjusts my legs when they begin to slide from his lap. The wedding decisions no longer feel like another structure I’m failing to hold together. Oliver has already taken them into his hands and promised to bring them back one at a time.
My phone vibrates against Maceo’s chest before we decide whether we’re ready to crawl out.
Oliver has sent a photograph of a six-tier white cake with silver roses climbing each side. A second image shows Rosalie’s drawing superimposed over the top tier, where a pink dragon spreads its wings above two tiny figures and what might be a castle.
Beneath the pictures, Oliver has written:
Rosalie says it needs a dragon. Yes or no?
I angle the screen so Grayson and Maceo can see it without dislodging any of us. Grayson studies Rosalie’s drawing while keeping his arm around me, and Maceo pushes his glasses back into place before leaning closer.
“How large is she expecting the dragon to be?” Grayson asks, tracing one finger above the drawing without touching the screen.
Maceo looks at the silver roses and then at the purple wings. “Oliver should reinforce the top tier before Rosalie decides it needs to move.”
Their practical concern for the structural integrity of a sugar dragon makes my mouth curve. I take the phone back before either of them can turn one decision into an engineering review and type my answer.
Yes.
18
Blake
By the time Maceo returns from Ember House, I’m halfway through the board’s response to our procedural motion. He settles across from me with Victor’s supplemental filing open beside his laptop, marking the sections the review panel has temporarily removed from consideration while I add notes to the margin of my copy. Quentin calls before either of us finishes.
My cane rests against the desk within reach, and the crackers Grayson packed into my bag remain unopened beside it because the thought of eating them has been turning my stomach since I arrived.
“Your cardiac results are stable,” Quentin says once I answer, and the tension in my shoulders loosens before he continues. “There are changes in the rest of the panel, but I don’t think anything is wrong. I also don’t want to speak before I know what I’m looking at.”
My pen stops above the page. Maceo glances up from his screen when the silence stretches between us.
“What changed?” I ask.
“Your hormone levels have shifted in a way that doesn’t fit your medication or recovery. It may be a pack response, and I’d like to test Luca before I tell you what I think it means.” Quentin pauses rather than rushing past the words. “Bring him in when you can. This isn’t an emergency, Blake.”
The nausea that has followed me through the last several mornings turns sharply beneath my ribs. Tenderness pulls across my chest beneath my shirt, another symptom I’d blamed on medication, stress, or the weeks my body has spent recovering from everything I demanded of it.
“You think I’m reacting to him.”
“I think it’s possible,” Quentin answers, his voice softer than it was during my last appointment. “That’s as far as I’m willing to go until I test him.”
I look across the desk at Maceo. He has closed Victor’s filing and is already reaching for his phone, though he waits for me to finish before contacting anyone.
