Page 72 of Forever We Embrace: The Later Years
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.”
