"That's very kind," Miles says. "Sure."
"Awesome. Saturday? I'll text you the details, Ray." Lawson grins, and Noah throws his plastic keys on the floor, and Lawson crouches to pick them up, and the whole thing is so normal, so messy and alive, that I want to bottle it.
We say goodbye and walk to the car and Miles doesn't say a word.
I pull out of the parking garage and we're three blocks away before I break the silence.
"That went well. The meeting, I mean. Shaw seemed impressed."
"He's reserving judgment." Miles is looking straight ahead. "But yes. It was a productive start."
"Whitaker's going to be the problem. He's territorial about the diligence."
"I know. Your phasing idea was good." He says it like he'd say "the sky is blue" — flat, factual, not a compliment so much as an acknowledgment of reality. I'll take it.
"So Saturday," I say, trying to keep my voice casual. "Lawson and Kole's. It'll be fun. Devon's probably going to bring those empanadas he's been obsessing over. Alex will sit in the corner being intense and holding the baby."
Miles doesn't respond.
"Kole's cool. You'll like him. He's an omega, actually — bonded to Lawson. Used to work in corporate before Noah."
Still nothing.
"Miles?"
"I heard you." His voice is quiet. Not cold. Just quiet. "Saturday."
I don't push. I drive and talk about the case — next steps, the framework we need to draft, the phasing structure for Whitaker. Safe territory. Miles engages on the professional stuff, his voice getting more animated as we get into the details, and I realize this is how he's comfortable — the work. The work is where he lives. Everything else is enemy territory.
I pull up in front of the firm and put the car in park. Miles gathers the case file and reaches for the door handle and stops.
He's looking down at his lap. The case file is in his hands and his thumb is running along the edge of the folder, back and forth, this small repetitive motion that he doesn't seem to know he'sdoing. His shoulders are tight under his suit jacket but his face, in profile, is unguarded in a way I haven't seen since the resort. Not the sharp mask. Not the ice. Just a guy sitting in a car, tired, carrying something heavy, trying to figure out how to open the door and put the armor back on.
His hand drifts to his shoulder. He presses his fingers against the spot where I know the bruise is, under his shirt, and holds them there for a second. Then he takes a breath, straightens, opens the door, and gets out.
"Today went well," he says through the open door. All business. "I'll send you the follow-up memo by end of day."
He closes the door and walks into the building without looking back.
I sit in my car and watch him go and I don't start the engine for a long time.
Miles
I'm standing on a porch in a neighborhood I've never been to, holding a sixty-dollar bottle of wine and listening to what sounds like a small riot happening on the other side of the door.
Someone is laughing. A baby is screaming — the happy kind, not the bad kind, I think, although I'm not sure I can tell the difference. Music is playing, something uptempo that doesn't match the screaming or the laughing. Ray's voice is in there, loud and easy, saying something that sends someone else into hysterics.
I took an Uber. I told myself it was because parking would be difficult. It's because arriving with Ray in his car meant something I'm not ready for it to mean.
I ring the doorbell.
Lawson opens the door with Noah on his hip and a dish towel over his shoulder and a grin like I just made his day. "Miles! Come in, come in. Sorry about the — yeah, it's always like this.Kole says we need a bigger house but I think the noise is the charm."
The house is warm. That's the first thing I register — the physical warmth, like someone turned the heat up too high, and then the other kind. The walls are a soft gray and there are framed photos everywhere — the three of them at a beach, Noah's first birthday, Lawson and Kole's bonding ceremony. There are toys on the floor and shoes piled by the door and it smells like garlic and something baking and underneath all of it, the layered scents of a bonded family.
I hand Lawson the wine. "Thank you for having me."
"Are you kidding? We never have people over. Kole's been cleaning all day. He'll kill me for telling you that." Lawson takes the wine and looks at the label and his eyebrows go up. "Okay, this is way nicer than what we were going to open. You're officially my favorite guest."