He ushers me inside and the riot becomes people. Devon is on the couch with a baby — Gabriel, I think — propped against his shoulder, gesturing with his free hand while he tells a story. Alex is leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen with his arms crossed, watching Devon with an expression that's half exasperation and half grudging adoration. Kole is in the kitchen doing three things at once. And Ray is on the floor — literally on the floor — building a block tower with Noah that Noah keeps knocking over and shrieking about.
Ray looks up when I walk in and his whole face changes. Not dramatically — just this softening, this pull, like seeing me here in this context is something he's been wanting. "Hey," he says. "You made it."
"I said I would."
"Yeah, but I thought you might fake a work emergency." He grins and turns back to Noah and the blocks and I stand there inthe entryway of this loud, overfull house in my good coat and my third-best suit and I have no idea what to do with my hands.
"Miles, right?" Devon is looking at me from the couch. He's got his brother's dark hair but sharper features, and his eyes are doing the same assessing thing that I do to people in depositions. Gabriel is chewing on the collar of his shirt. "Ray's told us about you."
"Only good things, I hope."
"He said you're his boss and you're terrifying. I didn't realize terrifying came in that size."
I look down at myself — five-ten, one-sixty soaking wet — and back at Devon. "The terror is mostly psychological."
Devon's mouth twitches. He looks over at Alex, who hasn't moved from his spot in the doorway. "I like him."
"Great," Alex says flatly. "Another sarcastic one."
"You married a sarcastic one," Devon says sweetly.
"I'm aware. I regret it daily."
Devon blows him a kiss. Alex rolls his eyes but the corner of his mouth moves, just barely, and the whole exchange takes about four seconds and tells me everything I need to know about their relationship. They love each other the way people who used to fight love each other — with their teeth still showing.
The evening happens around me. Lawson orders too much Thai food because Kole's thing in the oven turns out to be a side dish, not the main event. Everyone sits wherever there's space — the dining table only seats four so Devon and Alex take the floor, which Devon complains about until Alex pulls him down by the back of his shirt. The food is spread across every available surface. Noah eats pad thai noodles with his fist and gets sauce in his hair. Gabriel falls asleep on Alex's chest during the main course and stays there for the rest of the meal.
I eat green curry and drink wine and listen to conversations that overlap and interrupt and circle back. Lawson tells a storyabout his father that makes everyone groan. Devon tells a story about a client that makes everyone laugh. At one point Kole asks me about the Shaw firm — what Richard is like in person — and I find myself actually answering, not the professional version but the real one. "He's the kind of alpha who doesn't need to raise his voice because the room is already listening." Kole nods like he knows exactly the type, and Devon says "sounds like Alex" and Alex, without looking up from the baby asleep on his chest, says "I raise my voice plenty. You just don't listen." Devon throws a napkin at him.
Ray is in the middle of all of it — reaching across the table to steal Devon's spring roll, catching Noah's cup before it falls, asking Kole about his freelance work, refilling my wine without being asked.
He does that — the wine thing — so casually that I almost miss it. But I don't miss it. I watch him notice my glass is low and reach for the bottle and pour and set it back down and never break stride in his conversation with Lawson, and I think: he's always doing this. The coffee at the office. The water at the resort. The food he ordered when I was going into heat. He takes care of people without announcing it and without expecting thanks and it's such a fundamental part of who he is that he doesn't even know he's doing it.
I drink the wine he poured and it tastes better than the last glass.
Later, while Devon is telling another story and Ray is laughing and Kole is trying to keep Noah from climbing onto the table, Alex catches my eye from across the room. He's still holding Gabriel, the baby's face pressed into his neck, and he gives me this look — not unfriendly, not inviting, just steady and direct. Like he's reading something in me that I thought I was hiding. Then he nods, once, slight, and goes back to watching Devontalk. I don't know what the nod means. Approval, maybe. Or recognition. One guarded person acknowledging another.
After dinner, Devon corners me in the kitchen. I'm rinsing a plate because I needed a task and washing dishes is a task, and then he's next to me, drying.
"So," he says. "You're the boss."
"Senior associate. His direct supervisor, yes."
"That's very corporate." He dries a plate with more care than seems warranted. "You know, Ray took that job because I guilted him into it. Told him he needed a real job with a real paycheck. He hated every second of it until about three months ago."
I rinse another plate. "What changed three months ago?"
"You tell me." Devon gives me a look that's way too perceptive for someone with baby food in his hair. "He calls me on his lunch break. He used to complain about the fluorescent lights and the coffee. Now he talks about you."
"I'm sure he complains about me too."
"Oh, constantly. You're mean and you don't sleep enough and you drink cold coffee, which he says is a cry for help." Devon pauses. "But the way he complains about you is different from the way he used to complain about the lights."
I don't have a response to that. I rinse a glass very thoroughly.
"I'm not grilling you," Devon says, and his voice is softer now. "Ray's an adult. He makes his own choices. I just—" He stacks the dry plate on the counter. "He's my little brother. He acts like nothing bothers him but that's bullshit. He feels things. I just want to make sure whoever he's feeling things about is worth it."
"I'm his boss, Devon."