The entire table stilled.
Then Bones shook his head once, expression implacable. “No.”
“No?” Grace’s jaw dropped.
Voodoo chimed in immediately. “Hard no.”
“Security nightmare.” Alphabet raised a finger.
Grace looked from man to man, scandalized. “I didn’t say retractable glass floors or a giant slide! Just a deck!”
“It would be beautiful,” I said diplomatically. Then sighed. “But they’re not wrong. French doors are a vulnerability.”
“We can reinforce them,” she argued. “Didn’t you say the glass in all of the windows is bulletproof? Why not those?”
Voodoo leaned in as though letting her in on a secret. “Because bulletproof French doors cost as much as a kidney on the black market.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Voodoo said solemnly, holding her gaze. “Really.”
Wthout missing a beat, she took a sip of her wine then said, “Good thing none of you are using both.”
Alphabet choked on his beer. I burst out laughing. Bones dropped his head into his hand, shoulders shaking.
“Firecracker,” Voodoo said proudly, “that was beautiful.”
“I’m serious,” she said, tapping her fingers on the table. “A deck would be nice. And safe. If you make it safe.”
Bones exhaled through his nose like she’d just challenged him to a duel. “If we do this—and that’s abigif —then we design it. Not prebuilt. Not flimsy. Reinforced everything. The garden planters have to be placed so they don’t obstruct line of sight.”
“Whatever you say, Captain.” Grace smiled slowly.
He narrowed his eyes. “That tone is mocking me.”
“Mocking?” She widened her blue eyes innocently. “Never.”
Voodoo snickered. Alphabet shook his head.
I covered her hand again. “What he means is—we’ll build it. For you. With you. Just like the room.”
Grace’s smile softened. “I’d like that.”
After slamming back his beer, Bones sighed like he’d just aged ten years and resigned himself to fate. “Fine. We’ll build a damn deck.”
She lit up—actually glowed—with joy so bright it punched straight through my ribs.
Just like that, the teasing died into warmth again, the kind that was patient and slow and full of promise.
Future plans.
Shared space.
Shared life.
She wasn’t temporary. None of it was.
Chapter
