Laughter warms the room. It rolls over the art on the walls, over the framed picture of the three of us from last Christmas that Nathan moved to the entry table where everyone can see it now.
Life’s been…wonderful. I keep waiting for the universe to tap its watch and tell me to be reasonable. Instead, Nathan keeps handing me more of his heart and all the keys.
“Alright,” Zayn says. He tilts his chin at me, eyes wicked. “What did my brother give you as a wedding present, Jazz? Because I—”
“Zayn,” Sasha warns, amusement tugging her mouth.
“—I bought an entire bookstore,” he finishes, smug.
Heat climbs my neck. I glance at Nathan. He only sips his whiskey, gray eyes unreadable. The last few weeks have been nothing but a gift—his ring on my finger, his name on my lips,mornings tangled in white sheets—so it truly doesn’t occur to me to care. I open my mouth to deflect—
“Looks like you’re already losing to him, Nate,” Adam chimes in, purely to stir.
“Absolutely not.” Nathan’s deadpan lands like velvet over steel. He sets his glass down, takes my hand, and lifts it to his mouth. His kiss lands at the base of my ring finger, deliberate enough to make my knees go unreliable. “Happy two-month anniversary, wife.”
Sophie fake-gags. Mariska claps. Zayn mutters something about performative romance and then grins like a thief. Sasha’s eyes go soft. Max’s mouth twitches, which is basically a parade.
Nathan straightens and flicks a look at the hallway. “Since my brother is flying high on the idea that he cornered the market on grand gestures,” he says, voice mild, “why don’t we take a little tour?”
He moves first, and somehow all that CEO gravity herds everyone without a ripple. We drift past the art and the plants and the quiet pool of light at our bedroom door, right up to the locked guest room that’s been teasing me for days.
He pauses, looks down at me—checking, always, even when he’s sure—and slides a key into the lock. The door swings open.
It’s a studio.
Not a “throw a mic on a desk” studio—but a cathedral for sound. Warm oak floors. Dimmable sconces washing honey-light over charcoal acoustic panels set in precise patterns.
A glassed-in vocal booth with a floating floor, its own tiny galaxy of LEDs. Inside it—a Neumann mounted in a shock mount with a curved reflection filter, a pop screen at the perfect distance, an adjustable stool I can already feel under my palms.
Outside: a sleek desk with two massive monitors and a touch-screen DAW, an Apollo interface glinting like jewelry, twin nearfields on isolation pads, a soft-arm lamp with a brass dimmer I instinctively reach to touch.
There’s a velvet chaise in the corner (of course there is), a carafe and two glasses on a side table, a tiny, framed print that says breathe low and slow in a serif script that matches the gold plate on the door: Jasmine Grayson Studio.
I rub my fingers over the metal grain. My breath leaves me like someone punched a sob out of my ribs. “Oh my God,” I whisper, hand flying to my mouth.
Sasha steps closer to the glass. “It’s a recording studio, folks. Because Jazz is an audiobook narrator.”
I bow to impressed sounds.
“Good job, Dad,” Sophie says with a wide smile.
“I—Nathan, you didn’t have to.” Tears prick; my voice goes thin.
“You know I don’t like the idea of you going to seedy areas just for the recording studio,” he says.
I gasp and laugh. “You send me everywhere in a tinted limo with a security guard from Adam’s company,” I say, pointing at the quiet, bear of a man. He even escorted me once when they were short of personnel. “People look at me like I’m some depraved politician’s mistress every time I show up at a studio.”
Laughter breaks. “You’re precious cargo, baby girl,” Nathan says.
The men gag and leave, making exaggerated faces. The women laugh, their giggles trailing after them as they follow, leaving us alone.
I step over the threshold like it’s holy, trailing my fingers over the console, the smooth edge of the desk, the brass dimmer, the curve of the reflection filter. Everything hums under my skin. Everything smells faintly of new wood and promise.
Nathan steps up behind me, his warmth wrapping around me before his arms do. The faint starch of his shirt brushesmy skin as he cages me against the desk. His hands span my stomach, palms heavy and reverent.
“Do you like it?” His voice is a low rasp at my ear, rough from the whiskey he sipped after dinner.
“I love it,” I whisper, throat tight.
