My old childhood bedroom was at the far end of the east wing, removed from the noise of the gala by several long corridors and a set of heavy double doors. It was a room I hadn't spent significant time in since I'd opened the bakery and gotten my own studio apartment, but walking through the door felt like stepping back into something familiar and steady. The furniture was the same and the smells were the same. Hints of old wood and something faintly sweet, like the memory of baking had followed me even here.
I got Amara inside and sat her on the edge of the bed and then did the only thing my instincts would allow me to do.
I started building.
It wasn't a conscious decision. My hands just moved, gathering everything soft within reach. The heavy blankets from the bed. The throw from the armchair by the window. I even pulled my tux jacket off and added it to the pile, then turned to the wardrobe in the corner where my old things had lived undisturbed for years.
Old clothes mostly, things I'd forgotten about entirely.
I moved to my closet and went to the back of the top shelf and pulled down three old cardigans, soft and worn. They were exactly the kind of thing I never wore anymore but had apparently never been able to throw away.
I pulled them out without thinking and added them to the nest.
My hands found a stack of books on the bedside table, volumes I'd accumulated over years of living in this room. I gathered them too, tucking them into the edges of the nest, giving it shape and weight and something that felt like her.
My fingers closed around something at the bottom of the stack and I noted that it was a tattered paperback, its spine cracked from years of reading, its cover soft with age.
Pride and Prejudice.
I set it in the center of the nest without examining why it felt right and turned back to Amara.
She was watching me from the edge of the bed, her eyes glassy with heat but aware enough to take in what I'd built. Something moved across her face that I couldn't fully read. It was a look of softness and wondering.
"Come here," I said gently.
She let me help her into the nest, and the sound she made when the softness closed around her, when she pulled one of the old cardigans against her chest and tucked it under her chin, was the kind of sound that rearranged something permanently inside me.
"You have cardigans," she said softly, her voice slightly delirious.
"I have cardigans," I confirmed.
I settled on the floor beside the nest, my back against the bed frame, close enough that she could reach me if she needed to but not so close that I was crowding her. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to climb in beside her, to wrap myself around her, to press my face into her hair and let my scent cover her completely.
I stayed on the floor.
"Kael," she said after a moment, her voice small.
"I'm here."
She bit at her bottom lip, “I’m so embarrassed."
"Don't be."
One of her brows softly raised, “I just had a heat episode in the middle of your family's Valentine gala."
"You did," I said. "And you're handling it with considerably more dignity than most people would."
She made a sound that was almost a laugh, almost.
Her hand appeared over the edge of the nest, reaching down toward me. I took it without hesitation, lacing my fingers through hers, and felt her exhale slowly.
"I'm still wanna be angry at you," she said. "About the other thing."
"I know," I said. "You're allowed to be, if you want to.”
She grinned, “I just wanted you to know I hadn't forgotten."
"I wouldn't expect anything less from you."
