"The inventory one. Finn said he saved it but it's not in any of the folders."
I lean over his shoulder and scan the screen. "Did you check the cloud drive?"
"The what?"
I reach past him and click through. The file is right there, labeled clearly.
Malcolm stares at it. "How did you know that?"
"Finn's organized. Everything goes in the cloud."
I pour myself a glass of water and set it next to him, watching how the muscles in his arm flex when he lifts his hand to rub at his forehead. I try not to stare, but it's hard not to notice.
"So how do you do your job if you can't find the cloud?" I ask. Only half teasing.
He grins, sheepish. "I install the security systems. The physical stuff. Drills, screws, wires. Heavy lifting. Technical setup is Alex's deal."
I glance at his arms again. The corded muscle, the tattoos. How his bicep flexes as he types. He’s leaner than Alex and Rhys, but everything is… toned. Yeah. That tracks completely. I hide my smile behind my water glass and mutter, "Seems about right."
Behind me, a chocolate muffin appears on the counter next to where I'm standing.
I didn't ask for it.
I look back.
Rhys is already walking away toward the living room.
I look at Malcolm.
Malcolm looks at the muffin, looks at me, then looks at the doorway Rhys just disappeared through.
He says nothing.
He turns back to the laptop with the expression of a man choosing his battles.
By mid-afternoon we've settled into a rhythm. I direct, Malcolm follows. I tell him where things are, how Finn organizes his systems, which calls can wait and which can't. He listens and doesn't argue when I redirect him away from decisions that would make more work later.
It's a comfortable inversion of what I'm used to. Being the one who knows. The one leading instead of following.
It feels good.
At some point Rhys drifts back into the kitchen and takes up a position leaning against the far counter. He’s not in the way or asking for anything. He’s just present in the way he has of being present, quiet and solid, like a piece of furniture that also happens to be watching you.
Every twenty minutes or so he finds a reason to set something near me.
A small bowl of crackers, a fresh glass of water to replace the one I finished. A section of the clementines he apparently found at the back of the fruit bowl and peeled without comment.
Malcolm watches this happen with the expression of a man cataloguing data.
"Does he do this at the pack house?" I ask Malcolm, low enough that it might not carry.
"He once brought me a beer after I'd had a terrible week," Malcolm says, equally low. "It was a few months after we bonded. I nearly fell off the couch."
"Why?"
"Because it meant he'd noticed I'd had a terrible week." Malcolm glances at Rhys. "He notices things. He just doesn't do anything about it for most people."
I look at the peeled clementine sections on the counter next to me.
