I have always been in the corner.
Quiet. Useful. Waiting until the outcome was certain enough to be worth the cost of wanting it.
I don't think I want to be in the corner anymore.
19
MAYA
The kitchen smells of roasted root vegetables and warm bread, earthy and deep.
"Sit," Jace says, pulling out a chair with his boot. He's already moving through the kitchen, plating something with easy authority.
His gaze catches mine. "Well. Don't you look thoroughly... relaxed." He draws the word out like taffy. "Must be something in the mountain air today."
I sit. My fingers find the edge of the table. Press.
"Owen made lunch," Jace continues, setting a plate in front of me. Roasted carrots and parsnips, golden-edged and caramelized, arranged with a precision that could only be Owen's work. Thick slices of sourdough alongside them, still warm enough to steam. "Personally, I think he's showing off."
Owen says nothing from the counter. He pours water into glasses with the focused attention of someone who has endured Jace’s teasing that knows it’s best to not participate.
Reid comes in behind me. I feel him before I see him, the shift in the room's gravity, the way the doorway changes when he fills it. He pulls out the chair beside mine. Sits. His knee settles against mine under the table, unhurried and deliberate, and stays.
"Interesting," Jace says, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. "Since when do you come home for lunch? I thought the wolves would mutiny without their fearless leader."
Reid picks up his fork. "They'll manage."
"They'llmanage." Jace lets the words float. He looks at me, back at Reid, and there is something in his expression. Not a smirk, not quite. Something warmer. He winks at Reid, quick and unmistakable. "Good. I like this new arrangement. Works for me."
Reid doesn't look up from his plate. "Eat your lunch, Jace."
"I'm just saying." He spreads his hands. All innocence, zero credibility. "I'm a flexible man."
The heat starts in my chest and climbs. Throat. Cheeks. I reach for my water and drink, buying three seconds I desperately need because Jace is looking at me with those sharp pale eyes, and Reid's knee is warm and solid against mine, and somewhere in the air between the two of them is a conversation I'm not entirely sure I'm reading correctly.
Or maybe I'm reading it exactly right.
"So," Jace says, turning to Owen, "about the rest of the lunch?"
"It's going," Owen snaps.
Jace turns to me, conspiratorial. "He's been like this all morning. Very forthcoming. Real chatterbox."
Owen brings the rest of lunch and sits at the end of the table beginning to eat with the same unhurried precision he brings to everything. Cuts his bread into even pieces. Doesn't look up.
I pick up my fork and try to focus on the food. The carrots are sweet and slightly charred at the edges, the rosemary sharpenough to cut through the sweetness. Owen's cooking is like Owen himself: careful, specific, better than it announces itself to be. I take another bite and realize I'm hungrier than I thought.
Jace is already launching into a story. Something about a client last season who showed up for a backcountry hike in brand new boots, tags still attached, and a daypack full of protein bars and zero navigation tools.
"I said, where's your map? He said, I've got GPS on my phone. I said, great, does your phone know that we lose signal in about four hundred meters?" Jace shakes his head, grinning. "You should have seen his face."
Reid makes a sound that might’ve been a laugh if he committed to it harder.
"So we're two hours in," Jace continues, "and the boots are eating this guy alive. He's got blisters on blisters. And he looks at me, dead serious, and goes,but the brochure said moderate difficulty."
"Did you write the brochure?" Owen asks, without looking up.
"I did write the brochure."
