A laugh bursts out of me, “Of course,” I say, because what else is there to say when your entire worldview shifts in the span of thirty seconds. “Of course you are. Why am I not surprised?”
Maceo closes my trunk and steps closer, bending to collect three of my largest bags in one hand like they’re filled with feathers. “You’re taking it pretty well,” he observes.
“I’m taking it like someone who is too emotionally exhausted to process this properly,” I answer with complete honesty. “My inevitable breakdown is scheduled for tomorrow morning between breakfast and lunch.”
Lucien eyes me with obvious amusement. “Practical.”
Ezra glances toward the town center, then back to the house. “Do you have a way to contact anyone? If you need anything?”
I lift my dead phone like evidence in a court case. “This is currently a very expensive paperweight until I find a functioning electrical outlet. I’m not even sure if the power is on in there. The lawyers said everything should be connected and working, but given my luck today. . .” I trail off with a gesture that encompasses the general disaster of my existence.
Maceo reaches into the pocket of his work shirt, pulling out a pen with casual familiarity. “Give me your hand.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Excuse me?”
His grin turns completely unapologetic. “You want help or not, Ki-Ki?”
I hesitate for approximately three seconds, then hold out my palm because my life has already derailed so completely that resisting feels pointless.
Maceo takes my hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world, steadying it with careful fingers. His palm is warm and calloused from years of manual work, rough in a way that makes my pulse jump unexpectedly.
He writes on my skin slowly and deliberately, pen scratching lightly against the sensitive center of my palm.
The contact sends electricity up my arm.
When he’s finished, he releases my hand with obvious reluctance.
A phone number sits there in dark ink like a promise I didn’t ask for.
“If you need anything,” he says, eyes locking on mine with startling intensity, “you call me.”
My lips part around words I can’t quite form. “What if my phone stays dead?”
Maceo’s grin turns absolutely wicked. “Charge it.”
“That’s not helpful. . .” I start.
He lifts his shoulders in an elegant shrug. “Figure it out.”
Lucien’s laugh is soft and approving. Ezra just watches, something unreadable flickering behind his dark eyes.
Maceo points a finger directly at me. “If a big black Wolf shows up on your porch tonight, don’t scream.”
My eyebrows climb toward my hairline. “That sentence should not need to exist.”
“It exists,” Maceo says, entirely too pleased with himself.
Ezra clears his throat meaningfully. “He’s completely serious.”
“That does not help,” I say flatly.
Lucien steps closer again, his eyes drifting over the house with something that looks almost like nostalgia. His expression shifts subtly, like the manor represents more than just wood and nails to him. Like it’s living history he’s watched unfold.
“It will be good to see life in this place again,” he says quietly.
The words land heavier than they should, like they mean something I don’t understand yet, but feel anyway.
Maceo hoists a few more of my bags over his shoulders and carries them toward the porch with easy strength. Ezra followswithout being asked, grabbing two smaller bags before I can protest. Lucien walks beside me as if escorting me is simply what he does, a natural extension of who he is.
