"I know it. I need to prove it to the client before they sign off on a revision that doubles the steel cost."
"And your husband?"
The question was neutral. Deliberately neutral. I heard the weight he wasn't putting on it.
"Callum wants the aesthetic to stay clean," I said. "No visible columns. No interruption to the sightlines."
"Of course he does." Finn looked up from the drawings. "That's not a structural opinion. That's a marketing one."
"I'm aware."
"Are you going to tell him he's wrong?"
I took a sip of the coffee. Black. Strong. Exactly what I needed. "I'm going to tell the client. Callum can decide how he wants to hear it."
Finn studied me for a beat longer than the conversation required. Then he looked back down at the drawings and let it go.
"You could transfer the load to a tension system," he said. "Hidden steel rods running through the ceiling plane. It gives you the clean profile and the structural integrity. Costs more, but not as much as a lawsuit."
"I thought about that. The ceiling height doesn't support it."
"Then drop the ceiling six inches."
"The clients want twelve-foot ceilings."
"They want a house that doesn't collapse more."
I almost laughed. It caught somewhere in my chest, a half-formed thing that didn't quite make it out.
"You're not wrong," I said.
"I'm rarely wrong. You used to tell me that." He pulled a pencil from the tray and started sketching in the margin. A protest formed in my mind—it wasn't his project—but it dissolved as I watched his hand move. He wasn't managing the problem; he was solving it, his lines cutting straight to the structural truth.
"What if you ran the tension rods laterally instead of vertically?" I leaned over the drawing. "Through the beam pockets?"
"Then you're asking the beams to carry the shear."
"They can carry it if we reinforce the pockets."
He paused. Looked at the drawing. Looked at me.
"That's a good idea," he said.
"I know it is."
"So do it. Send them the revised drawings. Let Callum take the credit if that's what he needs, but get the house built right."
The words landed. I didn't flinch, but something in me went very still. Finn didn't look away. He didn't apologize. He just waited, the pencil still in his hand, and the silence between us was the kind that didn't need filling.
"You always did that," I said quietly.
"Did what?"
"Saw the thing I wasn't saying."
He set the pencil down. "You're not saying a lot this morning."
"I'm saying enough."
