Chapter 42 Thank You
Downstairs, the kitchen was in full operation. The smell hit them first~something baking, sweet and rich. Cinnamon, maybe. And coffee, always coffee. The espresso machine was hissing in the corner like an angry cat. Someone had left a dusting of flour on the counter, a rare sign of disorder in Mrs. Kozlov's usually spotless domain. There was a mixing bowl in the sink, still streaked with what looked like cream cheese frosting.
Mrs. Kozlov looked up when they entered, her expression neutral as always. She was wearing an apron~navy blue with white piping, somehow more formal than casual~which somehow made her look more intimidating rather than less. Like a general in uniform. "Good morning. I trust you both slept well?"
Cedric felt his face heat. There was no good way to answer that question when you'd spent the night in your boyfriend's bed and his housekeeper definitely knew it. "Uh. Yes. Thank you."
"Excellent." If she had any opinions about their sleeping arrangements, her face didn't show it. "Breakfast is ready in the dining room. You'll eat something substantial, please. We have a long day ahead." She turned to Falcone, all business. "The florist called. The arrangements will be delivered at four. The additional roses you requested will be included."
"Thank you."
"The menu is finalized. Rosa has everything under control in the kitchen. The dining room is set. All that's left is for both of you to stay out of the way and try not to drive everyone insane with your nervousness." She said it matter-of-factly, but there was something almost fond in her eyes. Or maybe Cedric was imagining it. The smallest softening at the corners. "The wine is breathing. I've selected three bottles for pairing. You'll approve them before dinner."
"We'll do our best," Cedric said, trying for lightness and landing somewhere around queasy optimism.
"See that you do." She shooed them toward the dining room with a dish towel, actually flicking it in their direction like she was herding chickens. "Now eat. You'll need your strength."
Breakfast was elaborate~eggs Benedict with Canadian bacon, fresh fruit arranged in patterns too pretty to disturb, pastries that were still warm from the oven and left little spots of butter on your fingers. The hollandaise was perfect, rich and lemony, probably made from scratch an hour ago. Cedric tried to eat but found his appetite had disappeared somewhere between the shower and seeing the fully set dining room table through the doorway. Six place settings gleaming in the morning light, even though only three people would be eating. The extra settings made it feel like ghosts would be joining them~his father who'd died years ago, maybe. Cedric's mother. The versions of themselves they used to be.
Everything perfect and terrifying.
"You need to eat," Falcone said, pushing a plate toward him. His own plate was still mostly full, eggs getting cold. "Mrs. Kozlov's orders."
"I'm not hungry." Cedric's stomach felt like a fist had closed around it. He picked up his fork anyway, set it down. Picked it up again. "I think I might throw up."
"Please don't throw up on Mrs. Kozlov's breakfast. I'm sure she'd scolded you." Falcone took a deliberate bite of eggs, though Cedric noticed his hand shook slightly bringing the fork to his mouth. He chewed mechanically, swallowed like it took effort. "Come on. We said we wouldn't spiral. Eating is not spiraling."
"Eating while staring at the dining room and imagining all the ways tonight could go wrong is definitely spiraling."
"Then don't look at the dining room. Look at me." Falcone reached across the table, taking Cedric's hand. His palm was warm, slightly damp. His thumb traced circles on Cedric's wrist, over the pulse point. "Just focus on this moment. Right now. Food that's good. Coffee that's hot. Us, together. Nothing else matters yet."
"Yet being the operative word."
"Yet," Falcone acknowledged. "But not now. Right now we eat breakfast."
Cedric tried. He really tried. He managed to eat half a pastry~almond, flaky, probably amazing under normal circumstances~and drink some coffee, which seemed to satisfy Falcone enough that he stopped hovering quite so obviously. The coffee was too hot. He burned his tongue a little, that sharp bright pain that makes your eyes water. Somehow that helped, the small sharp pain cutting through the fog of anxiety. Made everything feel real and present instead of dreamy and distant.
He also ate a strawberry, which was perfectly ripe and tasted like summer. Two bites of eggs that sat heavy in his stomach but stayed down. A corner of toast that was more butter than bread.
The rest of the morning passed in a strange suspended state, like they were moving through honey. Time felt thick and slow and fast all at once. They tried to read in the library but couldn't focus~Cedric picked up three different books before giving up entirely. He read the same page of a thriller three times and still couldn't tell you what it said. Something about a murder. Or maybe a missing person. The words just slid off his brain.
Tried to watch a movie but couldn't sit still. They put on some action thing with cars and explosions, but fifteen minutes in Cedric realized he hadn't followed a single plot point. Falcone kept checking his phone even though there were no messages, just refreshing his email over and over like something urgent might appear. His leg bounced constantly, shaking the whole couch.
"Are you actually watching this?" Cedric asked.
"No. You?"
"No idea what's happening."
"Someone stole something. I think." Falcone turned off the TV. The sudden silence felt loud.
They ended up just wandering the house like ghosts, unable to settle anywhere. The morning room was too bright. The study felt claustrophobic. The hallway too exposed. Every room they entered felt wrong somehow, like their anxiety was contagious and infected each space they touched.
Around noon, Mrs. Kozlov found them in the solarium and physically shooed them out. Cedric had been staring at the same orchid for ten minutes, not seeing it at all~just a blur of white petals and green stem that his eyes couldn't quite focus on.
"Go." She made actual shooing motions with both hands, herding them toward the door. "Take a walk. Get some air. Come back at three and you can start getting ready. Until then, Cedric you know what to do." She softened slightly, her hand briefly touching Cedric's shoulder. Her fingers were cool and firm. "It's going to be fine. But you need to calm down before you make yourselves sick. You're both pale as ghosts and you're making me nervous, which is unacceptable."
"Sorry," Cedric said automatically.
"Don't apologize. Just go. Walk. Breathe. Come back human."
"She's right," Cedric said once they were outside, standing on the terrace overlooking the garden. The air was cooler out here, carrying the smell of cut grass and roses and something else~someone nearby was grilling, the char-smoke smell drifting over the wall. "We need to do something. Anything that's not counting down the hours."
"Like what?" Falcone looked lost, like someone had taken away his map.
"I don't know. Walk through the garden? That's... that's normal, right? People do that? Walk in gardens?"
"I think so. Yes. Probably." Falcone looked at the garden like he'd never seen it before. "Okay. Let's walk."
They walked through the garden, which Cedric had seen from windows but never actually explored. It was beautiful in that carefully maintained way~hedges trimmed into perfect geometric shapes, flowers in precise arrangements that probably had Latin names he didn't know, gravel paths that crunched satisfyingly under their feet. Everything looked expensive, like someone paid attention to it even when no one was watching. The roses were in their last bloom before winter, full and heavy-headed. Some were starting to drop petals that made dark spots on the path.
"Do you ever use this space?" Cedric asked, trailing his hand along a hedge. The leaves were waxy and cool. "Or is it just for looking at?"
"Just for looking at, mostly. I'm not really a garden person." Falcone seemed almost embarrassed by this admission, like he'd failed at something he should know how to do. He kicked at a small stone on the path, sent it skittering into the flower bed. "My mother was. She spent hours out here, planting things, tending to them. Had this whole system~what needed sun, what needed shade, what bloomed when. After she died, I hired people to keep it up the way she would have wanted. But I don't... I don't know how to enjoy it the way she did. Don't know a dahlia from a daisy."
"We could learn. Together." Cedric squeezed his hand. Their palms were sweaty but neither let go. "Add it to the list of normal things we could do. Get a book. Learn the names of things. Plant something in spring and watch it grow."
"Normal things." Falcone smiled slightly, sad and hopeful at once. "Is that what we're going for? Normal?"
"Maybe. Sometimes. In between all the abnormal." Cedric pulled him to a stop near the fountain, where water caught the afternoon light in perfect arcs. A bee was circling nearby, confused by the season, looking for flowers that had already closed up for winter. "We could have this, you know. The quiet domesticity alongside everything else. Morning coffee and garden walks and learning plant names. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. All trauma or all happiness. We can have both."
"I'd like that." Falcone pulled him close, resting his chin on top of Cedric's head. His heart was beating fast~Cedric could feel it through both their shirts, a rapid flutter against his shoulder blade. "Building something with you. Not just surviving together but actually living. Actually having a life."
"What would that look like?" Cedric asked quietly. "If we could have anything?"
"This. You. A garden we actually use. Maybe a dog." Falcone's voice was soft, almost wondering. "Dinner parties that aren't interrogations. Friends over. Books we actually read instead of staring at. Stupid movies we can actually watch. Normal arguing about normal things like who left dishes in the sink or whether we need new towels."
"That sounds nice." Cedric felt his throat tighten. "Really nice."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Cedric turned in his arms, looking up at his face. "We can have that. We will have that. After tonight, after we get through this, we'll start building it. One normal thing at a time."
They stood like that for a while, listening to the fountain and the distant sounds of the city beyond the walls. A car horn. Someone's dog barking. A plane overhead. Normal life happening while they stood here frozen in this pocket of stillness. Cedric tried to memorize this moment~the warmth of the sun on his back, the sound of water splashing, Falcone's arms around him solid and real, the smell of roses and grass and autumn. Something to hold onto later, when dinner was happening and he couldn't breathe and everything felt too big.
A bird landed on the fountain's edge, dipped its head to drink. Watched them with one dark eye, unbothered.
"It's almost three," Falcone said eventually. His voice sounded reluctant, like the words cost him something. Like if he didn't say them, time might stop and they could stay here. "We should go back. Start getting ready."
"Yeah." Cedric didn't move. Neither did Falcone. The bird flew away. "Yeah, okay. In a minute."
"In a minute," Falcone agreed.
They stood there for two more minutes. Maybe three. Until the sun shifted and the fountain's shadow reached their feet and standing still felt less like peace and more like cowardice.
"Okay," Cedric said. "Now. Let's go now."
"It's going to be okay," Falcone repeated, and Cedric couldn't tell which of them he was trying to convince. The words had the practiced quality of a mantra, something said so many times it's lost meaning but you say it anyway.
"I know."
"We'll get through this."
"I know." Cedric squeezed his hand. "I believe that. I really do."
"Together."
"Together." Cedric pulled back, looking up at Falcone's face. There were lines around his eyes that hadn't been there a week ago, shadows underneath like he hadn't been sleeping well. "No matter what happens tonight~no matter what she says or thinks or does~remember you have me. That's what matters. That's what's real."
"That's what matters," Falcone agreed. He touched Cedric's face, gentle. "You're what matters."
"We're what matters," Cedric corrected. "Both of us. Together."
They walked back to the house hand in hand, the afternoon sun warm on their backs despite the autumn chill, three hours left before Cedric mother arrived and everything changed.
Or stayed the same.
Or something in between that they'd figure out as they went.
All they could do was be honest and hope it was enough.
Hope that love~messy and complicated and born from terrible circumstances~could survive the scrutiny of a mother's eyes.
Hope that Cedric's choice to stay would be understood, if not approved or maybe even comprehended.
Hope that somehow, impossibly, this could all work out.
The house loomed before them, beautiful and imposing and full of people preparing for a dinner that felt less like a meal and more like a judgment. Or a trial. An examination they might fail.
Mrs. Kozlov was probably inside right now, checking place settings and adjusting flower arrangements and making sure every detail was perfect. Rosa in the kitchen, timing dishes down to the minute. The florist would arrive at four. The bottles of wine were breathing somewhere, waiting to be approved. Everything was in motion, a machine they'd set running that couldn't be stopped now even if they wanted to.
Cedric took a deep breath. His lungs felt tight, like his ribcage had shrunk. "Okay," he said. "Let's do this."
"Yes,Let's do this!!fuck am a boss acting like a pussy!!," Falcone echoed. His hand tightened around Cedric's, holding on like he was afraid to let go. Or afraid Cedric might let go of him.
They climbed the steps together. Opened the door. Stepped inside.
The house smelled like roses and lemon polish and something cooking that made Cedric's stomach clench with fresh anxiety.
Three hours.