novelraw Chapter 188: The Way It Is
Chapter 188: The Way It Is
Zubair had been up for an hour before anyone else. The little sleep he had was restless.
He had heard Sera and Luci walking around the penthouse in the middle of the night, but he wasn’t the only one. In fact, Zubair was pretty sure that the only one to have slept through everything was Noah.
But like Alexei, like Lachlan, like Elias, he would not say a word to anyone about why she was walking around.
The sky outside the tall windows still hadn’t quite chosen a color yet. It was like it couldn’t decide between blue, dark gray, or just a wash of gray that looked down over the ice stretching endless and silent.
Wind pressed a low hum against the glass now and then, but the building held steady, as it always did.
He stood in the kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, frying pan hot, coffee in the press, bread set to toast on the rack over the fire. Eggs went into the frying pan next.
He moved without hurry, without noise, the way men do when they’ve learned that mornings decide the day before words get spoken.
The others drifted in slow as the fire burned higher. Lachlan first, yawning like he hadn’t slept in a week. Elias next, hair sticking up at the back, eyes already hunting for the coffee before they even opened all the way.
Finally, Alexei wandered in last with the lazy grin of someone who always looked like he’d slept better than anyone else.
Noah followed on his heels.
He blended in too easily with everyone else. His feet didn’t make a sound, he didn’t clear his throat in order to get people to pay attention to him.
He was just there, like he’d been part of the morning routine for years. He had a smile ready, the kind that bent warm at the edges, the kind that never reached the eyes if you looked close enough.
But Zubair didn’t bother to look close. Not yet.
He set a pan of eggs on the counter and turned back for the bread.
"Smells good," Lachlan said through a stretch, reaching for a mug.
Zubair grunted something that might’ve been agreement.
Elias took the chair nearest the fire with his coffee, already opening the notebook he carried everywhere. Alexei leaned on the counter with the bored grace of a man who had spent too many mornings in too many mess halls and liked this one better than most.
Noah took a plate off the stack.
Zubair turned just in time to see him spoon eggs onto it like he owned them.
The pan of eggs vanished out from under his hand.
Noah blinked, surprised at the sudden absence. The plate in his other hand didn’t get far either—Zubair plucked it free and set it back on the counter with a calm that didn’t invite questions.
"No one eats before Sera eats," Zubair said.
The words weren’t loud. They didn’t need to be.
Noah froze half a heartbeat too long before covering it with a half-smile. "She’s still sleeping, isn’t she?" He glanced at the others like they might back him up. "You can just make more when she wakes up."
"Sorry, mate," Lachlan said before Zubair could answer. He clapped Noah on the shoulder with a grin easy enough to hide the weight behind it. "That’s the way it is."
Elias didn’t even look up from his coffee. "House rules."
Alexei smirked over the rim of his mug like he’d been waiting for this and wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
Noah laughed once, short, as if to agree it was all harmless, but his hand tightened on the edge of the counter before he let go.
Zubair watched him without watching him, sliding the pan back on the heat.
She came first.
Always.
He stirred the eggs once and set the spatula aside.
The room stayed easy around him—Lachlan telling some story about a storm before the flood, Elias taking notes between sips of coffee, Alexei dealing himself a game of solitaire on the table like breakfast wasn’t even part of his plan.
Noah leaned on the counter, his arms folded in front of him, trying too hard to look like part of it.
The smell of toast filled the kitchen.
Zubair set the rack aside, buttered each slice slow, cut them into halves like he always did because Sera liked them that way. He plated the eggs next, steam curling in the air, the whole meal neat and even and deliberate.
He caught Alexei watching with that lazy sharpness he had sometimes, like he knew the shape of the silence here better than most.
"You’re quiet this morning," Alexei said finally.
"Working," Zubair answered.
Alexei’s smirk widened, but he let it go.
Lachlan started another story. Elias corrected a detail without looking up. Noah laughed in the right place this time.
Zubair slid the first plate onto the counter near the coffee. Not for anyone else to take. Just ready for when she walked in.
He could feel Noah looking at it.
Could feel him wondering why no one questioned the rule.
Could feel him not understanding that the rule wasn’t about food at all.
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Sera came in ten minutes later, Luci at her heel.
She looked the way she always did in the mornings—like she’d been awake for hours already, hair pulled back, expression calm enough to make people forget she could kill faster than most of them could think.
Her face, neck, arms, and hands were covered in a thin layer of makeup. It would have looked completely normal to anyone and everyone... if you didn’t already know the color underneath it.
Luci jumped onto the couch nearest the fire and sprawled like he owned it.
Zubair slid the plate toward her without a word.
She sat, ate her breakfast with a satisfied hum that made Zubair’s chest expand fractionally and Alexei stand up straighter.
No one else moved for the food until she was half way finished.
Lachlan waited with the patience of someone who thought rules were funny but didn’t break them. Elias kept reading between sips of coffee. Alexei shuffled his cards once, expression unreadable.
Noah watched all of it like he’d walked into a play in the middle and didn’t know his lines.
When he was satisfied that Sera had gotten what she wanted and needed, Zubair started serving the others.
Noah reached for a plate, and this time, it wasn’t taken from him.
Lachlan grinned at him over his shoulder. "Told you. That’s the way it is."