Page 92 of Bloom in Darkness

By the time Bryn comes back, Astra has turned the living room into a sorting station. The coffee table is covered with pillows, a half-finished mural sketch, two pencils, and the contract Julian sent over yesterday for the first round of artwork.

I stretch my bad leg along the couch, and Astra notices without ever looking directly at me, shoving one of the rejected pillows under my calf. “There.”

I test the support. “Wasn’t that for the nest?”

“It failed the audition.”

It actually feels good, so I leave it exactly where he put it.

Bryn brings down two older pillows from upstairs and announces that we’re rotating inventory. Astra tests each one, keeps one, rejects the other, then crawls onto the couch just to kiss me before climbing back down.

I spot one of my shirts under the window pile, two of Bryn’s folded into the upstairs nest, and three of Astra’s sketchbooks within reach of the couch. There’s even a pencil under the coffee table that’s going to end up in someone’s foot eventually. The house looks different every time I walk into a room now, softer and more cluttered than anything I ever would’ve chosen for myself, but somewhere along the way I stopped noticing which things belonged to whom.

Astra catches me looking around and follows my attention before I can pretend I wasn’t. “What?”

I tap the mural sketch instead of answering. “You changed the center.” That distracts him immediately, his attention dropping to the page as he pulls the sketchbook closer. Astra pulls the sketchbook closer and starts explaining why the original layout was too symmetrical, talking with his hands while Bryn gathers six pillows at once and tries to carry them toward the stairs.

Astra stops halfway through a sentence, staring at him before laughter finally takes over.

Bryn peers over the top of the stack. “What?”

“Don’t move.” Astra grabs the sketchbook again, already drawing before Bryn can object.

“Absolutely not.”

“Too late.”

Bryn drops two pillows onto the stairs and comes closer to inspect the page, giving me a clear view of the ridiculous tower Astra has drawn over his legs.

I lean over Astra’s shoulder. “Make it taller.”

“Fuck both of you.” Bryn abandons the rest of the pillows and sits beside Astra when he pats the floor, Astra immediately leaning into his side while he keeps sketching.

I slide off the couch to join them, stretching my bad leg beside the abandoned pile. By the time Bryn notices Astra has exaggerated his shoulders too, there’s no point fighting it.

“My shoulders aren’t that wide.”

Astra adds another line without looking up. “They are now.”

Bryn looks at me for help and gets none.

I’m still laughing when I notice the shopping bag by the door. “Speaking of terrible decisions, tell him what else you bought.”

Bryn goes suspiciously quiet beside Astra, which gets his attention immediately. Astra lifts his head slowly. “What did you buy?”

Bryn reaches behind him for the bag, the smile on his face giving him away before he even opens it. “Blankets.”

Astra lights up so fast I know I’ve already lost whatever argument I was about to make. I lean back against the couch while Bryn starts pulling them out one by one, listening to Astra decide where every single one belongs.

Astra

The first box arrives on a Tuesday. Caelan brings it inside, sets it on the kitchen counter, and looks at the black bat printed across the side before looking at me. “What did you buy?”

I’m sitting at the table with my sketchbook open and a mug of coffee going cold beside my elbow while Bryn makes something at the stove that smells like garlic and butter. One box is normal. People order things every day. “Nothing important.”

Caelan looks at me over the top of the box. “That answer has never once meant nothing important.” He pulls a knife from the block when I tell him to open it if he’s that nosy, slices through the tape, and folds back the cardboard. Orange string lights sit on top of bags of fake cobwebs, a package of little plastic ghosts, and six black bats with bendable wings. He picks up one of the ghosts between two fingers. “Nothing important.”

“Exactly.” I go back to my sketchbook until he asks what they’re for, then look up at him. “Halloween.” He says he gathered that, so I point toward him and call across the kitchen, “Bryn, ask him how many Halloween decorations he owns.”