Chapter Text
The boutique was obscene.
Not in a vulgar way. In a curated, aggressively tasteful, eye-wateringly expensive way. The kind of place that smelled faintly of bergamot and money, where every object sat on its own little pedestal as if it had opinions about art and would absolutely judge you for buying the wrong olive oil.
It was one of those narrow, high-ceilinged shops in Manhattan that pretended not to be a shop at all. It had warm lighting, quiet music, polished concrete floors, and a salesperson gliding around in linen like she'd been born in a concept store. Somewhere near the back, a machine hissed out espresso for no obvious reason. Everything had an absurdly small label with an absurdly large price.
Scylla stood in the middle of it all, one hand planted on her hip, the other holding a hand-thrown ceramic vase that looked like a slightly injured egg.
She stared at it.
She stared at the price tag.
She put it back with extreme care, like if she broke it she'd have to sell a small island. "This is stupid," she said for probably the sixth time in ten minutes.
Beside her, Byron didn't even bother looking up from the set of artisan cheese knives he was glaring at with open contempt. "That's because you're in a shop where one knife costs more than my first car."
Tally, on the other hand, was thriving.
Tally had been thriving since they walked in. She had drifted off three separate times to pick up increasingly unhinged items and bring them back to Scylla like a magpie presenting cursed treasure.
At present, she was holding up a sleek matte-black object from a shelf labeled wellness with the solemn pride of someone presenting the crown jewels.
"What about this?" she asked.
Scylla turned, squinted, and immediately closed her eyes for one beat. "Tally."
"What?" Tally said innocently.
Byron looked over, took one glance at the object, and made a face. "Absolutely not."
Tally frowned. "It says bespoke back massager."
"Right," Scylla said dryly. "That was definitely designed with backs in mind and nothing else."
Tally held it up higher, examining it critically. "I mean. Multi-purpose."
Byron pointed at it. "Put the sex baton down."
Tally gasped. "First of all, rude. Second of all, don't call it that in public."
"This whole shop is public," Byron said. "And if you make Scylla buy her wife a luxury vibrator for their anniversary, I'm walking into traffic."
Scylla groaned and dragged a hand down her face. "Anyway," she muttered, "why'd I let you two talk me into coming here? Raelle doesn't want or need something stupid from an upmarket boutique."
"We talked you into it," Byron supplied, abandoning the cheese knives to join her, "mostly because you were in a mild panic and we also wanted you to buy us lunch."
"Fine," Scylla said, glaring at both of them in turn. "I'll get you lunch despite your terrible attempts to help me find the perfect anniversary gift for Raelle."
"You don't need to panic, Scyl," Tally said, still holding the massager like she was committed to Scylla buying it for her instead. "You'll think of something romantic and perfect, and also, even if you don't, you could give her like… a pair of boots and she'd be happy about it."
Scylla let out a suffering noise. Which, unfortunately, only made both of them grin.
It had started as a low-level worry three days ago and had since escalated into a full internal spiral.
Their anniversary was coming up fast. One year. One year since she'd married Raelle. One year of being married to the best, scruffiest, steadiest person in the known universe. One year of waking up beside her wife and still—still—having the occasional quiet moment of disbelief that this was her life now.
Raelle, who built things with her hands and looked indecently good in old jeans and a flannel. Raelle, who had once met one of the most famous women in the world and responded by offering her La Croix and a sanding tutorial. Raelle, who had taken every impossible piece of Scylla's life and handled it with a kind of dry calm that still left Scylla a little wrecked if she thought about it too hard.
Raelle never wanted much. That was part of the problem.
She liked useful things. Comfortable things. Boots, jackets, old records, good coffee, soft T-shirts, tools, ice cream in mugs, mornings on the roof, and the quiet domestic miracle of their life. She did not want diamond bracelets. She did not want designer handbags. She did not want a thousand-pound candle that smelled like "fig orchard after rain."
Scylla knew that.
Which was exactly why she was losing her mind.
"I know I know her," she said, turning back to Byron as if he had accused her of not recognizing her own wife. "Which is why I already know all of this is stupid and I need something meaningful, not whatever Tally is holding."
Tally hugged the back massager to her chest. "You say that now, but just wait until you hear my presentation."
"No presentation," Byron said immediately.
The salesperson drifted past with the expression of someone very professionally pretending none of this was happening.
Scylla picked up a wool throw blanket that cost more than most people's monthly rent, squeezed the edge of it between her fingers, and set it back down. "She'd use this to cover a workbench."
"She would," Byron agreed. "And then she'd feel guilty once she found out it cost eleven hundred dollars."
Tally wandered to another shelf and came back holding a brass object shaped like an abstract bird. "What about art?"
Scylla stared at it. "What is that?"
Tally checked the tag. "Decorative… form."
Byron took the tag from her. "It is a brass paperweight. And it costs nine hundred and seventy-five dollars. For what appears to be a duck with body dysmorphia."
"It's modern," Tally said.
"It's nonsense," Byron said.
Scylla laughed despite herself, the sound fraying at the edges with exasperation. "See? This. This is exactly why this is pointless. Raelle would walk into a place like this, look around once, and then quietly leave before anyone could sell her a hand-carved lemon juicer."
"Oh my God," Tally said, lighting up. "Should we find her a hand-carved lemon juicer?"
"No," Byron and Scylla said together.
Tally sighed like their lack of vision deeply disappointed her.
Scylla wandered a few steps, arms folding across her chest as she took in another gleaming display of unnecessary objects. A leather tray. A set of monogrammed tumblers. A marble lamp that looked too delicate to survive being in the same room as Raelle.
She loved that about Raelle—that she couldn't be impressed by polish alone. That money didn't seduce her. That she'd walked into this glittering, impossible life and never once lost hold of herself.
Scylla stopped in front of a shelf of leather journals. For a second, she picked one up. It was soft and thick and beautiful in that very deliberate expensive way. Maybe she could write Raelle something. Maybe—
Then she imagined Raelle finding out the notebook cost four hundred and fifty dollars and physically recoiling.
She put it back.
Byron watched her face do the whole cycle and softened a little. "Hey."
Scylla glanced at him.
"You're overthinking because you love her," he said, gentler now. "Which, granted, is very on brand. But you're acting like this has to be the one perfect object in the world."
"It kind of does," Scylla muttered.
"No, it doesn't," Tally said, coming over at last and setting the horrifying massager back on the shelf with visible reluctance. "It just has to feel like you."
Scylla huffed a laugh. "That's not helpful."
"It is helpful," Tally insisted. "Because Raelle doesn't want expensive. She wants thoughtful. She wants something with a heartbeat."
Byron nodded. "That's annoyingly true."
Scylla leaned against the edge of a display table and crossed her arms tighter. "I know she's gonna make me something."
That got both of their attention.
Tally's expression immediately melted. "Aww."
Byron made a face that was only mostly teasing. "Well, obviously. She's Raelle. If she didn't make you something with her own hands I'd assume she'd been body-snatched."
Scylla smiled despite herself, because yes. Of course Raelle was making her something. Probably in the workshop late at night, covered in sawdust, biting her lip in concentration. Probably pretending she wasn't. Probably telling herself she wasn't nervous when she absolutely was.
And Scylla wanted—needed—to meet that. Not in scale. Raelle would never care about scale. But in meaning.
She wanted to give her something that said I remember. I chose you then and I choose you now. I know who you are. I know what mattered. I know what built this life.
Instead she was in a boutique being terrorized by a brass duck and a sex baton.
"This is hopeless," she declared.
"It's not hopeless," Byron said. "It's just clearly not in here."
Tally took a long look around, then sighed. "Okay, fine. I admit it. The vibe in here is wrong for your wife. There's not enough denim."
"There's no sawdust," Byron added.
"There's not even a single ugly mug," Tally said. "Raelle would hate it."
Scylla pushed herself off the table. "Thank you. Finally. Some sense."
Tally grinned. "So. Lunch?"
Scylla narrowed her eyes. "You really did just come for lunch."
"Oh, absolutely," Byron said. "The emotional support was complimentary."
They ended up three blocks away in a little corner place with metal chairs out front and a menu written in chalk on a board no one had bothered to update properly.
It was warm out—real summer warmth, the kind that settled in the pavement and made the city smell like sun-heated stone and coffee and traffic. Byron had taken his sunglasses off and pushed them up into his hair. Tally had ordered fries "for the table" and was already eating most of them. Scylla had barely touched her iced tea.
She was staring out at the street, elbow on the table, chin in her hand.
"You're doing the thing again," Byron said.
Scylla glanced over. "What thing?"
"The quiet spiral where you go internal and stop blinking."
Tally pointed a fry at her. "It's very dramatic. Deeply actress of you."
Scylla ignored them both. "I just want it to be right."
Byron's expression softened properly then, the edge of teasing falling away. "I know."
Across the little table, Tally leaned forward, her voice gentler too. "What's the bit you're actually worried about?"
Scylla opened her mouth with something easy—something dismissive—but then stopped. Because these two knew her too well for that.
She looked down at the condensation ring beneath her glass and let out a breath. "She's just so easy to love," she said quietly.
That shut both of them up for a beat.
Scylla gave a tiny, self-conscious laugh. "Which sounds ridiculous because, obviously, yes, that's my wife. But I mean… Raelle doesn't make anything complicated. She doesn't need spectacle. She never has. I could throw a thousand things at this and none of them would matter if they didn't actually mean something."
Tally smiled, soft around the edges. "Yeah."
"And I don't want to just buy my way into sentimental," Scylla went on. "That feels cheap with her, even if it's expensive. She'd hate that."
"She would," Byron agreed. "Lovingly. But still."
Scylla picked at the label on her bottle. "I think part of it is that I know she'll do something beautiful and thoughtful, and I don't want to hand her some… monogrammed nonsense in return."
"You are never living down the monogrammed nonsense," Byron said.
Tally nodded gravely. "Or the sex baton."
Scylla groaned. "Please stop calling it that."
"No," they both said.
Her laugh came out helpless this time. She shook her head and finally reached for her drink.
Byron watched her over the rim of his glass. "Okay. Strip it back. What matters to her?"
"Me," Tally said immediately.
Scylla snorted. "Shockingly, yes."
"I'm serious," Tally said, pointing at her again. "Anyway, that woman is stupidly in love with you. You could write her a note on a napkin and she'd probably frame it."
"That's true," Byron said. "Unfortunate for her, because your handwriting is vile."
Scylla ignored him. "I don't want to just write her a note."
"Then don't just write a note," Tally said. "Think bigger. Not bigger expensive. Bigger meaningful."
Scylla stared at her.
Tally shoved another fry into her mouth and kept going. "Like… firsts. You two are very firsts-coded. First workshop. First coffee disaster. First kiss. First roof. First date. First whatever."
Byron smiled a little. "There was the first Modern Workshop Monthly joke."
Scylla froze.
Byron, halfway through reaching for his drink, noticed immediately. "Oh no," he said, voice brightening. "That face means something happened."
Tally squinted at her. "What face?"
"The face," Byron said. "The one where she's suddenly not panicking anymore because her brain has latched onto something emotionally devastating."
Scylla sat up slowly.
Modern Workshop Monthly.
The stupid, perfect joke that had become theirs. The ridiculous fake publication born the night Raelle didn't know who she was, then Googled her anyway, then teased her about exclusive first interview rights. The thing that had followed them through years of being together in little private references and text messages and flirty nonsense.
Her mind started racing so fast it almost hurt.
Not a joke. Not just a joke. A real one. An actual first issue.
Not glossy in a ridiculous way. Not a parody exactly. Something beautiful and intimate and funny. Something lovingly made. A one-off, impossible, completely them object. Something that looked real enough to sit on a coffee table but, when opened, was just… them.
Their story. Not public in the invasive way. Private in the chosen way. Maybe a cover line. Maybe a fake interview. Maybe photos. Little pieces of their life. Her favorite things about Raelle. The workshop. The roof. The weird spoons. The boots. The first six coffees. The first time Raelle gave her quiet and never stopped.
"Oh my God," Scylla said.
Tally blinked. "Good oh my God or bad oh my God?"
Scylla turned to Byron so quickly her chair squeaked against the pavement. "The magazine."
Byron stared for one second, then his whole face changed. "Oh."
Tally looked between them. "What magazine? Wait—"
"Modern Workshop Monthly," Scylla said, already half out of her seat with sudden energy. "The first ever actual copy. No, not copy—issue. An actual first issue. A real one."
Tally's mouth fell open. "Oh, that's disgustingly romantic."
Byron, now fully on board, leaned in. "Say more."
Scylla did.
Once she started, she couldn't stop. "It could have a cover," she said, hands moving now, words coming faster and faster. "And a proper layout. Not too polished—well, polished, but warm. It has to feel like Raelle, not like some slick fashion thing. And inside—inside it could be all the little stuff. Like features. Tiny ridiculous columns. Best Batman rankings. A review section for ice cream eaten out of mugs. An investigative piece on whether escalators are trustworthy."
Tally slapped the table. "Yes."
Byron was already pulling out his phone. "I know three designers who would die for this brief."
Scylla barely heard him. "And a profile," she said, softer now. "A real one. About her. About Raelle. About who she is. Not just what she does."
Tally's expression went soft. "Scyl."
Scylla swallowed. "Because everybody always writes about me. Even when they write about us, it always starts with me. But this—this would start with her. With the workshop. With the woman who let me stay."
Byron went very still for a moment, then smiled that small, real smile he only ever got when something actually touched him. "Well," he said quietly, "that's kind of perfect."
Scylla sat back down, breathless with it now, with relief, with excitement. "And I could write her a letter in it," she said. "Not separate. In it. Like editor's note or something."
Tally made a scandalized sound. "You're trying to kill her."
"Correct," Byron said. "This will absolutely flatten your wife."
Scylla laughed, bright and a little wild around the edges. "Good."
Tally reached over and grabbed her wrist. "See? I told you. Something romantic and perfect."
"You also tried to make me buy a bespoke back massager."
"That was before inspiration struck," Tally said loftily.
Byron looked at the nearly untouched lunches. "Can we all take a moment to appreciate that the answer was never in a pretentious concept store? The answer was emotional damage and a fake joke from the beginning of your relationship."
Scylla smiled down at the table, at the sunlight on the metal, at the sweating glass in front of her, at the silly, wonderful shape this had all taken. "Yeah," she said softly. "It was."
For the first time all day, the panic was gone.
In its place was something better. Not certainty exactly—there was still so much to figure out, so much to design, to gather, to write—but the rightness of it had settled in her chest.
She could already picture Raelle holding it. Could already picture the way her wife's face would change when she realized what it was. The dry little laugh first. Then the softening. Then that specific look, the one that always undid Scylla straight through, like her heart had opened and there was no point pretending otherwise.
Byron raised his glass. "To the first issue of Modern Workshop Monthly."
Tally grabbed her soda and lifted it too. "To the hottest woodworker alive."
Scylla laughed and lifted her iced tea. "To my wife," she said.
And because that was the truth of it, because all roads in her life kept leading back there now, all three of them clinked their glasses together under the summer sun.
For one brief, golden minute, the city noise blurred around them.
Scylla sat there smiling into her drink, already thinking about fonts, paper stock, photographs, and all the private little things that made up a life.
---
Raelle had been staring at the same piece of wood for twenty minutes. Not working on it. Not sketching over it. Not measuring, marking, sanding, cutting, carving, or doing any of the dozens of things she normally did when confronted with raw material and a problem that could be solved by the steady use of her hands.
Just staring.
The block of cherrywood sat on her main workbench beneath the warm overhead lights, smooth on one side, rough at the edges, rich with grain that shifted from amber to deep red depending on how the light caught it. It was beautiful wood. Good wood. The kind of wood that deserved intention.
Unfortunately, Raelle's brain had decided to become a loose bag of marbles rolling down a staircase.
Abigail watched all of this from a stool near the bench, one boot hooked around the rung, a coffee in her hand and the grim patience of a woman who had chosen friendship and was now facing the consequences.
The workshop was warm with late afternoon heat, the front windows cracked open to let in the sounds of Brooklyn: traffic, a dog barking somewhere down the block, somebody loudly arguing with a delivery app as if the app had personally betrayed their bloodline. Sawdust floated lazily in the light. The place smelled like cedar, varnish, coffee, and Raelle's slowly unraveling sanity.
Raelle picked up the block of wood. Put it down. Picked it up again.
Abigail sipped her coffee. "You know, most people don't try to intimidate lumber into becoming romantic."
Raelle looked up sharply. "I'm not intimidating it."
"You've been glaring at it like it owes you money."
"It might," Raelle muttered.
Abigail tilted her head. "Is this about the anniversary?"
Raelle gave her a look that said obviously, followed immediately by another look that said please do not make me say feelings out loud, I am already in a weakened state.
Abigail, cruelly, waited.
Raelle huffed and gestured at her with the piece of wood. "I mean, what do you get for your movie star wife who can technically buy France?"
Abigail didn't even blink. "I mean, she technically did buy a portion of France."
"It's like fifty acres," Raelle pointed out, because this had somehow become an important distinction in her life. "But yes, technically a portion of France." She spun the wood in her hand, grimacing. "But that makes my point."
Abigail leaned back slightly on the stool, her expression softening despite herself. "You've never needed to get her anything. Your best gifts are the ones that are just from you. You offered her leftover pasta and beer and then gave her ice cream in a mug the first night you spent together, and she came back anyway, so I think you already know it's absolutely not necessary to buy her anything."
Raelle chucked the block of wood onto the bench. Not hard. She wasn't a monster. But with enough force to make the tools rattle faintly.
"I know. I know that. I know." She dragged both hands down her face, then blew out a breath and spun in a tight circle like a stressed-out Roomba that had encountered a chair leg. "I just… I need to make it good. It's our first anniversary. Like, of being married." Her voice dipped at the edges, went softer, more helpless. "She married me, Abigail. Me. I don't tie my shoes half the time and I have sawdust on me most of the day."
"I'm almost positive that's her favorite thing about you," Abigail pointed out.
Raelle shot her a look.
"What?" Abigail said. "You've seen the woman watch you sand furniture. It's indecent. Sometimes I feel like I should leave the room and I'm not even there."
Raelle made a face, but the corner of her mouth twitched.
Abigail set her coffee down on a clear patch of bench and folded her arms. "Look. Stop stressing about it. Now."
"Like… now?" Raelle asked.
"Yes," Abigail said. "This is a cease and desist order."
Raelle stared at her.
Abigail continued, firm and merciless. "Whatever you do, it's going to be stupid and romantic and she's going to love it because it came from you. You could make her a keyring and she'd love every part of it."
Raelle went very still.
Abigail narrowed her eyes. "What?"
Raelle looked away too quickly. "Nothing."
"Raelle."
"I didn't say anything."
"You did with your face." Abigail pointed at her. "That was a face. That was a deeply suspicious, emotionally woodworking face."
Raelle scratched at the back of her neck, eyes flicking back to the cherrywood. "I…"
"You're gonna make a keyring?"
"No. Well, not quite."
Abigail waited.
Raelle reached for her phone, which was lying face down beside a tray of pencils and marking knives. She turned it over, her lock screen lit up.
It was a photo of her and Scylla on the Brooklyn Bridge, taken sometime in early spring when the air had still been sharp but the sunlight had gone soft. Scylla had been wrapped in a dark coat and sunglasses, her hair tugged messy by the wind, laughing at something Raelle had said. Raelle was looking at her instead of the camera, face open in that way she only ever seemed to be when Scylla was near.
Raelle stared at it for a second too long.
Abigail groaned. "Oh my God, open your phone and stop staring at your wife. You're gonna make me sick."
"Sorry," Raelle muttered, although she didn't sound sorry at all.
She unlocked the phone and typed quickly, then turned the screen around. "Here. A Welsh love spoon."
Abigail took the phone and squinted at the picture. "A what?"
"A Welsh love spoon," Raelle said, stepping around the bench to look over her shoulder. "They're traditional carved gifts. They can mean lots of different things depending on the design. Love, protection, luck. Two lives joined together. A desire to be together forever."
Abigail's face changed.
The teasing dropped out of it, just for a second, replaced by something gentler. She looked at the intricate carved spoon on the screen, then at the block of cherrywood, then at Raelle.
"It's kind of perfect," she said.
Raelle swallowed, suddenly looking shy in a way Abigail had only seen a handful of times. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Raelle took the phone back, the idea taking hold of her now in visible real time. The panic didn't vanish, exactly, but it sharpened into focus. Became something she could use. Something she could shape.
"Yeah," she said again, quieter, mostly to herself. "Yeah, and I could carve one just for us. Two hearts. Maybe a knot between them. I could make the handle twist like two strands. Maybe some little cutouts." She grabbed a pencil, dragged a scrap pad toward her, and started sketching fast. "And I'll make it obscenely complicated. That shows dedication, right? The more complicated it is, the more it says I willingly made my own hand cramp for you."
"Ugh," Abigail said, leaning in to watch. "I love it."
Raelle's pencil moved quickly, lines rough but confident as the shape began to emerge. A long, elegant handle. Two hearts near the top, carved open. A twist below them like interlocking vines. A small crescent moon near the base, maybe. A tiny hidden duck, if she got brave enough and didn't lose her mind.
"Okay," Raelle said, eyes bright now, body suddenly alive with purpose. "Okay. This is good."
Abigail smiled, because this was the version of Raelle she knew best: not calm because she felt nothing, but calm once she found somewhere to put all the feeling. In her hands, usually. In wood. In practical things made sacred by care.
"She's gonna put that on the shelf in the loft," Abigail said, "next to the weird spoon-ladle and, like, her Oscar. And she's gonna love that more than the Oscar."
Raelle grinned down at the sketch, unable to help herself. "This is gonna be so good she's gonna cry. I already know it."
Abigail blinked. "Are you actively trying to make your wife cry?"
Raelle didn't look up. "I can do that any time I want. She gets very emotional about me a lot."
Abigail leaned back on the stool, delighted. "Okay, do it now."
Raelle paused mid-line. "What?"
"Make her emotional. I want to see your claim backed up." Abigail pulled out her own phone. "She's with Tally, right? I'll text her to confirm."
Raelle narrowed her eyes. "You're insane."
"You married a movie star and now you're carving her an ancient symbolic spoon of eternal devotion. You don't get to call anyone insane today."
Raelle considered this, then shrugged. "Fair."
She swiped open her phone. Again, the lock screen. Again, one tiny pause.
Abigail made a gagging sound.
"Stop," Raelle muttered, smiling despite herself.
She opened her messages. Scylla's contact was pinned at the top, because of course it was. She typed carefully, thinking for a second before she sent it.
Abigail watched her like a hawk. "What are you saying?"
"None of your business."
"You're doing it in front of me."
"Still classified."
Raelle typed one more line, hesitated, then hit send.
The reply came within two minutes. Just a kissy face and a heart.
Raelle turned the screen toward Abigail with a smug little lift of her eyebrows. "See?"
Abigail looked unimpressed. "Mmm. That doesn't tell me how emotional she is. Hold on, I'll ask Tally."
Abigail: Is Scylla emotional right now?
The reply came almost immediately.
Tally: HOW DID YOU KNOW
Tally: she got a message and now she's staring at her phone like someone just handed her a baby deer made of feelings
Tally: Byron asked if she needed privacy and she said shut up but softly
Tally: she's gone. fully gone. send help or fries.
Raelle leaned over Abigail's shoulder to read it, grin spreading slow and victorious across her face. "See?"
Abigail stared at the message, then at Raelle. "What the hell did you say?"
Raelle plucked her pencil back up and returned to the sketch, smugness settling over her like a very annoying halo. "That's still classified."
"Raelle."
"Nope."
"You can't use government terminology to hide wife crimes."
"I can and I will."
Abigail sighed in defeat, but she was smiling. "You two are disgusting."
Raelle glanced down at her phone again, where Scylla's heart emoji still sat glowing on the screen, ridiculous and small and somehow enough to make the entire workshop feel warmer.
Then she looked back at the sketch. The spoon's shape was rough, but already there. Two hearts. Two lives. Something old made new by her hands. Something simple made complicated on purpose, because love, Raelle had learned, could be steady and still absurdly intricate. It could be pasta in mismatched bowls and cameras outside hotels. It could be a vineyard in France and a Brooklyn loft full of weird spoons. It could be a woman who had once run into her shop to hide from the world and then stayed because Raelle had made room.
Raelle picked up the cherrywood again. This time, she didn't stare at it like it had betrayed her. This time, she turned it in her hands, studying the grain, already seeing where the curves would go. Already imagining the finished piece resting in Scylla's palm.
Abigail watched her for a moment. "You know she's probably spiraling just as hard about your gift."
Raelle smiled softly, eyes still on the wood. "Yeah. Probably."
"Does that make you feel better?"
"A little," Raelle admitted.
"Good."
Raelle reached for a marking pencil and drew the first careful guideline across the surface. Her hand steadied the second the tip touched wood.
Abigail took another sip of coffee. "For the record, I still think she'd have loved a keyring."
Raelle didn't look up. "I know."
"Or the sex baton."
Raelle's pencil stopped. She looked up very slowly. "The what?"
Abigail's face went blank with instant regret.
Raelle stared at her. "Abigail."
"I heard nothing. I know nothing."
"What did Tally try to make my wife buy me?"
Abigail took a calm sip of coffee, eyes forward, suddenly very interested in a clamp on the wall. "Classified."
Raelle pointed the pencil at her. "That's my line."
"Not anymore."
Raelle huffed a laugh, shaking her head as she bent over the sketch again. "You people are a nightmare."
"Maybe," Abigail said. "But we helped."
"You sat there and mocked me."
"Emotionally, that counts."
Raelle smiled down at the emerging design, the first real line of the spoon beginning to take shape. "Yeah," she said softly. "It kind of does."
---
Across the city, Scylla sat at the café table between Tally and Byron, staring at her phone like it had just opened a trapdoor beneath her ribs.
Tally was watching her with the bright-eyed intensity of someone holding a secret grenade. Byron had his chin in his hand and the expression of a man who had seen too much romance to remain professionally neutral.
Scylla read the message again.
Then again.
It wasn't long. Raelle never needed long.
Just: Hey. I was thinking about that first night. You in my shop, looking like you'd been chased by wolves, pretending you weren't famous, accepting terrible La Croix like it was hospitality. I didn't know then that I was opening the door to my whole life. Glad I did, though. Glad you stayed. x
Scylla pressed her lips together.
Hard.
Byron leaned in slightly. "Are you crying?"
"No," Scylla said, voice suspiciously thin.
Tally squinted. "Your eyes are doing glassy rich wife things."
"They are not."
"They absolutely are," Byron said. "There's a shimmer. Very cinematic. Five stars."
Scylla locked her phone and set it face down on the table with great dignity, then immediately picked it up again because putting it down felt wrong.
Tally grinned. "Raelle?"
Scylla looked at her over the phone. "Obviously."
"What did she say?"
Scylla clutched the phone to her chest. "That's classified."
Byron clapped once, delighted. "Oh my God, she got you. She got you so badly."
"She didn't get me," Scylla said, even though she absolutely had.
Tally leaned closer. "You look like she just ruined you.. with love."
Scylla's mouth softened before she could stop it. "She kind of does that every time she says something like that."
Byron's expression gentled. "Something like what?"
Scylla looked down at the phone, thumb brushing over the edge of the case. "Something that makes it sound like loving me is easy."
The table went quiet for a beat.
Tally reached over and squeezed her wrist. "It is easy for her."
Scylla looked up.
Tally shrugged, softer now. "I mean, she's also dramatic about it in her own emotionally constipated wood goblin way, but yeah. It's easy for her."
Scylla inhaled, shaky and small enough that she hated both of them for noticing.
Byron slid a napkin toward her without comment. She glared at him.
He smiled sweetly. "For your allergies."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
"No," Scylla admitted, dabbing one eye with the corner of the napkin. "I don't."
Tally sighed happily. "God, this anniversary is going to destroy both of you."
Scylla let out a wet little laugh. "Probably."
"And us," Byron added. "As collateral damage."
Scylla looked back at her phone and typed back: I'm glad you let me in. I'm glad you gave me the bad La Croix. I'm glad you didn't know who I was. I'm glad you learned me anyway. Also you looked very hot with the chisel. x
She hit send before she could overthink it. Then she sat there, smiling helplessly at the screen.
Byron stared. "You sent something filthy-adjacent, didn't you?"
"No."
Tally gasped. "You did."
"It was romantic," Scylla said.
"With chisel undertones?" Byron asked.
Scylla lifted her chin. "Our love language is very specific."
"Your love language is sawdust and emotional devastation," Tally said.
Scylla unlocked her laptop bag and pulled the computer out, suddenly impatient again. "Okay," she said, opening it. "I need to make a magazine."
Byron straightened like a producer called to set. "Finally. Something I'm qualified to micromanage."
"No," Scylla said immediately. "I'm doing it myself."
Byron stared. "Scylla."
"I mean it." She opened a blank design file with the solemnity of someone about to perform surgery with a butter knife. "You can advise. Lightly. From a distance. But I'm making it."
Tally leaned in, delighted. "By hand?"
"Yes," Scylla said, already clicking with too much confidence and not enough technical skill. "Well. On the laptop. And then I'll print the pages. And put it together myself."
Byron looked like he might faint. "You are a woman with access to award-winning art directors."
"And yet," Scylla said, selecting a font so ugly Byron physically recoiled, "my wife deserves something I made."
Byron pointed at the screen. "She deserves better than that font."
Scylla squinted. "What's wrong with it?"
"It looks like a ransom note from a yoga retreat."
Tally leaned over Scylla's shoulder. "I like it."
"That's because you're chaos in human leggings," Byron snapped.
Scylla changed the font.
The title appeared across the blank page.
MODERN WORKSHOP MONTHLY
She stared at it. Her chest went warm.
Below it, she typed slowly:
Issue No. 1
The Anniversary Edition
Tally made a small sound.
Byron went quiet.
Scylla sat back, staring at the words, and for a second the café blurred around her. The noise, the sunlight, the traffic, the clatter of plates. All of it faded into the background.
There it was.
The thing.
Not expensive. Not grand. Not a performance. A little magazine about a joke that had become a life.
She swallowed and looked at the empty page waiting beneath the title.
Then she smiled. "Okay," she whispered. "Let's make her cry."
Byron slowly lifted his drink. "To mutual wife crimes."
Tally lifted a fry. "To emotional woodworking."
Scylla lifted nothing because her hands were already on the keyboard. "To Raelle," she said.
---
By the time Raelle got home, the apartment had settled into that soft evening hush she loved most.
The city was still loud beyond the windows, obviously, because Brooklyn didn't really do silence so much as varying intensities of background argument. But inside the loft, everything had gone warm and low-lit. The lamps were on, golden light pooling over the brick walls and the long wooden shelves Raelle had built years ago, back when the place had still felt more like a project than a home.
Now it looked lived in by two people who had somehow folded their lives together without smoothing all the edges out.
Scylla's coat was over the back of the chair despite the very expensive hook system she herself had insisted they install. One of Raelle's hoodies was thrown across the arm of the couch, because Scylla had claimed it earlier that week and apparently now it existed in a state of emotional annexation. There was a glass of water on the coffee table, untouched. A bowl of grapes beside it, half-eaten. A script lay face down on the rug with a pen stuck through the pages like Scylla had wounded it in combat.
And Scylla herself was curled up on the couch, feet tucked beneath her, laptop balanced on her knees, face lit blue-white by the screen.
She was concentrating so hard she didn't hear Raelle on the stairs.
Which was, frankly, amateur hour.
Raelle unlocked the door and stepped inside, tired in that satisfying, body-heavy way that came after a long day in the workshop. Her hair was half coming loose from its knot, her T-shirt had a smear of sawdust across the stomach, and her jeans had a streak of varnish near one knee that she was ninety percent sure was permanent now.
The second the door opened, Scylla snapped the laptop shut.
Hard.
The sound cracked through the apartment like a tiny tech assassination.
Raelle froze halfway through toeing off one boot. Then she slowly turned her head.
Scylla sat perfectly still on the couch, both hands flat on top of the laptop, posture too upright, face arranged into a deeply suspicious expression of casual innocence.
Raelle's mouth curled into a grin. "Hey," she said, dragging out the word as she finished kicking off her boot. "You, uh… watching porn over there?"
Scylla considered this.
It was, objectively, better than the truth.
"Yes," she said.
Raelle's grin widened as she kicked off the other boot and nudged both of them neatly against the wall with her foot. "No, you weren't."
"I was," Scylla said, with the earnest conviction of a woman who had lied professionally in seven critically acclaimed dramas and three thrillers. "Very serious porn. Thoughtful. French."
"French porn," Raelle repeated.
"Mhm."
"With the laptop volume off?"
"Subtitles."
Raelle stepped further into the apartment, shrugging out of her jacket, eyes bright with amusement. "You're a terrible liar."
Scylla gasped, offended. "I am an excellent liar. I've won awards for lying."
"You've won awards for acting."
"Same industry."
"Not the same thing."
"It absolutely is."
Raelle hung her jacket on the hook by the door and walked toward her, slow and smug. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," Scylla said quickly.
"Nothing made you close that laptop like you're a teenager caught writing fanfiction in a study hall?"
Scylla shoved the laptop to the side, sliding it half under a pillow with all the subtlety of a raccoon hiding jewelry. "I was reading boring scripts."
"Were you?"
"Yes."
"Boring scripts that live in a design program?"
Scylla blinked.
Raelle pointed vaguely toward the laptop. "I saw rectangles."
"You saw nothing."
"I saw several rectangles."
"Scripts have rectangles."
"Do they?"
"Yes," Scylla said, standing up too fast. "Anyway."
Raelle's eyes narrowed with delighted suspicion. "Anyway?"
Scylla crossed the room and took Raelle's face in both hands.
Raelle barely had time to look pleased before Scylla kissed her.
It was not a casual hello kiss. It was a tactical strike.
Soft at first, just enough to make Raelle smile into it, then deeper, slower, with Scylla stepping in close until Raelle's back brushed the edge of the entry table. One of Scylla's hands slid into the hair at the nape of Raelle's neck, fingers curling there in exactly the way that made Raelle's brain briefly hand in its notice and leave the building.
Raelle made a small sound against her mouth, hands finding Scylla's waist on instinct.
Scylla smiled into the kiss, because she knew precisely what she was doing and had no shame about weaponizing marital intimacy for secrecy-related purposes.
When she finally pulled back, Raelle blinked at her.
Her expression had gone soft and dazed, lips parted, cheeks faintly pink. Sawdust still clung to her jaw.
Scylla let her thumb brush along Raelle's cheekbone, deeply pleased with herself.
Raelle inhaled slowly. "Hi."
Scylla smiled. "Hi."
Raelle took another second to fully return to the mortal plane. Then her brow furrowed faintly, like she remembered she had been suspicious before her wife had kissed all her thoughts into a tasteful little puddle.
"How was your day?" she asked, a little breathless.
Scylla hummed, sliding her arms around Raelle's waist. "Yeah, you know. Lunch with Tally and Byron. I got six calls from Jo about that weird sci-fi film."
Raelle immediately snapped back into focus. "You can't do that one, Scyl."
Scylla's mouth twitched. "I know."
"No, I mean it. I read the script." Raelle held up three fingers. "I read it three times because the first two, I genuinely thought I was having a medical event. But no. It was just weird."
Scylla laughed, tipping her forehead briefly against Raelle's shoulder. "That's what I told her."
"What did she say?"
"She said it was visionary."
"It's set on Mars and the main character has romantic tension with a sentient dust storm."
"Technically the dust storm is a metaphor for grief."
"It tries to seduce her in act Two."
Scylla lifted her head. "I didn't say it was a good metaphor."
Raelle stared at her. "Also there's a scene where your character eats a glowing mushroom and starts speaking fluent dolphin."
"That part is apparently about human adaptation."
"It's about nonsense."
"It is," Scylla agreed easily, smiling now. "Which is why I told Jo I don't like Mars."
Raelle blinked. "That's the reason you gave?"
"Yes."
"Not the dust-storm flirting?"
"No."
"Not the dolphin mushroom?"
"Nope."
"Not the fact that the third act is just nine pages of stage direction describing red sand?"
Scylla shrugged. "I said I don't like Mars and she left it."
Raelle's face softened into fond disbelief. "I don't believe for a second she bought that."
"She'll call again tomorrow probably," Scylla said, finally letting go of Raelle so she could drift toward the kitchen. "I think she just likes weird sci-fi movies. Or she has a bet with some producer about whether or not I'll make that movie."
"Tell her your wife said no."
Scylla turned, eyebrows rising with delight. "Oh, can I?"
"Absolutely."
"You do realize that if I tell Jo my wife said no, she will find that devastatingly charming and possibly weaponize it in negotiations."
"Good. I want to be feared in Hollywood."
Scylla leaned against the counter, watching Raelle follow her into the kitchen. "You already are."
"I am?"
"Yes. Somewhere in Los Angeles there's an executive who has absolutely said, 'Can we get this past the woodworker?'"
Raelle looked pleased. "Good."
Scylla laughed softly and opened the fridge. "You want some dinner?"
Raelle leaned on the opposite counter, crossing her arms. "Depends. Is it real food or celebrity food?"
Scylla paused with her hand on the fridge door and looked back over her shoulder, one eyebrow lifting. “Define celebrity food.”
Raelle considered this with entirely too much seriousness. “Three olives, a piece of fish the size of a business card, and a sauce smear.”
“That was one restaurant.” Scylla turned back to the fridge, shifting a carton of milk out of the way as she searched the crowded middle shelf.
“That was a crime scene with mood lighting.”
Scylla laughed under her breath and pulled out a covered pan, balancing it against one hip while she nudged the fridge shut with her foot. “It had a Michelin star.”
“It had a potato shaped like a button.”
That got another smile out of Scylla. She carried the pan across to the stove and peeled back one corner of the foil, checking the contents before reaching for the hob. “Fine. Real food. I made pasta.”
Raelle's expression shifted, instantly tender beneath the teasing. "You made pasta?"
"I boiled pasta," Scylla corrected, pointing at the pan. "Let's not get reckless with language. I also heated sauce from a jar and added basil, which I believe qualifies me for some kind of culinary fellowship."
Raelle pushed off the counter and came up behind her, arms sliding around her waist. She pressed a kiss to the side of Scylla's neck, warm and absent and deeply unfair. "Proud of you," Raelle murmured.
Scylla's eyes fluttered shut for half a second. There it was again. That stupid little ache. That ridiculous, overfull feeling she got whenever Raelle said something simply and meant all of it.
She turned slightly in Raelle's arms. "You're very easily impressed."
"By you? Yeah."
Scylla narrowed her eyes. "That was dirty."
"It was romantic."
"It was both."
Raelle grinned, nose brushing hers. "Multitasking."
Scylla kissed her again, softer this time, not for distraction. Just because she could. Because Raelle was home. Because this was their kitchen, their evening, their half-made dinner and the laptop full of secret anniversary chaos still sitting under a pillow in the living room like a ticking emotional device.
Raelle pulled back first, eyes flicking toward the couch.
Scylla immediately stiffened.
Raelle noticed. Of course she noticed. "You are so suspicious right now," she said.
"I'm making dinner."
"You're standing still and guarding pasta."
"I'm emotionally invested in carbohydrates."
Raelle tried to step sideways. Scylla stepped with her, blocking her line of sight. Raelle's eyes went bright. "Oh, that's interesting."
"No, it isn't."
"It's very interesting."
"You're hungry," Scylla said firmly. "You had a long day. You should sit down."
“Why?”
“Because I love you and want you comfortable.” Scylla reached past Raelle for the saucepan lid, deliberately putting herself between her wife and the living room again. “And because you smell like a table.”
Raelle laughed, dropping her chin to glance down at the sawdust still dusting the front of her shirt. She rubbed experimentally at one patch with her palm and only succeeded in smearing it farther across the fabric. “I smell like a table?”
“A handsome table.” Scylla turned back to the stove and lifted the lid, disappearing briefly into a curl of steam as she checked the sauce.
“Now I know you’re deflecting.”
Scylla set the lid aside with a soft clatter, then picked up the wooden spoon from the counter and pointed it at Raelle before she could make another attempt at edging toward the couch. “Do not investigate me in my own home.”
Raelle stopped mid-step and looked pointedly around the loft. “It’s also my home.”
“Exactly. Respect the sanctity of the shared suspicious couch.” Scylla lowered the spoon long enough to stir the sauce, scraping it around the bottom of the pan with considerably more attention than the task required.
Raelle leaned back against the counter again, apparently deciding the interrogation could continue perfectly well from there. She folded her arms, one ankle crossing loosely over the other, and watched Scylla with the deeply irritating patience of someone who already knew she was winning. “You’re hiding something.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Scylla opened the cupboard above the stove and reached for the salt, refusing to look at her. “I’m not.”
“You just said shared suspicious couch.”
Scylla’s hand stopped halfway back to the pan. She opened her mouth, considered several possible defenses, and then quietly put the salt down again.
Behind her, Raelle smiled like she had just won something.
Scylla turned back to the stove with as much dignity as she could gather, which was not much, because Raelle was still grinning behind her and she could feel it. "Fine. Maybe I am hiding something."
Raelle's expression softened. "Anniversary something?"
Scylla froze. It was very tiny. Very brief. But Raelle knew her. Scylla sighed, shoulders dropping. "Maybe."
Raelle stepped forward immediately, hands settling gently at Scylla's hips. "I won't look."
Scylla turned her head, studying her. "You promise?"
"Yeah."
"You're not going to snoop?"
Raelle's face went blank with offense. "I am a woman of honor."
"You once opened a package addressed to me because you said it sounded like socks."
"It did sound like socks."
"It was jewelry."
"Loud jewelry."
Scylla stared.
Raelle held up both hands. "I won't snoop."
Scylla softened, despite herself. "Good."
There was a pause. Then Raelle added, "But if it was porn, I do support you."
Scylla barked out a laugh, sudden and bright, nearly dropping the spoon. "It's not porn."
"I knew it."
"I only said it because it was better than admitting I'm making something and it's going badly."
Raelle's entire face changed. Not teasing now. Not smug. Just warm. "You're making me something?"
Scylla groaned immediately. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like I just gave you a puppy."
Raelle's smile went soft and unbearable. "You're making me something."
"Maybe."
"Scyl."
"It might be terrible."
"It won't."
"It might. I made a photo disappear into the corner of the page earlier and couldn't get it back for eight minutes."
Raelle's lips twitched. "Sounds serious."
"It was. There were layers involved."
"Dangerous."
"Byron would have fixed it in two seconds, which is why I refused to call him."
Raelle kissed her temple. "Proud of you."
"Stop saying that," Scylla muttered, though she leaned into her. "I'm trying to maintain emotional structural integrity."
"Sounds weak."
"It is. You know this."
Raelle smiled against her hair, then let her go and moved to grab plates from the cupboard. "Alright. I won't ask."
Scylla watched her, suspicious now in return. "You won't?"
"Nope."
"That was too easy."
"I'm respecting your privacy."
"No, you're being smug." Scylla narrowed her eyes as Raelle set two plates on the counter, then opened the drawer for forks. "You're hiding something too."
Raelle didn't answer quite fast enough.
Scylla gasped. "You are."
"No."
"You are."
"I'm making dinner plates available. That's what I'm doing."
"Raelle Collar."
Raelle pointed a fork at her. "Raelle Ramshorn-Collar, actually."
Scylla's face did something deeply inconvenient. It always did when Raelle used their married name, which Raelle knew, because Raelle was evil in very specific domestic ways.
Scylla pressed her lips together. "That was manipulative."
"It was accurate."
"You weaponized our legal union."
"Only a little."
Scylla stepped closer, abandoning the stove for a second. "Are you making me something?"
Raelle's eyes shifted away.
Scylla's mouth fell open. "You are."
"No."
"You're lying."
"I'm an excellent liar."
"You are not. You look like a golden retriever hiding a chainsaw."
Raelle laughed, full and helpless, and Scylla felt the sound sink right through her. "Okay," Raelle said, holding up both hands. "Maybe I'm making something."
Scylla's eyes softened at once. "Rae."
"Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like I just gave you a puppy."
Scylla smiled, victorious and impossibly fond. "You're making me something."
"Maybe."
"Is it furniture?"
"No."
"Is it a shelf?"
"No."
"Is it a secret better shelf?"
Raelle's brows drew together. "What the hell is a secret better shelf?"
"I don't know. You're the woodworker. You tell me."
Raelle shook her head, still smiling, and moved past her to stir the pasta. "I'm not telling you."
Scylla followed her with narrowed eyes. "Is it something that will make me cry?"
Raelle glanced over her shoulder, expression far too satisfied. "Probably."
Scylla froze. "Excuse me?"
"Nothing."
"No. You said probably."
"I said pasta's probably done."
"You absolutely did not."
Scylla stood there, hands on her hips, staring at the back of her wife's head. "You are enjoying this."
"A little."
Raelle stirred the pasta with the kind of concentration she usually reserved for joinery, and Scylla felt a fresh wave of affection hit her so hard it was almost rude. This was the thing she kept trying to put into the magazine and failing to capture properly. Raelle at the stove, sawdust on her shirt, making dinner in their kitchen after a long day. Raelle calling herself by their shared name just to make Scylla's chest cave in. Raelle keeping secrets with that little smug mouth and those steady hands. Raelle existing in all the ordinary places Scylla had once assumed would never belong to her.
A home. A wife. A couch with a laptop hidden under a pillow and a pasta pot that needed washing.
Scylla looked toward the living room, where the laptop sat in danger, then back to Raelle. "Don't look at the laptop," she said.
Raelle didn't turn. "I'm not looking."
"You're thinking about looking."
"I am always thinking."
"Raelle."
Raelle laughed under her breath. "I won't look."
Scylla relaxed slightly.
Then Raelle added, "Unless it starts making noise."
"It won't."
"Unless the porn has autoplay."
Scylla groaned. "I regret lying."
"You should. Marriage is built on trust."
"You opened my jewelry because it sounded like socks."
"Marriage is also built on forgiveness."
Scylla pointed at her. "You're lucky you're cute."
Raelle turned with two plates of pasta, one brow lifted. "Cute?"
"Very."
"I was hoping for handsome table."
Scylla stepped in, took one plate, and kissed Raelle's cheek. "That too."
They carried dinner to the couch together. Scylla very casually sat directly in front of the hidden laptop pillow. Raelle noticed, obviously, but said nothing, because she had promised. Also because Scylla's attempt at subtlety was so bad it deserved to be preserved in the wild.
They ate with their knees touching, TV off, the apartment wrapped around them in warm lamplight. Raelle told her about Abigail in the workshop, carefully editing around the secret parts. Scylla told her about Tally trying to justify the world's least believable back massager, carefully editing around the magazine parts. Both of them were lying by omission. Both of them knew it. Neither of them minded.
After a while, Raelle nudged Scylla's knee with hers. "So Jo really called six times?"
"Six," Scylla said through a mouthful of pasta. "I think she's trying to wear me down."
"Tell her I'll read the script a fourth time and send notes."
Scylla grinned. "Your notes would just say no in increasingly aggressive handwriting."
"Exactly."
"She might find that refreshing."
"She should."
Scylla leaned her head against Raelle's shoulder, pasta bowl balanced in her lap. "I like when you get protective of my filmography."
"I'm not protective. I just don't want my wife seduced by a dust storm."
"It was one scene."
"It was twelve pages."
Scylla laughed, and Raelle turned her head just enough to kiss her hair.
For a little while, neither of them moved. The laptop stayed hidden. The secret stayed safe. The cherrywood waited back in the workshop, marked with the beginning of something old and intricate and full of promise.
In the middle of the apartment they had made together, surrounded by ordinary things made holy by use, Raelle and Scylla ate pasta from mismatched bowls and pretended very badly not to know they were both planning to ruin each other completely.