Chapter 6: The Tour Continues
Dressing was a slow, silent negotiation.
Sable stood in Tuck’s bedroom, a space as unadorned and functional as the man himself. His own clothes, even rumpled, felt like a costume now. The heavy wool slacks, the silk-blend shirt. Armor. He put them on mechanically, each button a tiny surrender.
Tuck pulled on worn jeans and a soft, grey henley that stretched across his chest. He watched Sable tuck in his shirt, a faint smirk on his lips. “You look like you’re headed to a funeral.”
“I might be,” Sable said, his voice still a bit raw. “My CFO’s, if he’s unlucky.”
“Leave the phone,” Tuck said, not asking.
Sable’s hand went to his pocket by instinct. He hesitated, then left the dead weight of it on Tuck’s rough-hewn dresser. The gesture felt more vulnerable than being naked.
The smell of coffee and burning toast led them to the kitchen. Zara was at the table, tapping furiously on her tablet, a half-eaten piece of charred bread next to her. She didn’t look up. “Your pilot is on standby. I’ve rescheduled the Tokyo call for tonight, our time. It’s 3 AM there. They’re not happy.”
“Let them be unhappy,” Sable said, pulling out a chair. The wood groaned under him. Tuck moved to the stove, flipping pancakes on a cast iron griddle with a quiet, practiced ease.
“You can’t just ignore this,” Zara said, finally looking at him. Her eyes flickered to his neck, where the bruise from Tuck’s mouth was darkening. A muscle in her jaw jumped. “The narrative is shifting. ‘Reclusive tycoon’ is morphing into ‘unstable heir.’ The stock dipped two points in pre-market.”
“A rounding error,” Sable sniffed, but the news landed like a stone in his gut.
Tuck set a plate in front of him: two perfect golden pancakes, a pat of butter melting into a pool, a drizzle of maple syrup so dark it was nearly black. “Syrup’s from the bigleaf maples out back,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Last year’s batch.”
Sable took a bite. The flavor was deep, smoky, complex. It tasted nothing like the expensive, streamlined stuff served in his penthouse. It tasted like a specific place, a specific time. It was overwhelming.
“It’s… fine,” Sable said, because admitting it was transcendent felt like losing ground.
Tuck just nodded, taking his own seat with a plate stacked twice as high. For a few minutes, the only sounds were forks on plates and Zara’s furious typing.
“So,” Tuck said, wiping his mouth. “Tour.”
Zara looked up. “A tour? Sable, we need to—”
“We’re taking a tour,” Sable said, finality iron-clad in his tone. He needed to move, to see the boundaries of this strange world that was swallowing him whole.
The morning air was sharp and clean, scented with wet soil and something green and growing. Sable’s leather loafers, not designed for terrain, immediately sank into a patch of mud by the porch steps.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered, looking at the ruined shine.
Tuck chuckled, a deep, rolling sound that seemed to come from the earth itself. “Told you. Boots are by the door.”
“I don’t wear boots.”
“You do today.” Tuck tossed a pair of giant, well-used work boots at his feet. They were comically large. Sable scowled but shoved his feet in, the heavy tread feeling alien. He had to roll his slacks up.
They walked. Tuck’s pace was slow, measured. He pointed things out with a quiet pride that was devoid of boasting. The repaired section of fence where a fallen tree had taken it out last winter. The old tractor engine he was slowly repurposing into a generator.
The chicken coop was a sagging structure with a rusted metal roof, wildflowers growing through the cracks. The air here was thick with the smell of feathers, dry feed, and droppings.
“Ladies,” Tuck called softly, and a riot of red and brown feathers came clucking towards the wire. He unlatched the gate and stepped inside, the mud and straw not fazing him at all.
Sable hovered at the threshold. “I’m not going in there.”
“Scared of a few hens?” Tuck bent, effortlessly scooping up a warm, brown egg from a nesting box. He held it out. “Here. It’s still warm.”
Cautiously, Sable stepped in. The mud oozed over the tops of the borrowed boots. He grimaced, taking the egg. It was indeed warm, a faint, alive heat against his palm. He’d never held something so recently produced. It was unsettling. He carefully placed it in a wire basket Tuck handed him.
“This is revolting,” Sable stated, watching a chicken peck near his foot. “And profoundly inefficient. Do you know the yield per square foot of a vertical hydroponic protein vat?”
“No,” Tuck said, collecting another egg. “But I know these girls eat bugs and kitchen scraps, fertilize the garden, and give me breakfast. They have names. That one’s Gertrude.” He said it with a straight face.
Sable stared at him, then at the oblivious chicken. A strange, powerless laugh bubbled up in his chest. It escaped as a short, disbelieving puff of air. “You’re insane.”
“Probably.” Tuck’s eyes crinkled. “But I’m not the one wearing two-thousand-dollar slacks in a chicken coop.”
The greenhouse was another world. Humid, green, overflowing. Sunlight streamed through the glass, highlighting motes of dust and water vapor. The smell was primal—rich soil, chlorophyll, the tang of ripe tomatoes. Vines coiled around supports, heavy with fruit. It was chaos, but a productive, intentional chaos.
Tuck went to a workbench, where a series of clear tubes and repurposed glass bottles were connected in a looping system. A small solar panel sat outside, a wire running in. “Aquaponics,” he said, his voice softening. “Fish in the tank there—” he pointed to a large barrel where Sable saw a flash of gold “—their waste feeds the water. The water’s pumped up, filters through the gravel beds where the plants grow, cleans it, goes back to the fish. Closed loop. Only input is sunlight and a little fish food.”
Sable listened, actually listened. He saw the elegant simplicity of it. No corporate supply chain, no waste management crises, no carbon credits to buy. Just a quiet, perpetual cycle of life feeding life. It was the most subversive business model he’d ever seen.
Tuck was in his element. His large, scarred hands were gentle as he checked a leaf for spots, tested the moisture of a soil block. The focused peace on his face was a physical thing. Sable had seen conquerors look less content.
Without thinking, Sable reached out and touched Tuck’s forearm. The muscle was solid under the soft cotton. Tuck stilled.
“Show me,” Sable said, the words surprising them both. He wasn’t asking for a demonstration. He was asking for entry.
Tuck studied him for a long moment, his gaze searching. Then he nodded. He picked up a small, fragile seedling from a tray, its roots a delicate white tangle. He took Sable’s hand—the one that orchestrated billion-dollar mergers—and turned it palm up.
“Support the root ball. Gently.” Tuck’s voice was a low instruction. He guided Sable’s hands to a pot filled with dark soil, made a hole with his finger. “Now settle it in. Don’t crush it. Just let it be where it needs to be.”
Sable’s hands trembled slightly. He was used to manipulating abstract, powerful things—stocks, influencers, public perception. This tiny, living object felt more consequential. He followed Tuck’s guidance, nestling the seedling into the earth. Together, they firmed the soil around it.
His fingertips were stained dark. Tuck’s hand still covered his, big and warm and dirty. The intimacy of it was paralyzing. It wasn’t the ruthless, consuming intimacy of the shower. This was quieter. Deeper. It felt like a foundation.
Sable looked from their joined hands to Tuck’s face. The omega’s expression was open, unguarded. There was no challenge there, only a quiet offering.
“You’re building something here,” Sable whispered, the realization dawning on him like a cold, beautiful shock.
“Trying to,” Tuck said.
Before Sable could process the ache that statement caused—a longing for something he hadn’t known he wanted—Zara’s voice, sharp and metallic, cut through the greenhouse humidity.
“Sable.”
She stood at the greenhouse door, backlit, her tablet glowing in her hands. Her face was pale. “It’s not two points. It’s twelve. Someone leaked photos. From last night. You, stumbling at the gala. The car leaving. They’ve extrapolated a ‘health crisis’ and a ‘leadership vacuum.’ The board has moved the vote to 5 PM today. Your brother is on CNN in ten minutes.”
The silence that followed was total. The gentle drip of the irrigation system sounded like a bomb ticking. The warm, living world of the greenhouse suddenly felt like a beautiful, fragile snow globe, and a sledgehammer was swinging towards it.
Sable slowly pulled his hand from Tuck’s. He looked at the dirt under his nails, then at the perfect, helpless seedling they had just planted.
He wiped his hands on his ruined slacks. The gesture was one of finality.
“Get the pilot on the line,” he said, his voice cold and clear, all the softness scoured away. “We’re leaving in an hour.” He didn’t look at Tuck as he said it. He couldn’t.
He walked towards Zara, towards the glowing screen and the collapsing empire, leaving the smell of warm soil and the taste of dark syrup behind him. The borrowed boots were heavy on his feet.