Eleanor Chen had been in the penthouse for three weeks.
Three weeks since she had stormed through the elevator doors unannounced and unapologetic, carrying a Tupperware container full of dumplings and a fur coat that had probably cost more than most people's monthly rent. Three weeks since she had pointed her spatula at Lucas Grey and called him "Luki" for the first time, a name that had once belonged only to his father and had been buried in the silence of dementia and loss for nearly two decades. Three weeks of morning dumpling lessons and evening PowerPoint critiques, of battles with the smart home system and truces negotiated over Mozart, of seventeen different names called across the kitchen while Lucas chopped ginger into perfectly uniform point-five-millimeter cubes.
