She comes out five minutes later in one of my flannel shirts. It hangs to her knees. The cuffs are rolled twice. Her feet are bare on the floor, her hair's been finger-combed, and when she sees the table her lips part.
"You cooked."
I nod.
She crosses the room and sits where she's sat every morning this week. She picks up the coffee and breathes it in, eyes closed, the same face she makes over the stew I made a few nights ago—she's content. I turn away before the purr can climb into my throat.
"Garrett."
I stop.
"Sit down."
I don't move. If I sit, she'll talk. If she talks, the kind version ofthis shouldn't happen againis going to come out of her mouth, and I've taken hits my whole life but I don't know how to take that one.
She pushes back from the table and catches my forearm before I can turn away. Her palm is small and hot against the fur.
"Please, come sit with me."
I sit. The chair groans under me. I hold my mug with both hands.
She eats. She talks about her day ahead the way she talks about everything. A follow-up on a broken wrist from Wednesday, a supply order that didn't arrive, whether Jess is going to notice she isn't wearing her hair up.Because Jess notices everything, Garrett, she's going to take one look at me and know.She laughs. All of it normal. Like last night opened a door she has no interest in closing.
The purr rolls out of my chest and I'm too rattled to hold it. She glances up. She reaches across the table and rests her palm over the back of my hand. Her thumb strokes once. She goes back to her eggs.
The logic I built this morning falls apart.
Finn takes one look at me when I come through the garage bay door. The grin starts before I've cleared the threshold.
"Well."
I walk past him.
"You look different."
I don't stop.
"Brother." He says it through a laugh. "I'm not going to say anything."
"You already did."
"Fine, I'm done." He holds up both palms. "I'm happy for you. That's all."
Rex crosses from the parts counter with a grease rag over his shoulder. "What's different."
"Gore smiled."
"Bullshit."
"I saw a twitch. It totally counts."
"Twitch doesn't count."
"Counts in his face. For him it's a smile."
I pull the cover off the Dodge on the rack and climb under. The transmission needs the synchro replaced, and I can bury myselfin the small precise work of it all afternoon. My wrench closes on the first bolt and the pull of muscle in my shoulders settles me the way it always does. Cold metal, familiar torque, the smell of oil and brake cleaner. Finn provides running commentary from the next bay over about a raccoon getting into Rex's saddlebags that I don't need to engage with but listen to anyway because the sound of someone talking while I work has become a thing I need without noticing it.
My hands strip the synchro hub but the rest of me is still at the kitchen table, her palm on the back of my hand, her thumb stroking once.
