She huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “Good luck.”
I packed up. I should’ve left. Instead, my feet stayed where they were while my mouth betrayed me. “About earlier,” I said. “At the house. The ‘Uncle’ thing.”
Her shoulders bristled immediately. “I didn’t tell her to call you that. She just did. ”
“I know.” I held up a hand. “It’s fine.” The word was too small. It was more than fine. It was… disarming. A label I hadn’t earned and didn’t know how to wear. “I won’t make it complicated.”
Madison searched my face like she was looking for the catch. “It’s already complicated.”
“Then I’ll keep it simple.” I tipped my chin toward the hallway. “Tonight, you sleep. Tomorrow, I'll start on your house.”
“And the next day?”
“Then we fight about cereal brands, I guess.”
There it was, the smile, quick and bright, before she caught herself. “We don’t eat your cardboard flakes, Seth.”
“They’re fiber.”
“They taste like punishment,” she groaned.
“Punishment is letting a four-year-old choose dinner.”
“You’re not wrong.”
The quiet stretched again, but it felt different now, less like a dare, more like a truce.
From the back room, Olive’s small voice drifted out, dreamy and thick with sleep. “Mommy?”
Madison was gone before I answered. I heard the soft murmur of her voice, the creak of the bed, Olive’s content sigh. I stayed where I was, palms braced on the island, staring at the ring a coffee mug had left on the quartz. I’d never noticed it before. I’d never used this space enough to leave marks.
She came back a minute later, waves slipping around her face. “Nightmare,” she said softly. “She’s okay.”
“Good.”
Madison nodded toward the door. “You should… ”
“Go,” I finished for her. “Yeah.”
I picked up the toolbox and crossed the little living room. My reflection ghosted briefly in the dark window, a big guy with square shoulders and a jaw that always looked like it was grinding through a problem. Past that, my own house, porch light off, black windows watching. The place looked like a photograph of itself. The only light on the property glowed behind me, in a guesthouse that finally felt like it had a purpose other than impressing clients.
My hand hit the doorknob. I paused. “Madison.”
She lifted her eyes.
“If you think of something you need, put a list on the counter. I’m up before five.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself,” she said dryly.
“Don’t.” I surprised us both. “You don’t have to do this part alone.”
She looked at me for a long beat. Whatever answer she had, she kept it close. “Goodnight, Seth.”
“Night.”
Outside, the air had cooled, the kind of clean, washed feeling towns get after everything has been beaten down and rinsed. I crossed the lawn back to my house, toolbox heavy in my hand, a different kind of weight in my chest.
Inside, I dropped the box by the door, ignored the stack of reports on the dining table, and went straight to the back window. The guesthouse lamp still glowed. A small figure, Madison, moved past, and flicked it off. Darkness took over, and with it, the tightness in my jaw eased.
