Deek leans sideways and points at Ghost’s corner. “Because of the Sage and Ghost situation, or the Millie situation?”
“Deek,” Dad grumbles.
“I’m asking because they’re related, Dad, philosophically. It’s a legitimate line of inquiry.”
“It’s an intrusive line of inquiry.”
“I prefer invested.” Deek grins at me without apology, easy and uncomplicated, like minding his own business has never really been his thing. “For what it’s worth, Will, I think you’ve wasted slightly less time than Ghost will. Which is still a lot of time, objectively, but comparatively? You’re doing well.” I stare at him. “That was meant to be encouraging,” he adds.
Dad briefly closes his eyes, a gesture of resignation, then opens them and looks at me again. “You don’t need to have it all figured out.” He drops his voice, just for me, slipping past the comedy into something more genuine. “You just need to know what matters.”
I think about Jonas’ kitchen. His lamp. The dark line under his door.
Four more days,I’d thought, sitting there with her hand in mine, already dreading the return to the ordinary rhythm of the clubhouse, the mine documents, and the specific ache of wanting something from a careful, respectful distance.
Except it isn’t like that anymore. Something shifted in the chemistry between us in that kitchen, the unhurried, two-in-the-morning kind of shift that doesn’t make a sound, and it cannot be shifted back.
I reach across and drop a brief hand onto Dad’s shoulder. “Yeah,” I say. “I think I’m starting to.”
He nods once.
Across the room, Ghost says something low, something I can’t hear, and Sage laughs, a sound that startles. Ghost’s expression doesn’t exactly change, but something in the set of his face softens by a fraction that, if you weren’t paying attention, you’d miss entirely.
Deek squints at them like he’s evaluating mechanical failure.
“Someone write this down. Ghost made a woman laughwithouttechnical assistance.”
Dad doesn’t even look up. “You’re exhausting.”
“I’m observant.”
I lift my warm beer and glance toward Ghost’s table, where the mood has shifted into something I’m not used to seeing from him.
My mind drifts to Millie sitting at her kitchen table beneath the lamp glow, her father turning pages in the next room while the mine paperwork sits stacked between them, heavy with everything neither of them wants to say out loud.
Patience means little once you know how things will end.
And I smile into the bottle without meaning to.
Chapter Thirteen
MILLIE
Three Days Before The Patch Ceremony
The lawyer’s office has the feel of every serious place I’ve ever been in, all polished wood and neatly stacked files, the kind of room where decisions are made that don’t get undone. I sit in the chair beside Dad, my hands folded in my lap the way he taught me when I was seven years old, watching him sign his name at the bottom of page after page.
His handwriting is still steady. I find myself cataloging things like that now, whether his hands shake when he pours coffee, whether his voice holds that familiar authority when he speaks, whether the man sitting beside me still resembles the man I’ve known my entire life. Today, he looks good, better than he has in weeks. There’s color in his cheeks, and he makes a joke to the receptionist on our way in, something about the painting on the wall looking like a desert after too much sun. She laughed, and he looked almost like himself.
I have learned, in the months since his diagnosis, that good days are a gift you take without asking questions about what comes after.
When everything is signed, when the lawyer gathers the pages into their neat, official pile, Dad reaches over and squeezes my hand. His grip is firm.
“Everything is in order,” he says simply, and his eyes find mine with a directness that has always meant he is done discussing a matter. “Whatever happens, you’ll be taken care of. The mine will be taken care of.”
I nod because if I try to speak right now, I won’t be able to keep my face arranged the way he needs it to be. I squeeze hishand back, holding it for a beat longer than I normally would, and he lets me.
I don’t ask what ‘in order’means in the specific, legal, final kind of way it means today. I don’t ask about timelines, provisions, or what he has decided to leave to whom. He’s Jonas McClane, and he has always handled the hard things so that I don’t have to, and today, even though it costs me something to do it, I let him have that. I trust him completely, the way I have trusted him my entire life, the way you trust the ground beneath your feet without thinking about it.
