For a second, I let that settle.
That rhythm feels almost normal.
That’s what I’m protecting.
Riley cuts the engine and sits there for a beat longer than she needs to, hands still on the wheel, eyes forward like she’s bracing for something she already knows is coming.
Then she gets out.
No hesitation or second-guessing, just that same steady control she always carries like armor.
Hadley hops out a second later, already moving toward the porch.
“Is this it?” she asks, looking up at me like I’ve just built something magical instead of complicated.
“Yeah,” I say, crouching down so I’m eye level with her. “This is it.”
She looks past me into the house, eyes lighting up. “Can I see?”
I glance at Riley.
She nods once.
“Stay where I can see you,” she says.
“Okay!”
Hadley runs inside without another thought, her footsteps echoing across the floors like the place already belongs to her.
Riley watches her go, then looks at me.
“Looks finished,” she says.
“It is. Quinn and Summer ordered all the furnishings and put food in the house and snacks and everything. It was timed perfectly with the completion of the house.
She nods slowly, taking it in, her gaze moving across the porch, the land, the house, all of it like she’s measuring something she hasn’t decided on yet.
“You going to live here?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
Her eyes flick back to mine. “That soon?”
“Tonight.”
That lands.
I see it in the way her posture shifts just slightly, the way she recalculates without saying it out loud.
“Bold move,” she says.
“Necessary,” I answer.
She studies me for a second, then glances toward the land, like she can feel the same thing I do now.
The weight under it.
The fact that none of this is quiet anymore.
