“Right. Forgot who I was talking to.”
He carries me to the couch and finally lowers me onto the cushions. The loss of his arms is immediate enough that I resent my own body for noticing.
Deeply inconvenient.
I am still holding the sketchbook against my chest when he crouches in front of me. His hands settle briefly on my knees, steady and warm, and my pulse gives another traitorous jump.
“Stay.”
I blink. “I am not a Labrador.”
“Kaia.”
“There is that tone again.”
He rises and crosses into the kitchen. A moment later, he returns with a glass of water and waits until I take it.
“Drink.”
“You know, most people add please.”
“Most people did not breathe smoke tonight.”
I take a sip. “Happy?”
“No.”
The answer comes too quickly.
Something in my chest shifts before I can stop it.
Zain turns away and disappears down the short hallway, leaving me alone with the quiet and far too much awareness of that single word.
I look around again.
There are no photographs.
No family pictures on the mantel. No framed memories on the shelves. Nothing that hints at birthdays, holidays, vacations, or childhood.
The cabin is comfortable, but there is something solitary about it. Everything seems arranged around one man coming home alone and expecting to keep doing exactly that.
My phone buzzes.
Joyce.
Naturally.
Small-town news does not travel fast. It teleports.
I answer. “Hi.”
“Kaia.”
Her voice cracks around my name, and every joke disappears from my head.
“I’m okay.”
“Oh my God.”
