“Love you too.”
I hang up. Silence. Jordan’s still there, unwavering, and I lean into them, letting our shoulders press together. Their arm slides around me, gentle and sure, and I let myself lean.
I look around the kitchen. Drew’s tile, his hardware, every angle and fixture and handle chosen with intention. A whole life, mapped and measured.
Then I look at Jordan. Their gaze open, quiet, waiting, nothing forced.
“I think,” I say, voice rough but sure, “I need to change the house. Make it my own.”
Jordan doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t offer help or say it’s brave or any of those things. Just nods, squeezes my hand, fingers slipping through mine like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
And maybe it is.
Chapter 8
By the time I make it up Maddie’s porch steps, my palms are already aching from hauling the paint rollers, and my fingers are curled tight around a can of soft lavender paint, the color she picked last-minute after an entire afternoon lost to a pinterest deep dive. The tray is jammed under my arm, the drop cloth bunched and threatening to face-plant off my elbow, and the July heat is sticking to me, relentless, melting me into the fibers of her doormat.
I knock once, the toe of my boot thumping the wood. Maddie’s faster than I expect, and she swings the door open before I’ve even found my balance.
There she is, in that wildflower dress with a white primer streak on the hem, hair twisted up and escaping, cheeks flushed and bright. Breathing fast, eyes shining. A little chaotic, all Maddie. The sight of her knocks something loose in my chest, a feeling I have yet to find the right name for.
“You’re late,” she says, but her lips are already curled at the edges.
I tip my chin at her, muscling past and dropping everything onto the hallway runner. “Needed good rollers. The cheap ones shed worse than my cousin’s cat. And just so you know, if you’re planning a home improvement ambush at six in the morning, maybe give a heads up?”
“I texted at five-forty,” she fires back, completely deadpan.
“Five-forty is a threat, Maddie. Not a warning.”
She laughs, clear and bright, trailing after me down the hall. I follow the sound right into the bedroom, where she’s already in the thick of her latest project.
The place is half torn apart, with the dresser and nightstand corralled in the middle of the room, bed pulled from the wall, painter’s tape zigzagging along the edges. I crouch, sizing up a tape line that’s barely hanging on, bubbling and peeling off in a lazy diagonal for two feet before giving up entirely. I glance up, one eyebrow raised, fixing Maddie with my best skeptical stare.
She just hands me a roller. “Don’t judge. Mind your business.”
“This is my business. I tape for a living.”
“Then fix it. Stop acting like you’ve caught me committing tax fraud.”
I peel up the tape and re-stick it, nice and straight. Maddie’s already on the drop cloth, prying open the lavender paint can. Windows are shoved open, summer air rolling in slow, her phone perched on the sill and blasting music loud enough to drown out conversation. I don’t mind—it’s almost better that way.
We fall into the work without even thinking. I take the far wall, she claims the near, and within minutes I’ve got a stripe of lavender paint running from wrist to elbow.
“Your fault,” I announce, holding up my arm as evidence.
She glances over and grins, paint roller in hand. There’s a fat smear of lavender on her dress, dead center. Like she did it on purpose.
“Absolutely not. You’re supposed to be a responsible adult.”
“My competence is being assaulted by your terrible playlist.”
She cranks the volume even higher, because of course she does. She attacks the walls with big, bold strokes, burying the off-white beneath waves of lavender. With every pass, the room changes, getting lighter, brighter, not just in color but in energy.Stroke by stroke, Drew’s old bedroom goes under, and Maddie’s space emerges. I catch myself watching her, more paint on me than the wall.
Twenty minutes in, we hit the first ADHD side quest…the dresser.
“The dresser,” Maddie declares, slamming her roller into the tray. “It’s wrong.”
I look at it. It’s a dresser. “It’s literally fine.”
