Page 172 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

I went very still.

He took a sip of bourbon. “I’m old, not blind.”

“There is no she,” I protested.

“If you say so.”

I gave him a look.

He lifted one hand. “I won’t pry.”

“You’re prying now.”

“This is restraint.”

I snorted. “Your restraint needs practice.”

He smiled then, and I saw the man my mother had chosen. Warm beneath the weight. Amused by the right things.

“Accept connection where you find it,” he said. “Don’t ask every person who offers you warmth to prove that they belong to the correct category. Life is lonely enough without sorting love by species.”

Love. The word tightened something in me.

“It’s not love.” The lie rolled smoothly off my tongue.

“No?”

“No,” I snapped.

My father didn’t challenge me, just looked toward the low fire. “Then there’s no need to be afraid of it.”

I said nothing.

He finished his drink and set the glass down. “You do not have to run only with wolves, Rafe. You do not have to become smaller to make them more comfortable. Choose people of courage. People of loyalty. People who tell the truth when it costs them and stay when staying requires work. The rest is background noise.”

Quinn had told me once that doors broke and people changed and no one could disclose every future cost up front.

My father, apparently, believed something similar.

He stood, slower than he used to, and closed the folder on the table. “Get some rest.”

“I have work to do.”

“You always have work.”

I caught myself before I rolled my eyes. “That doesn’t make it imaginary.”

“No. But it allows you to pretend everything else has less value.”

He touched my shoulder as he passed.

I remained in the library after he left, listening to the house settle around me.

I thought of my mother asleep upstairs. Of my father rearranging his days around her without resentment. Of Quinn tucked under her quilt in an apartment too small for all the care I wanted to bring her. Of Max accepting my kiss like a benediction.

I had spent years believing love was consequential, and I still believed that. The trouble was, consequence no longer sounded like warning alone. Tonight, it had sounded like a dog snoring at my feet and a woman murmuring movie commentary against my shoulder, and for a few stolen hours, responsibility hadn’t felt like weight.

It had felt like a choice I wanted to make room for.