Page 18 of Coming Home

"Yeah, I've seen the inside of your fridge. It's a graveyard of protein shakes and old eggs. It's depressing." He scrolled through a document on his screen, his thumb moving like a piston. "I'm killing the morning show request for next week. You don't need to sit on a white couch with two talk-show anchors who are going to smile to your face while replaying that fan video for the fifty-millionth time. We keep you dark. We keep you quiet, controlled, and locked on the pool. From now until the trials, I need you to be the most boring man on the North American continent. Can you manage that?"

"Boring is my baseline."

"Debatable. Boring guys don't trend globally on Twitter for putting a spectator through a concession stand."

"I didn't punch the guy. I crowded his space."

"You know that, I know that. The algorithm doesn't give a shit about semantics." He dropped the phone onto the coffee table and rubbed the bridge of his nose, his shoulders dropping an inch. "We'll kill the noise. We always do."

I nodded, keeping my posture loose, my arms crossed over my chest while every nerve ending in my spine was dialed into the absolute silence twelve feet behind me. The guest room door hadn't moved. The hinges hadn't groaned.

Good. Stay put, Em.

Then Theo's gaze drifted. It was casual at first, just an idle sweep of the kitchen layout, and then it happened in brutal, slow-motion clarity. His eyes hit the base of the barstool. Right where Emma had dropped her pink, water-logged suitcase during our shouting match. He stared at the bag for three seconds.

"Going somewhere?" he asked, his voice leveling out.

"No."

"Interesting." He tilted his head, his sharp eyes tracking the pink nylon. "When did you start traveling with luggage that looks like a bottle of Pepto-Bismol?"

"It's Athena's," I lied. "She left it here the last time she came."

"Athena was here." He folded his arms, one dark eyebrow climbing into his forehead. "With a three-week roller bag. And she just walked out the door without it."

"She's forgetful."

"Or…" That familiar grin started creeping into the corners of his mouth. I'd seen it a thousand times since we were kids: Theo catching the scent of blood, already working out how deep he could sink his teeth. "Option two. There's a woman breathing your air in this house right now."

"You have a wild imagination for a man who gets paid to look at contract metrics."

"Looking at metrics is exactly why I know when numbers don't add up." He pointed a finger at me. "Athlete handbook, page fourteen. Domestic distractions during peak training cycles are a liability. We talked about this."

"It's a piece of luggage, Theo. Not a marriage license. You want to go stick your head in my shower and look for hairpins, or can we get back to Paris?"

He held up his palms, laughing, and let the bone go. But his eyes flickered onto my face. "And since when do you wear reading glasses? You look like a defense attorney."

"They're blue-light filters," I lied without blinking, tapping the frame. "Sponsors say my eyes look too aggressive in morning training clips. Trying to soften my brand."

"Your brand is concrete, Ralph. Softening it just makes you look like you're about to audit my taxes."

"How's Abbie?"

"She's growing. She asked me last night why I don't eat breakfast at the house anymore."

He stared down at a microscopic scratch in my hardwood. "She's seven years old, Ralph, and she's already looking at me like I'm a ghost who visits on weekends. I didn't have a single line of dialogue to give her."

"She's a kid, man. They don't understand the hours it takes to build what you're building for her."

"Don't defend me. I don't want it." He rubbed the back of his neck until the skin turned red. "I keep telling myself it's just one more quarter. One more endorsement cycle. One more gold medal for Brandt, and then I'll pull back and be a father. But 'temporary' has been my default setting for seven years now. I'm giving every stranger on Madison Avenue the absolute best of my energy, and my daughter is getting the scraps left over at nine o'clock at night."

"Abbie knows who her old man is."

"Does she?" He looked up, his blue eyes bloodshot.

"Or does she just know I'm the guy who pays for the house and stares at an iPhone during dinner?"

I didn't have a textbook answer for that. Theo didn't want one anyway; he just needed to drop the weight in front of someone who wouldn't try to clean it up with a motivational speech.