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“What was the defense?”

I glance toward the counter, where Theo’s still occupied. “That you can’t argue someone was wrong for being scared. You can only argue about what they do when the fear runs out.”

Laney doesn’t say anything right away. Just listens, doesn’t check her phone, doesn’t glance toward the stove — the specific full attention of someone who’s spent a career learning to actually hear what patients tell her instead of waiting for her turn to talk.

Laney listens the whole way through. Doesn’t check her phone. Doesn’t glance toward the stove. Just listens with the specific full attention of someone who’s spent a career learning to actually hear what patients tell her instead of waiting for her turn to talk.

“That’s a good answer,” she says, when I finish. “Better than most people give when I ask that question. Usually it’s money, or their parents pushed them, or they liked a TV show.” A pause. “Yours actually sounds like you.”

“Thank you.”

“How does the cheerleading factor into all that? Seems like an unusual pairing on paper. Pre-law and flying through the air.”

I laugh again, more genuine this time. “Everyone says that. I think it’s the only place in my life where I don’t have to manage anything. I just go up and trust the people underneath me to catch me. There’s something freeing about that, honestly, when the rest of your life is spent making sure everything’s under control.”

Something shifts in Laney’s expression — subtle, quick, but I catch it. “I like that. Trusting people to catch you.” She glances toward the counter, where Theo’s back is still turned. “He’s not always been good at that part. The trusting.”

“He’s getting better at it.”

“I can tell.” She looks back at me, something warm and assessing in it at once. “He’s lucky. I don’t say that lightly. I’ve watched this boy build a wall around himself since he was fifteen years old. I’ve watched exactly nobody get past it until you.” She glances toward the counter again, out of easy earshot. “Whatever you’re doing. Keep doing it.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I settle for the truth. “He’s worth it.”

“I know he is.” She says it with the specific certainty of a mother who’s never once doubted it, even in the years when nobody else was around to say so.

It’s over coffee that I feel her look at me a beat too long.

Nothing dramatic. Just a pause, mid-conversation about something unrelated. My Nationals schedule, I think, or maybe the drive up. Her eyes go quiet and assessing in a way that has nothing to do with the words either of us just said.

“You eating enough, honey?” she asks. Casual. Almost too casual. “You look a little tired around the eyes.”

I feel my whole chest go still for half a second, the specific cold drop of being seen by exactly the wrong person at exactly the wrong moment.

“Nationals prep,” I say. Bright. Practiced. The line I’ve been handing everyone for weeks now, delivered with the ease that comes from having said it so many times it barely costs me anything anymore. “It’s brutal this time of year.”

“Mm.” That sound again. Theo’s sound, inherited whole. She doesn’t push it. Doesn’t ask a follow-up question, doesn’t narrow her eyes further, doesn’t do any of the things a person does when they’ve decided to actually investigate something. She just holds my eyes for one more second — long enough that I know she’s noted it, whatever it is, tucked away somewhere for later — and then she lets it go, smooth as anything, moving the conversation back to Nationals itself, asking about the routine, the team, whether I’m nervous.

I understand, watching her do it, exactly where Theo learned this. The specific instinct to notice and not push, to let someone carry what they’re carrying until they’re ready to set it down themselves. He didn’t invent that skill. He inherited it, the same way he inherited the skeptical mm and the dark hair and the particular quiet way of loving someone without demanding anything back for it.

I’m grateful for the inheritance. I’m also, quietly, terrified by it. If Laney Mercer can see this much from one afternoon at a kitchen table, I don’t have nearly as much time left as I’ve been telling myself I do.

I get five minutes alone with him on the back steps. Laney’s inside boxing up leftovers she insists we take home, even though we live an hour away and have a full kitchen at Raven House.

“She’s wonderful,” I tell him. Quiet, just for us, the small backyard fenced in tight with someone else’s laundry line visible over the fence.

“Yeah.” He looks at the yard instead of at me, something soft in his face I don’t often get to see from this angle. “She is.”

“I get it now. Why this mattered so much.” I lean into his shoulder. “You’re different here. Looser. It’s a good look on you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I tip my head up to look at him. “I like this version. I like all your versions, honestly, but this one especially. This is the one that got built before anyone else had a say in it.”

He’s quiet for a moment, processing that. Then he puts his arm around me and pulls me into his side. We sit on the back steps of the house that made him, watching the last of the afternoon light go gold over a fence line in Dorchester.

“Thank you for coming,” he says.

“Thank you for asking me twice.”