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Her heart jumped.
Oh come on! Really? Over a laugh?
She was going to have a serious conversation with her cardiovascular system about boundaries.
But his hands were warm around hers and the laugh — that tiny, involuntary, startled laugh — felt like finding a hidden room in a house she'd thought she'd already mapped.
He was in there.
Under all that stillness and control and careful, gentleness — there was a man who laughed, and she'd found him, and something about that felt like the most important discovery she'd made since walking into this diner.
She was definitely not going to think about the hands thing. About how her fingers fit inside his like they'd been designed for it. About the warmth. About how it did things to her body she never had felt before.
Nope. Not thinking about it.
He bowed his head. Sage watched the thin silver threads woven through his thick dark hair catch the diner light, the quiet vulnerability of that bent neck making her throat tighten. Her own head stayed up, eyes open, heart still locked behind too many doors. She wasn’t there yet. Might never be. But she didn’t pull her hands away.
“Father, thank you for this food." The rumble of his voice moved through his hands into hers. She felt it in her fingers, in her wrists, in the bones of her arms. "And for family. And for the sage wisdom of the extremely young. Amen."
A beat of silence.
Then the sound that came out of Sage was not dignified.
"Oh my God—" She yanked her hands back and pressed them over her mouth, but it was too late — the laugh was already out, loud and bright and completely uncontrollable, ricocheting off the booth and the ceiling and the faces of every patron within earshot. "'Sage wisdom?!' REALLY? Oh — stop — stop, I'm going to pee!"
Cal didn't move. Didn't blink. His face was a masterpiece of neutrality — stone-carved, military-grade composure — except that the corners of his mouth were staging a quiet rebellion his jaw couldn't fully suppress.
"Please don't," he said deadpan.
Sage doubled over.
The laugh deepened from the belly, the kind she’d almost forgotten, and then she was gripping the edge of the table, eyes streaming, unable to stop, unable even to breathe, because the absurdity of this enormous, deadly, God-fearing man making puns about her name during grace was more than her body could process without completely fucking losing it.
She flailed one hand vaguely in his direction, waving him off as if to say, “stop or there will be a mess in this booth and it will be your fault!”
Heads turned. Forks paused mid-air all around the diner.
Two older ladies at a nearby table looked up from their slices of pie in perfect sync, eyes wide like they’d just seen a ghost. A man at the counter glanced over his shoulder, frowning, clearly trying to figure out what the hell was happening in the back booth. His eyes widened when he saw what was happening.
Sage could feel every single gaze land on them and she didn’t even care. She was laughing too hard to care.
She looked at Cal — still contained, still composed, military-straight spine and stone-carved jaw… except for the faint, traitorous tremor at the corners of his mouth and the quiet, unstoppable warmth glowing in those gray eyes.
Sage finally managed to sit up, wiping tears from her lashes with the back of her hand. A helpless little grin broke across her face.
“Okay! Whew…okay…New rule. No dad jokes during grace.”
Cal looked at her.
She looked at him.
They both smiled as they ate.
MARY SUE
Mary Sue Ellen had always known her boy might never laugh again.
She had tried to make her peace with it years ago — and failed. The hope had only grown heavier, harder to carry, with every passing year.
