The floor dropped out. Not because I didn’t know. I’ve seen it in the way he says my name. But hearing it plain rearranged my bones.
“Quentin,” I whispered, because his name was the only thing that could hold it.
Daddy coughed like a diesel. “I’m going to the hardware store,” he announced, grabbing keys. “Gonna… look at screws.”
Quentin almost fumbled his mug standing up, polite even when rattled. “Yes, sir.”
Daddy paused, scanned him like a new tool, then nodded once. The Whitaker blessing. Then gone.
Silence swelled—me, him, morning, the faint smell of peaches.
Quentin set his mug down, shifted to the far cushion. A bridge. I crossed it. Curled against him, cheek to his chest. His arm came around sure, palm heavy on my shoulder. The one place in the city that wanted nothing but me.
“I’m scared,” I said.
“I know,” he murmured. “Me too.”
“I might be mean for no reason.”
“I’ll duck.”
“I might send you away when I want you close.”
“I’ll wait on the porch,” he said. “You can open the door when you remember.”
I laughed—wet, broken. “You really think you’re the ground, huh?”
“I’m thinking I’m the table,” he said, smile in his voice. “We’ll run the rack. Together.”
I pulled back, touched his glasses. “Keep these on.”
“Why?” he whispered.
“So I remember you’re more than the mask you wear when the world’s looking. So I remember I can trust what I already know.”
He kissed me slow, deep, unhurried. Not filthy. Not desperate. The kind of kiss that makes a wire sing true when you line it right.
When we broke, I whispered, “I’m still mad at her.”
“Me too,” he said, and I barked a laugh. He smiled. “But she doesn’t matter. What we build does. And I won’t let her near it.”
I nodded, my belly fluttering—not a kick, not yet. Just a small new yes.
We didn’t rush the moment. We breathed it in. Let it be proof I didn’t have to run every time the lights flickered.
After a while, he said, “We’ll call your doctor Monday. Together.”
That made my eyes close. “Okay.”
“And you can cuss me out in the car if you get nervous.”
“Already planning to,” I said, feeling his laugh under my cheek.
“Rayna.”
“Mmm?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
