The quiet isn’t empty. It’s a third participant.
“Morning,” I say, and my voice reaches for casualness and finds only sincerity.
He looks first at me, and I feel his gaze gather data—hair not perfectly pinned, mouth softer than usual, a light under my skin I can’t pretend is from sleep. Then he looks at our hands.
Triston hasn’t let go. I haven’t asked him to.
Wayne’s eyes return to my face. Something old and brittle moves behind them—grief, probably; love that learned to wear armor. “You look…” He stops, like the wrong word would turn to ash mid-air. “Different.”
“Happy,” I say, because I promised no more running.
He exhales through his nose, long enough that I count three beats and then stop because it makes me sound like I’m timing a shift. “I can see that.”
We stand there, the three of us and the faithful coffee maker who has attended more family conversations than any licensed therapist. I wait for the lecture. For the chronology of my poor decisions delivered like a film review. Instead, he nods at the kitchen table. “Sit.”
We do. Not because he asked. Because I don’t want to hold this conversation on my feet like I’m preparing to sprint.
The chair complains under Triston’s weight and an absurd hysterical laugh threatens to climb out of my chest because even furniturehas opinions this morning. I focus on the mug in front of me. The rim chip catches my thumb and I press into it until the tiny sting reminds me I have edges and they are mine.
Wayne steeples his fingers. The veins at his temples aren’t less furious by daylight; they’re just honest. He looks at me first, then at Triston, then at our hands again because apparently we are choosing to be obvious.
“I don’t do well with being surprised,” he says, which is a confession framed as a statement. “I don’t like being made into a fool in rooms I paid for.”
“I know,” I say softly. “I didn’t… we didn’t plan the kiss as a spectacle.”
“It was a statement,” he counters without heat.
“It was the truth,” I say.
He considers that. The kettle clicks itself off, too late to be useful, and we all flinch at the familiar sound because nerves do not care how many banners your team has hung. When he speaks again, it’s to Triston. “You’re not my son.”
“No, sir,” Triston says, and the sir holds respect without apology.
“But you have been in this house as if you were,” Dad continues. “Dinners. Birthdays. Grief.” The last word is a shard he doesn’t intend to hand either of us and does anyway.
“Yes, sir,” Triston says, softer. “I know the history I’m carrying into this room.”
“Do you?” Wayne’s eyes sharpen, not cruel, but unwilling to grade on a curve. “Do you know the difference between heat and love? Between devotion and obsession? Because I have seen men—good men—ruin women they loved by not knowing where that line was.”
“I know the line exists,” Triston answers. “I spend every day learning how to stay on the right side of it. I’m not asking you to trust meblindly. I am promising I won’t pretend my want is a virtue when it’s not.”
Dad watches him like he watches a rookie take a first shift: potential and mistake braided together. “You kissed my daughter in front of my donors.”
“Yes, sir,” Triston says, not flinching.
“You made a spectacle.”
“I made us honest,” he says. “In a room she built to hold more than other people’s comfort.”
My chest pulls tight because I love him for that sentence and fear it in the same breath. Wayne’s eyes flick to me. It’s my turn.
“I’m not a child, Dad,” I say with the care of a surgeon cutting where nerves live. “You taught me how to tell when danger is harm and when it isn’t. This is danger. It isn’t harm.”
“Not yet,” he says, and the not yet lands like a truth neither of us wants.
“Then watch me,” I say, and my voice steadies because this is the part I trust. “Watch me carry it. Watch me be better because of it. If I’m wrong, you won’t have to swing. I’ll put the thing down myself.”
He blinks. That small softening again, so quick I’d miss it if I hadn’t grown up reading storms by scent. He looks at Triston. “You hurt her once—once—and I won’t care what contract you signed or how many jerseys in the stands bear your number. You won’t belong to this team or this house. Clear?”
