"Lulu. Right. My mistake." He shot me a grin, sharp and warm at the same time. "Speaking of past crimes, I was just tellingVince the other day about that time we blew up the— what was it? Storage shed?"
"Equipment locker," I said. "And you said it was fireproof."
"It was fire-resistant. Important distinction." He bounced Alexandra on his knee, and she shrieked with delight. "The point is, it was mostly fire-resistant. Like, seventy percent."
"Seventy percent is a failing grade."
"Seventy percent is a C-minus. Very respectable."
Rae was watching us with an expression I couldn't quite read—fond, maybe. Or sad. Something in between.
"That was a weird day," I said quietly.
The humor faded from Ash's face, replaced by something gentler. "Yeah. It was."
The day Rae met Gregor. The day she found out the man who'd raised me in the orphanage was her biological father. I remembered the tension in the air, thick enough to choke on. Remembered Ash pulling me aside, suggesting we "explore" his current experiment in the equipment storage area.
We'd blown up a locker full of training dummies. The fire suppression system had gone off. Everyone had come running.
And somehow, in the chaos, Rae and Gregor had found a moment to breathe. To look at each other without the weight of revelation crushing them.
"You did that on purpose," I said. "The explosion was a distraction."
Ash shrugged, but his eyes were serious. "Sometimes people need a crisis they can solve instead of one they can't."
Alexandra grabbed his nose. He pretended to be mortally wounded, and the moment passed.
Rae walked me to the door when I left, Ash and Alexandra's laughter still audible from the living room.
"Lumi." She caught my arm before I could step onto the porch. "One more thing."
I waited.
"You feeling pulled toward anyone?"
The question hit like a sucker punch. Casual. Light. Like she was asking about the weather.
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean." She wasn't accusing. Wasn't pushing. Just watching me with those steady eyes that had seen too much to be fooled by deflection. "Vince mentioned there's a cowboy circling your orbit."
Heat climbed up my neck. "He's not circling anything."
"Okay."
"He's just... there. In my classes. In my space. In my way."
"In your way." Rae repeated it slowly, like she was tasting the words. "That's an interesting way to describe someone."
"It's accurate."
"Is it?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't. The hum was there again, thrumming beneath my skin at the mere mention of James, and I hated how easily it surfaced.
Rae didn't push. That was the thing about her—she never pushed. She just looked at you with those knowing eyes and waited for you to catch up to what she already saw.
"He doesn't know anything," I said finally. "About... any of this. The world. What we are."
