She eased into the second seat beside him without asking, the familiar creak of her joints more from years of crouching to tie shoes than from age itself. Her presence was like the low hum of a lullaby.
“Kevin’s making progress,” she observed. “That’s the first time he’s let his bunny out of his arms since he arrived.”
Easton followed the boy’s hesitant movements with his gaze. The man was absolutely huge and yet so heartbreakingly small inside. Six feet of anxiety crammed into cute clothes and emotional fragility.
“It’s easier when someone sees you,” Easton murmured, not looking at Jayne.
His hand drifted over the plush fur of the bunny in his lap, thumb stroking the worn seam of one floppy ear. The words weren’t meant to land hard, but they landed like a knife in his chest with a dull thud, like the truth often did.
Jayne hummed in agreement. She didn’t rush to fill the silence. She never had. In all the years he’d known her, she’d remained fluent in the kind of stillness that offered presence instead of pressure.
But Easton’s mind was already drifting. Of course his thoughts weren’t on Kevin, who was now crawling around the mats trying to make another friend but on the one Little who hadn’t come in with the rest of the Butterflies.
WherewasDanny?
He’d seen him briefly yesterday, brushing Starling at the stables with more tenderness than he’d shown anyone else. But not today. Not at breakfast, not outside. Not even a shadow in the hallway.
Easton’s fingers stilled on the bunny’s back.
It shouldn’t matter.
But it did.
There was a weight behind that absence, a quiet gap he couldn’t stop noticing. Danny was trying to blend into the background, to disappear behind a smile and a shrug. But Easton had seen enough grief in his line of work to recognize its shape in someone else’s spine. The way it curled them in. The way it hollowed out their light.
He shifted slightly in the chair and glanced toward the door. HeknewDanny wouldn’t be there, but he looked anyway.
Kevin had been open and vulnerable, even if scared. When he’d talked with Danny yesterday, the boy had been shuttered like a storm was coming. Looking down or at the horse, one foot trying to find a hole in the ground. He didn’t hide his pain as well as he thought, though. Easton had seen it, as had Derek. It was a kind of pain that didn’t scream. It whispered. And Easton had always been a man who listened for whispers.
“Thinking about someone?” Jayne’s words nudged the thought aloud.
He glanced sideways at her, lips twitching faintly. “Am I that obvious?”
Her smile was all warmth and just a hint of mischief. “Only to those of us who care.”
It was an answer that brooked no reply. It was the blessing and the burden to be amongst friends who knew him well.
“I keep wondering.” Easton let go of Sir Hopsalot and placed his hands on the armrests. “How long someone can hold themselves together before the cracks start to show.”
Jayne didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached over and took the stuffy from Easton’s lap. She smoothed the floppy ears and retied the askew ribbon around its neck.
“Depends.” She studied her handiwork and adjusted the bow a bit. “Some of us crack early and get help. Some of us patch and glue and soldier on until one day… we shatter.” She handed the bunny back to him. “But even then, it’s not too late to put the pieces somewhere safe.”
Easton stared down at the plush toy. Hopsalot’s button eyes stared back, oddly solemn.
A beat passed.
“Wilbert would’ve been proud of you,” she added.
That ache bloomed again, warm and sharp. “I hope so.”
“You’re not just watching, Easton. You’re showing up.”
He turned to her at last, eyes tired but steady. “And if Danny never comes in?”
She smiled. “Then we wait. And we keep showing up. Every day. Until he does.”
Easton nodded
