Alycia
The Hendrix family home looks like every storybook version of belonging I’ve spent my whole life pretending I didn’t want. A turn-of-the-century craftsman tucked at the end of a long gravel drive, wrapped in porch light and shadows cast by old trees. The kind of house people grow up in, fall apart in, and find their way back to. A house that remembers.
There are too many cars in the driveway when Kyle pulls in, gravel crunching beneath the tires like this place has been holding families long before either of us existed. Warm light spills in golden rectangles from the windows, and even from the car, I can hear the hum of voices and laughter loud enough to shake something loose inside someone’s ribs.
I want to throw up.
No. This is fine. Everything is fine. It’s just dinner with Kyle’s entire family—the same family who also happens to be the backbone of the entire franchise. I am professionally obligated to keep this crisis-free.
Totally, completely fine.
Kyle shifts the car into park and glances over at me. The dashboard glow cuts across his cheekbone, catching the faint scar at his eyebrow. He looks relaxed. Not careless, but steady in a way that almost makes me steady, too.
“You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?” I ask, even though the answer is obvious.
“The one where you rehearse every potential outcome and forget to breathe.”
“I’m breathing.”
“Barely.”
I inhale slowly, trying to make it look intentional instead of panicked. “I just want this to go smoothly.”
“It’s just dinner.” He shrugs lightly. “My family’s chaotic, not dangerous.”
“Kyle, the last time all of you were in the same room, reporters showed up because someone leaked that Beau and Cole were having a ‘culinary showdown.’ Three journalists live-tweeted the stuffing-recipe argument.”
He grins, completely unfazed. “Yeah, but nobody cried.”
“That is not the bar I’m aiming for.”
“You’ll be fine.” His fingers brush the back of my hand, light and casual on the surface but anything but casual under my skin. “They already like you.”
“Theythinkthey like me,” I correct. “They like theversion of me they see at the rink. Clipboard, calm, unshakeable.”
“Newsflash.” His voice dips. “That’s not the version Momma invited.”
I look at the house again, watching all the silhouettes passing behind the curtains. Someone crosses the living room with a dish while someone else gestures with both hands like their life depends on the story they’re telling.
“What version did she invite, then?”
His gaze lingers on me long enough to pull heat through my stomach. “Mine.”
Something warm and dangerous flickers under my skin, threading through my sternum. It feels like a shift rather than a spark, like something inching toward a boundary I’m not ready to admit exists.
“We should go in,” I say quickly, before my chest forgets how to do its job.
“Come on, Torres. Survive this, and I’ll run interference at the gala.”
“You’re already on the schedule for that.”
“Yeah,” he says, opening his door. “But tonight, I’m off the clock.”
The words hang between us for a second, more intimate than he probably means them to be, or maybe he means it exactly how I think. It rattles me more than anything else tonight because I don’t know who I am off the clock anymore. Off the clock means softness and vulnerability. Feeling things before analyzing them, and I’m out of practice.
The night air hits when I step out, cool against skin still buzzing from whatever passed between us. Gravel shifts beneath my boots as Kyle rounds the car to meet me. He stands close, not touching, but close enough that I feel the nearness like a hand pressed against my spine.
