He’s not bored.
He’s furious.
When the transport team finally leaves, the house exhales in a way I can feel in my bones.
It’s just us now.
Us and the supplies. Us and the new reality.
Pops shifts slightly, trying to sit up straighter. His left shoulder doesn’t follow the way it should.
Cameron steps in immediately, adjusting pillows, tugging the blanket up like he can tuck death away if he folds the fabric tight enough.
Pops’s right hand catches Cameron’s wrist gently. “Don’t hover.”
Cameron’s laugh is sharp. “You almost died.”
“I didn’t,” Pops says. “I just…got inconvenient.”
“Inconvenient,” Cameron repeats, like he wants to throw something.
Pops’s gaze slides to me. “Sloane.”
I straighten reflexively.
“Yes?”
He studies me for a beat like he can see the frantic list running behind my eyes—shower schedule, meds, hospice visits, basketball practice, food, water, oxygen, everything.
“Breathe,” he says simply.
My chest tightens. “I am.”
He lifts a brow. “That wasn’t breathing. That was surviving.”
The word lands heavy.
Logan shifts at the doorway, quiet as a shadow, but I feel him there.
Pops continues, voice softer now, “You got practice today?”
My stomach drops. “I?—”
Cameron’s head snaps up. “Pops, she doesn’t?—”
Pops cuts him off with a look that could still stop a gym full of teenagers. “She does.”
Cameron’s mouth tightens. He looks at me like he wants to tell me to stay, like he wants to keep us all in one room where he can see us.
I want to stay.
I want to cancel practice and games and my entire life and sit at Pops’s bedside until he gets sick of my face.
But Pops is watching me with that coach stare.
The one that saysI raised you to be strong.
The one that saysdon’t let this take everything.
