“Slo,” he says, voice rough.
Sloane lifts her head off my chest, swiping at her cheeks like she can wipe the grief away with her hands.
Cameron steps into the kitchen, then stops, eyes cutting down the hall toward Pops’s room before snapping away again. His throat bobs.
“You drink anything?” he asks her, too briskly.
Sloane shakes her head.
Cameron’s gaze flicks to the glass on the counter—the torn electrolyte packet beside it—and something tight crosses his face. He clears his throat like that fixes it.
“Drink it,” he says.
Sloane nods and takes a small sip, shoulders trembling.
Cameron watches her for a beat too long, then his eyes swing back to me.
His jaw shifts again, harder this time, like he’s chewing through words he wants to spit.
“You,” he says.
My spine straightens automatically.
He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. There’s something in his tone that carries the weight of all the years I’ve eaten dinner at his table and slept down his hallway and called his dad Pops like I had any right to.
“I need air,” he says, clipped. “I can’t—” His mouth twists. He starts again, rougher, “I’m going out for a bit. I can't sleep here tonight. I’ll be back in the morning.”
Sloane’s eyes widen, panic flashing. “Cam?—”
He cuts his gaze to her immediately, softening just a fraction. “Slo. I’m not leaving you. I just…can’t be in this house right now.”
Her throat works. She nods, brittle.
Cameron’s eyes return to me.
The softness is gone.
His jaw works like he wants to say ten different things, and none of them are safe.
“Don’t let her be alone,” he says finally. Not a request. A command he hates having to give.
“I won’t,” I say.
Cameron holds my gaze, and I feel it—the warning under it. The calculation. The way he’s filing this away for later when grief isn’t taking up all the oxygen.
He nods once, sharp. “Good.”
Then he turns and walks out, and the front door closes behind him with a quiet, final click that makes the whole house feel emptier.
Sloane stares at the door like it betrayed her too.
“I hate this,” she whispers.
“I know,” I say softly.
Her shoulders shake once, and she presses the sweatshirt tighter to her chest like she can squeeze him back into existence.
I step closer and hold out my hand. “Come on. Let’s go lie down.”
