She looks… okay. And the thought of being the one who disrupts that makes my stomach twist.
I hover in the doorway longer than I mean to.
She notices anyway.
“Hey,” she says, smiling when she sees me. “You need something?”
The question is simple. And suddenly I don’t know what to do with it.
I think about Silas, afraid that asking will make her shut down.
I think about Boone, burying everything under responsibility and calling it control.
I think about myself, standing here with my hands shoved in my pockets. Proximity alone might be pressure.
“I…” I start, then stop.
Sadie looks between us, curious but content, and I swallow.
“Just checking in,” I say instead.
Delaney studies me. She knows there’s more and is choosing not to reach for it.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
Sadie frowns at her drawing.
“I forgot the sparkles,” she announces suddenly, scandalized. “They’re in my room.”
Delaney laughs. “That sounds like a serious design flaw.”
“It is,” Sadie says solemnly. Then she hops off the stool, crayons clutched to her chest. “Don’t move! I’ll be super-fast.”
She takes off down the hallway at a run, socked feet thudding against the wood, her voice trailing back. “No peeking!”
The house shifts with her absence.
Delaney turns back to the counter, picks up the knife again, but she doesn’t start cutting. Her shoulders stay relaxed, but there’s awareness there now. The kind that says she knows we’re alone in a way we weren’t a second ago.
“Delaney…”
She looks up immediately.
“Yeah?”
My heart kicks hard once, then settles. I keep my hands where they are, palms open on the edge of the counter.
“I’m not trying to push,” I say carefully. “And I don’t need answers you don’t have.”
Her brow furrows slightly. “Okay…”
“I just need you to know something,” I continue. “Because not saying it feels worse than the risk of saying it.”
She waits. Lets me take the time I need.
“I like you,” I say. Simple. Unembellished. “I care about you. And I don’t know where we’re headed, or what shape this is supposed to take, but I don’t want to keep pretending I don’t feel it.”
Her breath catches. Just a little.
