“I thought someone was hurting you,” I remind her quietly.
Her teasing fades, and her expression softens. “I know,” she says. “I remember waking up and seeing you there. It was confusing, but… I know why you did it.”
Riot comes up the steps with the toolbox and sets it down with a heavy clunk. “We’ll have it fixed in a couple hours,” he says. “Stronger than before.”
“You said that last night,” she points out, but gratitude threads through the words. “Thank you. Seriously.”
I meet her eyes. “I’m not leaving it like this.”
For a second the air feels thick with everything we’re not saying. Then I shake it off and crouch by the frame.
“Alright,” I say, flexing my hands. “Let’s undo my bad decisions.”
We fall into a rhythm once we start. Riot braces what’s left of the busted frame while I work the pry bar under the splintered wood, and the crack of it ripping free echoes off the porch. The door’s propped wide open beside us, hanging useless while we tear the frame apart. Sawdust sticks to my hands and the air smells like fresh cut lumber and old paint baking in the sun.
A few minutes in, her voice drifts out from inside the house.
“You guys need anything?”
I glance up. She’s standing a few feet back in the entryway, careful to stay clear of the mess, one hand resting on the wall as she looks past the open door at us.
“We’re good,” I tell her. “Got everything we need.”
Riot nods without looking up. “All set.”
She lingers a second like she’s debating stepping closer, and then she gives a small nod and disappears back into the house. We go right back to it. Hammer. Measure. Adjust. The steady rhythm fills the porch.
A little while later she reappears, weaving carefully around the tools with three cold bottles of water tucked in her arms. Condensation beads on the plastic.
“It’s hot out here,” she says, holding them out.
“You’re a lifesaver,” I mutter, taking one and twisting the cap. Riot gives her a quiet thanks and grabs another.
Instead of going back inside, she settles just past the doorway, leaning her shoulder against the wall where she’s out of our way. She doesn’t talk. She just watches. Her eyes track every movement, from Riot holding the new frame steady to my hands lining it up and driving the screws in. It’s quiet but not awkward. It feels calm. Grounded.
Every time I glance up, she’s still there, sipping her water and studying the work like she’s making sure it’s real and solid and actually getting fixed. Sunlight spills in across the floor and catches in her hair, and when our eyes meet her mouth curves a little.
The new frame slides into place clean and tight. Riot gives it a hard shove to test it, and it doesn’t budge.
“That’s not going anywhere,” he says.
I look at her. She’s still leaning in the doorway, water bottle dangling from her fingers, watching like she’s been there the whole time. And maybe she has.
“I’m making dinner,” she says from the doorway, like she just decided it and that’s the end of it. Her gaze shifts to Riot. “And you’re staying too.”
Riot doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes ma’am,” he says, and there’s a hint of a grin in it.
I glance at him. “You get invited to one meal and you’re already settling in.”
He shrugs. “I go where the food is.”
She shakes her head, smiling, and disappears back into the house while we finish the job. We square the new frame and anchor it deep, sinking the bolts until the steel sits flush and solid. Then we haul the new door into place. It’s heavy, reinforced steel with a clean matte finish and a fingerprint lock already mounted.
Riot holds it steady while I set the hinges and drive the pins. The door swings smooth on the first test, solid and quiet. I step back and admire it for a second.
“Alright,” I call into the house. “Firecracker, I need you out here.”
Her footsteps pad across the floor and she appears in the doorway, wiping her hands on a towel. “That was fast.”
