Roxy looks up, eyes wide and innocent. “Outside boom?”
“No boom,” Sable says firmly.
I clear my throat. “Define boom.”
Both of them glare at me.
Breakfast is chaos.
Roxy insists on helping. Helping means cracking eggs with her claws and then eating the shells because “crunch.” Sable negotiates like a diplomat trying to prevent an interstellar incident. I flip protein slabs and keep one eye on the minigun readout just in case my daughter decides today is the day she discovers advanced weaponry.
She doesn’t.
Small miracles.
Later, Sable leaves for the salon.
Salons,technically.
Plural.
She owns three now. Same name, same aesthetic—clean lines, bold colors, unapologetic glamour. Franchise agreements. Training programs. She runs them like a general runs a campaign, minus the screaming and with significantly better hair.
Before she goes, she kisses my cheek, then Roxy’s forehead, then pauses.
“You good today?” she asks me quietly.
I nod. “Yeah. I’ve got the menace.”
Roxy flexes. “MENACE.”
Sable smiles, soft and proud. “I’ll be late. Tugun’s stopping by.”
I groan. “Again?”
“He’s bringing fabric samples,” she says.
“Of course he is.”
She squeezes my shoulder and leaves, heels clicking down the hall like punctuation.
Tugun arrives exactly on time.
He always does now. It’s unsettling.
He looks… spectacular.
Tailored coat in soft obsidian, asymmetrical cut, subtle shimmer woven through the lining. Hair pulled back, expression serene. NovaVogue followed him for six months after the feature ran.From Blood to Runway, they called it.
Roxy adores him.
“UNCLE TUGUN!” she bellows, barreling into him at full speed.
He braces, catches her mid-charge with effortless grace, and spins her once, laughing. “Hello, little star.”
She grabs his lapels. “You shiny.”
“Always,” he agrees.
