He's looking toward the hallway where Drake disappeared. His jaw is clenched, that particular tension he gets when he's managing an impulse.
"He's not a threat right now," I say. "He's barely standing."
Rhys looks at me, then back at the hallway. Then he picks up his mug and goes back to the window.
I take that as acceptance and start pulling soup ingredients out of the fridge.
Finn comes to help. We move around the kitchen together in the early morning light, the familiar rhythm of cooking settling both of us.
He leans against the counter, eyes following my hands as I work. "What's your favorite food?"
When I answer "Italian," his lips curve into a knowing smile.
"Makes sense."
I raise an eyebrow, questioning, and his smile widens.
"I've got the perfect restaurant picked out for when I take you on our first date."
The comment catches me so off guard that I forget what I'm doing with the carrots. Heat creeps up my neck.
"That's very presumptuous of you," I manage.
"Is it?" He tilts his head, studying me with those eyes that see too much. "Tell me I'm wrong."
I can't. So I don't say anything, just focus very intently on chopping, and his quiet laugh tells me he noticed.
Our fingers brush when he hands me the cutting board and we both go still, standing too close, the board between us like a barrier that isn't really a barrier at all. Then the shower shuts off down the hall and the moment breaks, and I step back and tell him we should finish the soup.
From the window, Rhys is watching us with the expression of someone who saw all of that and filed it away without comment. When I glance at him he looks back out at the trees, but the set of his shoulders is relaxed. Easy. He's not bothered by what he just saw—if anything he looks pleased, in that quiet way he gets when things are right.
Drake makes it back from the shower eventually, cleaner but not much steadier, and collapses onto the couch with a groan. His hands shake so badly when he reaches for the soup that hecan't get the spoon to his mouth. I end up sitting beside him and feeding it to him one careful spoonful at a time while Finn holds the glass for him to drink. It's intimate in a way I didn't expect, his eyes on mine the whole time, and part of me aches for him the way you ache for someone you used to love. The other part of me is viciously glad he gets to feel this—helpless, dependent, needing someone to take care of him. The same way I felt burning up alone on that porch. I don't think the parallel is lost on him either.
Rhys watches all of this from the armchair. Not with hostility exactly, but with the particular vigilance of someone deciding, moment to moment, whether to intervene. When Drake reaches up to touch my wrist in what might be gratitude, Rhys goes very still, and I feel the shift in the room without looking at him directly.
I don't make a thing of it. I just set the empty bowl aside, tell Drake to rest, and get up. On my way back to the kitchen I pass the armchair and let my hand rest briefly on Rhys's forearm, just a touch, just a second. His breath comes out slow and he leans back in the chair and the room settles.
Finn catches this from the kitchen doorway. He doesn't say anything, just raises his eyebrows a fraction and goes back to drying dishes.
After the soup pot is clean, Drake is asleep and the morning has opened up, I lean against the counter and tell Finn I want to learn yoga.
His face lights up in a way that's completely disproportionate to the announcement. "Can I learn too?" he asks, sounding so genuinely eager that my heart does a stupid thing. He's already moving before I've finished saying yes, pulling blankets from the linen closet with the focused enthusiasm of a man who has been given a mission.
I suggest we go outside because the morning is nice. Finn stops walking mid-step and turns to look at me with an expression that suggests I've said something profoundly unreasonable.
"Outside has bugs," he says. "I don't do bugs."
"You're scared of bugs."
"I'm intelligently cautious. There's a difference." He resumes walking, arms full of blankets. "One sounds reasonable. The other makes me look afraid of butterflies."
"Areyou afraid of butterflies?"
"Only the ones that fly at your face. Indoor yoga. Final answer."
I'm laughing as we push the coffee table against the wall and drag the side chairs into the corner. We layer blankets and towels on the cleared floor and I prop my phone against a stack of books, angling the screen so we can both see the YouTube video I've found—a woman in a purple tank top standing in a beach studio with a view I'm deeply jealous of.
Drake wakes up partway through our furniture rearrangement and watches from the couch without speaking. Rhys is still in the armchair with a fresh mug of something, and he watches too, but with a different quality. There's amusement in his expression when Finn nearly drops an armful of towels trying to shake one out, warmth and dry that doesn't show anywhere except his eyes.
