Jackson straightened like someone had yanked an invisible string up his spine. “Yes, sir.”
Dad’s gaze did what it always did. Catalogued. Assessed. Measured. The way Jackson stood slightly in front of me but not possessively. The way he wasn’t fidgeting.
“How long are you home?”
“A few weeks, sir.”
“Mm.”
Silence stretched. The kind that made most men squirm. Jackson didn’t.
“My daughter,” Dad said evenly, “has worked very hard to build something for herself.”
“So have I, sir.”
That made Dad’s eyes lift properly. And I saw it. The smallest shift. Not approval. Recognition. A beat passed. Then another. Finally, Dad nodded once. “Good.”
Behind us, Mom’s voice floated out of the kitchen—tight and controlled. Hannah’s answered, lower and sharper. Dad glancedtoward the noise like a man spotting an incoming storm and deciding he did not, in fact, need to be outside for it.
“I’m going to…look around,” he said mildly.
Translation: I refuse to be Switzerland in that kitchen.
He stepped past Jackson, paused just long enough to clap Mac lightly on the shoulder. And just like that, my father disappeared into the garage like he hadn’t just silently evaluated the boy I’d nearly strangled five minutes ago. I watched him go.
“Coward,” I muttered affectionately.
For a minute I just stood there. Unsure where to go. Eventually, I sighed, and, resigned to my fate, I turned and followed Denim and Dior towards the smell of food and burnt cake. I claimed a seat at the now-empty table. Jackson stood in the doorway, looking like he was already halfway gone. I caught him with a glare sharp enough to pin him in place.Don’t you dare,my eyes said. He stayed, taking a seat next to me.
Mom’s eyes snapped to me. “Holly, we need to talk. Privately.”
“Actually,” Hannah said, crossing her arms, “I think it’s time we all talk. Together.”
Mom turned her head, slow and deliberate. “Together?”
Hannah’s smile sharpened. “You love your daughter, but I do too. This girl’s got fire. Wants to build something that matters. I told her I’d help keep her pointed straight.”
My mother blinked, surprise breaking through the disapproval for half a heartbeat. “She…told you about that? About her shelter?”
“Damn right she did,” Hannah said. “She’s not just daydreaming. She’s putting in the work.”
Mom studied her, pearls glinting, suspicion warring with something softer. “And you think you’re the right person to guide her?”
Hannah leaned in, not an inch of ground ceded. “I think I’m someone who won’t pat her on the head and tell her it’s sweet but unrealistic. She doesn’t need coddling. She needs pushing. And I can do that.”
The air crackled between them. It was pearls against apron. Two women from different worlds circling, testing, daring the other to blink first. I glanced over at Jackson.
His jaw was clenched tight, the storm still written across his face, but when his gaze dropped to me, something shifted. The anger bled out of him, replaced by a flicker of something else, realization.
My hands were trembling. I hadn’t even noticed until he did something about it.
Beneath the table, out of sight of the two women still sparring, Jackson reached for me. Big, rough palm closing around both my hands at once, steadying them. Steadying me.
I froze. But then the tightness in my shoulders gave way, the air rushing out of me in a shaky breath. Slowly, I let him wrap his hand around mine, grounding me the way no words could.
Hannah kept talking, Ruth kept bristling, but the tension in the room softened at the edges. Two women who had nothing in common except me found themselves circling toward some uneasy truce, while Jackson and I sat silent, tethered under the table like a secret.
Eventually, I couldn’t take the air anymore. I slipped my hands from his, pushing up and heading for the porch. The screen door creaked behind me as the heavy summer dusk swallowed me up. I sucked in a lungful of air that didn’t taste like motor oil and pride.
