"I have a hospital paycheck. I can buy my own chocolate."
His jaw ticks. He doesn't look at me. "Yeah, well. You're my wife. Let me buy you fucking chocolate."
Dark chocolate with sea salt. He remembered. My throat tightens, and I look at the shelf of shampoo bottles until it passes.
We're headed for the register when Knox's phone buzzes. He glances down, stops in his tracks, thumb swiping.
He straightens. I catch it a beat before he turns away; the squared shoulders, the focus sharpening behind his eyes, the faint tightness at the corners of his mouth.
"Malachi?" he says into the phone, shifting into that low, controlled register he uses when things matter.
I busy myself comparing two brands of cheap mascara at the endcap, pretending my ears aren't straining.
"Yeah," he says. "We're in town. Pharmacy. Supplies."
A beat.
"She is." He glances at me briefly and away, as though the word she weighs a little more today. "Okay," he says after a moment. "You sure about this?… Yeah. I know. I know who she is, Malachi."
Silence.
"And Chuck?… You seeing it or feeling it?… Uh-huh. Yeah, we'll be there early. Keep an eye. Text me if anything shifts."
He hangs up and stands there for a second. The fluorescent lights make everything feel too sharp.
"What's going on?" I ask.
He looks at me, gaze steady, reading me. For a second, I think he's going to say it's club business.
He doesn't.
"Candace is coming to lunch," Knox says finally.
"She's the one whose dad is…" I don't finish, because it's a line I shouldn't cross.
Knox crosses it anyway. "Chuck, yeah. He patched in before I did." His jaw flexes hard. The tendon below his ear jumps. "He used to have his shit together. But the last few years? Sliding hard. Candace stopped coming around when she was about sixteen. Pulled back from everyone."
"So she doesn't come to club things?"
"Not for a long time. Maggie and James tried to keep her close, but…" A shake of his head. "Some kids run when they get hurt. Some run when they're scared. She did both."
A beat.
"Now she's showing up today. Chuck paid off dues he shouldn't be able to afford." Knox's mouth hardens. "So now Candace is coming to a family lunch while we're trying to figure out if her old man dragged us into something we didn't consent to."
He goes still. I've seen it in the ER a hundred times, right before someone's body catches up to the news. His eyes lose focus for half a second, staring at nothing, and his breathing changes. It turns shallow, controlled, metered.
"Knox?" I say.
He blinks hard, present again. "Yeah. Just thinking." But the muscle in his jaw hasn't stopped.
"That sounds complicated," I say.
"That sounds like a clusterfuck in progress."
"Does everyone have asshole fathers?" I mutter, more acid than I mean to let slip.
His full attention lands on me. His whole expression flattens, the muscle at his temple jumping.
