"Shower first," I say. "I'll handle food."
She pauses, turning back. "You don't have to cook."
"I know how to put meat in a pan and turn on the stove, Sloane. Go wash the day off."
Her face does that thing. Loosens for half a second, like she forgot to guard it, before she catches herself. I've learned not to point it out.
"Okay," she says quietly. "Don't burn the house down."
"No promises," I call after her.
I move around the kitchen by habit. Pan on. Chicken, pasta, jarred sauce Maggie shoved at me last week with a "just in caseyou two forget adults need vegetables." While water boils, I lean on the counter and let my head fall back against the cabinet.
She kept it together upstairs. For Candace, she always will. But I saw the way her eyes went distant when I told her what Chuck did. The way her fingers dug into her thigh, as if she was feeling something that wasn't there.
I don't know the details, but I know enough. I know what it looks like when a girl has been treated like a thing you trade. Chuck sold his daughter. Treated her like inventory. Handed her over to men who thought they could take what they wanted.
The interpreter's family surfaces before I can stop it. Kandahar. The compound. His wife and daughter were held in a back room while command used him as leverage. I wanted to go in. Told them we could extract. Command said stand down. So I stood down. Followed orders while a man begged us to save the people he loved most, and we did nothing. His daughter was eight. Pigtails. Sitting in the dirt outside that compound after, staring at nothing, because by the time they let the family go, her father was already gone.
I blink hard, forcing my jaw to unclench. The pasta water's boiling over. I turn the heat down, shake it off. Different war. But the math is the same. Men with power deciding who's worth keeping and who gets spent. And I couldn't stop it then. But I can stop it now.
A pipe creaks. Shower cuts off. I curse under my breath and focus on not overcooking the damn pasta. Eventually she walks into the kitchen, and I forget how to breathe for a second.
She has on soft gray sleep shorts I like way too much and one of my old T-shirts, neck stretched, hem hitting high on her thighs. Bare legs, bare feet, hair in a loose braid over one shoulder. No makeup.
Just Sloane. Fucking perfect.
"Every pair of pajamas I own came out of your Amazon cart," she says, arching a brow. "You realize that, right? This is a rigged game."
I smirk, taking my time looking her over. "Yeah. I did that on purpose."
Her cheeks warm. She moves closer, drawn in as if she can't help it. I love that. I live on that.
"Smells good," she says, nodding toward the stove.
"You're going to say that about me in about an hour."
She makes a choked sound that might be a laugh. Might be a protest. Hard to tell when she's tired. We eat at the little table by the window. Red wine for her, water for me. She twirls pasta around her fork, takes a bite, closes her eyes for a second as though it's the first real thing she's tasted today.
"Good?"
"Very. Look at you. Functioning adult."
"I prefer 'domestically menacing.' But I'll take it."
We swap stories from the day for a few minutes. Maggie threatening to throw a spoon at Malachi. Ruby stealing fries off Nash's plate and not getting murdered. James sneaking extra bacon to the kids when Maggie's not looking.
The normal stuff. The stuff I brought her here for. Then, when her plate is half-empty, and the wine has put color back in her cheeks, I nudge gently.
"How are you really? After today."
Her fork pauses. "I'm fine."
"Try again," I murmur.
She stares at her plate. "She's… strong. Candace. She's angry and hurt and exhausted. Doesn't know which way is up, but she's strong."
"That's not what I asked."
