I watch her laugh—the real one, the one she uses when she doesn’t mean to, the one that comes out before she can decide whether to let it. And I feel it in my chest, like something landing. Like something finding its place.
Sophia’s yellow slippers are scattered on the floor by the couch, and I straighten them, placing them neatly side by side. For the third time.
“Reth, please speak to your woman.”
I look up. Ian is pointing at the muffin with the gravity of a man presenting evidence in court. “She’s trying to tell me this is dinner.”
“It. Has. Eggs,” she bites out. “And blueberries. Blueberries are a superfood.”
“A superfood?” Ian repeats.
“Antioxidants.”
“I will eat my own boot before I accept antioxidants as a food group.”
She finally looks at me, chin slightly raised, waiting for adjudication.
I glance between them. Consider. “She’s right.”
Ian stares at me. “You’re saying that because you walked out of her bedroom with your dick where your mouth should be.”
Sophia snorts, coffee spilling from the cup and spraying from her nose.
Ian blinks. “That’s so sexy.”
“Shut up,” she says, grabbing a dish towel, face blazing.
“No, really. Most women I know would have choked. You committed. That’s a skill.”
She throws the dish towel at him, but he catches it without looking.
I watch the two of them and feel something I don’t have a name for settle across my chest—warm and specific and dangerouslyclose to the thing I told her I wasn’t capable of. In all the years I’ve watched her, there wasn’t a single moment I ever could have imagined this.
Her. Here in this house. With me.
It’s surreal. It’s fucking frightening, because now I have her to lose.
Sophia sits down next to me on the couch—not really next to me, since she’s cuddled up so tightly, she might as well be on top of me.Mmm, that’s a thought.
“I don’t like your employee,” she quips, glancing at Ian, and I swear his face turns bright red.
“Partner,” he enunciates.
“Oh.” She considers this. “So, if I’m being held captive, technically I’m being held captive by a partnership. Is there a company name? Kidnapping LLC? Trauma and Associates?”
“We prefer acquisitions,” Ian says.
She points at him. “I actually like that.”
“Don’t,” I say.
“Too late. We bonded.” Ian looks at me with an expression of pure vindication. I look at the ceiling.
“For the record,” Ian says, settling into the armchair across from us with his beer, “I voted against the acquisition.”
“Did you?” Sophia asks.
“Loudly. Repeatedly. In multiple languages. And look where it got me. A fucking muffin for dinner.”
