My thumb lifts the lid of the box.
Inside, resting against black velvet, is the necklace I had asked him to pick up for me a few days ago. A small gold moth, delicate enough to look almost fragile at first glance, until the light catches the pink diamond set at its center, turning the whole piece into something more beautiful. The second I see it, the image of Octavia wearing it rises in my mind with enough immediacy to pull a smile out of me before I can stop it.
Not the fake one.
Not the one I use when I need something from somebody.
A real one.
Jacob notices.
Something faint changes in his face when he sees it, some quiet confirmation that whatever gamble he is making on me has not been misplaced. Still, he says nothing else. He doesn’t need to. The gesture has already said more than any speech could have.
Then the knock comes at the door.
The moment breaks.
Stephanie reappears at exactly the right time, battery triumphant in hand, all bright maternal energy again. She swings the door open with the full force of her hospitality, immediately flooding the house with warmth that feels almost absurd after the quiet thing that just passed between me and Jacob.
Cheyenne enters first, full of perfume and exactly the kind of chaos I expected. She’s wearing pink, short enough that Jacob clears his throat the second he gets a proper look at her. The sound is so painfully dad-coded that I have to look away to keep from laughing.
Maria follows behind her in a deep blue dress that should make her seem elegant, if not for the fact that she is still very obviously Maria underneath it, already scanning the room with the kind of energy that says she’s prepared to make tonight everybody else’s problem if she gets bored.
“Where is that sexy bitch at?” Cheyenne asks, grinning as she steps inside.
Then she sees me.
Maria sees me at almost the same moment.
Both of them stop.
It’s brief, but it’s there. That tiny visible reset where a person realizes the room contains something they weren’t prepared for. Cheyenne’s eyes flick down the suit, back up to my face, then down again as if she needs to verify that yes, I am actually standing in Jacob’s foyer looking like this. Maria’s reaction is quieter but somehow more satisfying, because her brows lift just enough to show she’s equally thrown.
“Damn, Silas,” Cheyenne says, staring openly now. “If I didn’t know you, I’d probably try to fuck you.”
Jacob’s eyes widen so fast that for one glorious second I think he might actually choke.
Maria, without missing a beat, lifts one hand in a half-apology to the room. “She may have pre-gamed.”
That makes Stephanie laugh. A real, helpless laugh. Jacob looks like he is reconsidering every life choice that led to this foyer containing these people. Cheyenne only grins wider, entirely unashamed.
A scoff slips out of me, head shaking.
“My mind is occupied with someone else,” I say.
The words come easy because they are true, because at this point even breathing feels secondary to the fact that Octavia is upstairs and has been upstairs too long. Every nerve in me has been fixed in that direction for the better part of ten minutes.
Then I hear it.
A creak from above.
The sound is small, but it cuts through everything.
Every part of me turns toward the staircase before thought catches up. The foyer goes softer around the edges for a second, Stephanie’s camera, Cheyenne’s grin, Maria’s commentary, Jacob’s measured silence, all of it fading behind the single sharp line of anticipation that runs straight through my chest.
Because she is finally moving.
If the moth in the little velvet box has already managed to drag a smile out of me, God knows what seeing her is about to do-
