Sienna blinked.
There was something on her face then I didn’t like. Not because it was ugly. Because it wasn’t. It was too open for half a second. Like Regan had just handed her proof that care didn’t have to come with force.
Then Sienna ruined it by stepping back and folding her arms harder.
“I’m not a charity case.”
There she was.
Armor back on.
I knew armor. Knew the sound of it clicking into place. Hers had sarcasm welded all over it, but it worked the same as mine.
Regan stared at her for one beat.
Then she looked down at her nails.
Casual as hell.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Regan said. “You’ll make it up to me.”
Sienna narrowed her eyes. “That sounds ominous.”
“It should.”
“What does that mean?”
Regan inspected one nail like she was bored. She wasn’t. Woman was never bored. She was plotting. “Means I own a coffee shop, I’m planning a wedding-adjacent disaster weekend, I have a garden that never stops producing zucchini, and I’m always short on smart women who know how to show up on time.”
Sienna stared. “You’re going to make me work off cat-sitting with zucchini?”
“Among other things.”
“That’s not a payment plan. That’s community service.”
Regan smiled. “Exactly.”
Amber pointed her coffee toward Sienna. “You’re better off agreeing now. She gets worse when challenged.”
“I heard that,” Regan said.
“You were meant to.”
Sienna looked at the truck again. The tarps. The rope. The dead engine. The cat glaring through the windshield. Every piece of her life sitting there in the morning heat, and no amount of stubbornness could make it move.
I saw the moment reality caught her.
She hated it.
I hated that I saw it.
Her jaw tightened, and she looked at Regan instead of me. “You’ll really tow it?”
“Yes.”
“And my stuff stays locked?”
“Yes.”
