The table stretched across the patio beneath strings of warm lights. We passed plates down the table while glasses sweated onto linen napkins and the fans pushed the heavy air around without cooling it. The smell of charred citrus, grilled fish, buttered corn, and basil drifted through the dusk.
Sofia sat between Daisy and Nick, directly across from me.
That had not been my decision. I'd deliberately left the seating unassigned, an act of personal bravery that would go unrecognized by history. Sofia had chosen the chair herself after Daisy informed her that sitting between Rayann and Brynn without a signed waiver was “bold but not recommended.”
Nick noticed. Of course he had. Nothing involving Sofia escaped him: the level of water in her glass, the food left on her plate, the moment the noise began pressing too close, and the delicate difference between offering rescue and making her feel handled.
But he didn't hover.
That was the part that undid me.
There was a tactical discipline to the way he gave her space, the same way he might once have held a perimeter. He paid attention without crowding her, stepping back to let her answer questions or pull faces at Daisy. When she told Brynn that no, she hadn’t yet been taught how to put someone in a chokehold, he didn't intervene—he simply watched as Brynn immediately offered up Jerrick’s services.
“No,” Nick said.
Brynn turned to him. “I didn’t ask you.”
“You were about to.”
“I was about to ask Sofia.”
“No.”
Sofia looked down at her plate, but not before I saw her smile.
Jerrick leaned back in his chair, one arm behind Brynn’s seat. “For the record, I teach fundamentals before submissions.”
Nick’s brows lifted by a lethal millimeter.
Jerrick looked back and smirked.
Two controlled men, two different kinds of dangerous, and one table full of women who would absolutely make this worse if given the chance.
Brynn sighed. “Fine. We’ll start with stance.”
Wyatt made a tiny sleeping grunt against her chest, as if registering a formal objection.
“Sofia is here for summer,” Nick said. “Not combat readiness.”
Daisy lifted one finger. “In this family, those overlap.”
“She’s not wrong,” Max said.
Rayann pointed at him with her fork. “Traitor.”
“I married into this with my eyes open.”
“You married into this because I wore the red dress.”
Max’s expression changed by a fraction.
Rayann grinned. “There it is.”
Sofia leaned slightly toward me. “Is everyone here married?”
“No.”
Her eyes moved to Summer’s facedown phone.
