Supervision.
Structure.
Someone noticing if I ate, if I slept, if I ran myself into a wall and called it fine because stopping felt harder than crashing.
Declan saw it land. He didn’t pounce on it.
“Come eat,” he said.
That was worse.
Kinder, which was worse.
We ate at the island again, because apparently I was slowly becoming a person with a preferred seat in Declan Reid’skitchen. Tiny lay under my stool with his head on one of my feet. Declan put food in front of me and didn’t comment when I inhaled the first five bites too fast, then slowed when my body remembered nobody was stealing it.
For a while, we didn’t talk about lawyers.
We talked about his brother Owen instead, because Owen had sent a video of himself trying to install a shelf and ending up with drywall dust in his hair and what looked like a mild spiritual crisis. Declan played it for me twice, deadpan, while Tiny perked up at Owen’s voice and knocked his tail against the cabinet.
“He’s a firefighter,” I said, watching Owen swear at a bracket. “He runs into burning buildings.”
“He cannot use a level.”
“People contain multitudes.”
“He once changed my contact photo to a close-up of Tiny’s gums.”
“That’s art.”
Declan took a drink of water. “He wants to visit.”
My fork paused halfway to my mouth. “Here?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“He mentioned next month. I haven’t answered.”
That landed in the pile with everything else. Not bad. Not even scary in the same way. Just another piece of real life pressing against us.
“Does he know about Olivia?” I asked.
“He knows we’re separating. He doesn’t know about you.”
“Right.”
“He will, eventually.”
I nodded and forced myself to take the bite.
Declan watched me for a second. “Your sister?”
“Harper’s going to know before the public does, if I have any control over it. She hates surprises unless they’re food related.”
“And your dad?”
My fork tapped the plate once.
