She looks at me.
“So,” she says.
“So,” I say.
“You took six flights of stairs in your socks.”
“Yeah.”
“To say four words.”
“Five.”
She counts on her fingers. Looks up. “You’re right. Five. Was that — are you always like this or is this a you thing specifically.”
“Which part.”
“The stairs. The one sentence. The — “ she gestures vaguely at me — “the whole thing.”
“The whole thing,” I say.
“Yeah.”
I look at her. “Is it working.”
She tries not to smile. Doesn’t entirely succeed. “Don’t push it.”
I don’t push it.
She drops her bag on the couch.
Looks around the house the way she always does — reading every room like she’s building a map she might need later. Her eyes go to Aurora’s old room. To the kitchen counter. To the drying rack.
She doesn’t say anything.
“You knew I was coming back,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“That’s annoying.”
“Probably.”
She looks at me. “You’re not going to apologize for it.”
“No.”
“Of course not.” She sits on the couch. Brick immediately relocates to her lap like he’d planned it. “Did you at least make coffee while you were waiting.”
“No.”
“Jax.”
“I was taping my blocker.”
“You finished taping your blocker twenty minutes ago.”
“I re-taped it.”
