Briggs pointed at him with one gloved finger. “You don’t even live here anymore, Decker. Your judgment is nonresident.”
Ryan took a sip. “Still smells like you’re trying to kill mold and freshmen.”
Rider walked in from the living room with an armful of empty cans, his long blond hair tied back and his face too calm for someone who had just pulled three pizza boxes out from behind the couch. “Found a sock in the fireplace.”
Briggs brightened. “See? The house has lore.”
“The house has disease,” Cade said from the entryway, where he was wiping down the banister with the flat, irritated focus of a man who had almost died and still considered college-guy grime the bigger insult.
I tied off the trash bag too hard, the plastic biting into my palm. “Look, I appreciate the help. I trust your cleaning methods more than I trust terrified freshmen with a Swiffer and no survival instincts.”
My gaze moved to Cade, then Ryan, because neither of them lived here anymore and both had shown up before I had to ask. “Seriously. You didn’t have to be here.”
Ryan lifted his coffee. “I understand the commitment to keeping your mom and sisters from finding out you moved out under emotional distress.”
Cade wiped one more spot on the banister, his expression flat. “And if we’re honest, none of us trust Briggs near bleach.”
From the hallway, Briggs yelled, “I am thriving under supervision.”
“You’re the reason supervision has a legal department,” Ryan called back.
I huffed despite myself, and some of the pressure in my chest shifted an inch instead of crushing straight down. “Still. It matters.”
Cade looked over, and whatever joke had almost touched his mouth disappeared into something quieter. “We know.”
Ryan’s voice was drier but no less real. “That’s why we’re here.”
“This place needs to be normal for one afternoon.”
Briggs’s brows went up. “Define normal, because we have historically struggled with the concept.”
“No shouting in anyone’s face, touching anyone’s stuff, or throwing things. Nobody comments on Vivi’s headphones, her routine, what she eats, how she communicates, or whether she looks at you while you’re talking.”
Briggs opened his mouth, but I kept going.
“If she needs space, give her space. If Skylar acts like she hates all of you, assume that means she’s having a great time. If my mom says something terrifying with a smile, she means it, and you should take the warning as a gift.”
The kitchen went still in a way this house almost never did, but these were my guys. My best friends. They knew why I was wound so tight about today.
My mom was living on hospital doubles and stubbornness. Skylar was fourteen-going-on-twenty, with an attitude big enough to get her grounded in three seconds with one look. Vivi was twelve, autistic, brilliant in ways most people never took the time to understand, and my best friend in a way that made my chest ache if I thought about it too long.
The guys knew every dollar I could spare went home, every extra shift at North Cut mattered, and every game this season had scouts looking at me like my future was a question I needed to answer cleanly.
Today was supposed to be fun for them. Easy. One afternoon where my mom didn’t have to scan the room for problems and my sisters could be part of my world withoutfeeling like they had walked into another thing I needed to manage.
Briggs pulled off one glove slowly. “So, best behavior.”
“Your version of best behavior or human best behavior?”
He thought about that. “Human adjacent.”
“Try harder,” I said. “If any of you embarrass me today, we’ll be running drills after the game until this time tomorrow. I don’t care if Coach Little is there. I’ll steal the whistle and become a problem.”
Cade’s mouth tilted. “You already are one.”
“Then I’ll become a structured problem.”
Ryan set down his coffee. “He’s serious, which is deeply annoying since I drove in from Flint to watch three women wreak havoc on him.”
