Page 108

The girls have already claimed the couch by the time we walk in. Blankets cover nearly every cushion, and Sprout has stretched across the middle with enough confidence to suggest he expects everyone else to work around him.

Bane nudges the dog with his knee. “You’re in my spot.”

Sprout cracks one eye open, sighs, and shifts just enough to make room.

“Very generous,” Bane mutters as he sits beside me.

Babs immediately pulls the blanket across all three of us and Biddy curls against my side. “It’s warmer this way.”

The movie starts, although the twins spend the opening scenes whispering predictions that grow less convincing with every passing minute. Bane apologizes when Sprout’s paw bumps my ankle in his sleep.

“Dreaming?” I ask.

“Probably about grilled cheese.”

I laugh. “Or stealing bread.”

The girls don’t make it halfway through the movie. Babs slowly tips against Bane and Biddy curls closer to me until her breathing evens out.

“I’ll get Babs,” Bane says, easing her into his arms.

Mara lifts Biddy just as carefully and smiles at me. “Don’t disappear.”

“I’ll still be here.”

“I hoped you’d say that.”

They head upstairs together, leaving the movie playing softly in the background with Sprout stretched across the cushions with a satisfied sigh.

A few minutes later Bane comes back carrying a blanket. “You looked cold.”

Before I can argue, he drapes it over my legs, settles beside me again, and opens his book beneath the low murmur of the television.

My eyes drift around the room instead, lingering on photographs spread across the shelves: the twins covered in finger paint, Mara laughing with them in the backyard, Sprout as an oversized puppy, and pictures of Bane and Celeste that belong to another chapter of his life without feeling hidden away.

Nothing has been packed into boxes or erased.

This family has simply kept living.

Kira’s words drift back through my thoughts. If this ever stops feeling safe, you walk away.

I look at the blanket covering my legs, Sprout asleep at our feet, and Bane reading beside me without expecting conversation simply because we’re sharing the same room.

The movie continues quietly in the background as my eyes drift shut, only opening again when the blanket shifts across my shoulder.

Bane.

I don’t move or let him know I’m awake. His footsteps fade toward the other end of the couch before another page turns in the book, and I smile to myself because taking care of people comes as naturally to him as breathing.

I think about dinner, Babs insisting Spider-Man would make the perfect babysitter, Biddy defending Wonder Woman with complete certainty, Sprout proudly making off with my dinner roll, and Mara asking questions that never felt intrusive because she genuinely wanted to know me.

Somewhere between all of that, this apartment stopped feeling like a place I visit. It feels like home.

Four years with Spencer taught me how easily love can ask you to become a different version of yourself until you wake up wondering where the rest of you disappeared.

Bane has never asked that of me. He simply opens the door, pulls out a chair, tucks a blanket around my shoulders, and makes room for me beside the people he loves.

The truth settles over me before I can argue with it.