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“Did you know his teacher was Pastor Stoker’s daughter?”

He doesn’t meet my eye as he palms his nape. “Uh, yeah.”

Listen it’s not a well kept secret Henry had a very long fling with ‘Dick ‘em down Deborah’ as we affectionately referred to her. I’m not going to pretend we haven’t been with other people during all these years we were…estranged, but damn if it doesn’t irritate me.

Irritates me for the simple fact I am jealous. Jealous someone else has gotten free mustache rides and got to trace the ink of his body with their tongue, but it’s my own fucking fault. I have no one to blame but myself. So, I really don’t have room to be jealous.

I suck my teeth. “Alrighty.”

Henry cuts me a look. “That’s it?”

“Yeah. That’s pretty much it.”

If he was expecting fireworks, he’ll be sorely disappointed. I’m not about to give him the satisfaction today. I turn back toward Dallas and see him clutching the sketch I’d made earlier—holding it like it is something fragile, something worth keeping.

“Who drew this?” he asks, voice quiet like he’s afraid to break it.

“I did,” I say, hesitant, unsure what he’ll think.

His eyes widen as he looks back down at the page, like he’s trying to match what he’s holding to the version of me he’s still figuring out. “You can draw?” The disbelief in his tone makes something twist low in my chest.

“Well, more like scribble now,” I say with a shrug, trying to play it off. “But yeah…I once did.”

“Once?” he asks, blinking slowly, eyes fixed on the sketch like it doesn’t quite line up with who he thought I was.

I nod, gaze dropping to the page. “Yeah. It was…me and my dad’s thing. Drawing. Ever since I was little. We’d sit at the kitchen table with scrap paper and dull pencils, just…sketching for hours. It was ours. Nothing fancy, just us, making something out of nothing.”

I pause, the memory catching in my throat. “When he died, I boxed it all up. Sketchbooks, pencils, even the good eraser he used to steal off my desk. Couldn’t bring myself to touch any of it. It felt like picking up a part of him I wasn’t ready to let go of or mess up.”

I glance at Dallas, then back to the drawing in his hands. “Sometimes when you lose too much, it’s easier to stop reaching for the things that made you feel anything at all.”

Dallas doesn’t say anything at first. Just sits there, staring at the sketch like it’s speaking some language only he understands. His fingers hover near the edge of the paper, not quite touching it—like he’s afraid it might disappear.

Then, finally, he speaks—soft and unsure. “Can you teach me?”

I freeze. The question hits harder than I’m ready for—lodges somewhere deep in my chest and just sits there, heavy and aching.

He has no idea what he’s really asking. No idea that drawing was the only language my daddy and I ever spoke fluently. That after he died, I packed it all away because it hurt too much to touch.

Now this kid—this boy who’s clawing his way through life one quiet heartbreak at a time—is asking for the one thing I swore I couldn’t give anyone again.

I stare at him for a long second. He still won’t meet my eyes. Still clutching the paper like it’s something precious.

I blink fast, grounding myself. “Yeah,” I manage, voice low and rough. “I can teach you.”

Maybe, just maybe…that’s how something soft starts to grow back.

“But only after you tackle this math homework—because it looks brutal,” Henry says as he reaches over and plucks a crumpled worksheet from the pile. He barely glances at it before giving me a wink.

I shoot him a grateful look. That man always knows the exact second I need saving—from myself, from the weight of things, from the silence. He always did.

Dallas gives me a wide-eyed look like I just betrayed him. Those big blue eyes plead Get me out of this.

Henry grins and claps a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, D, there are only two things Louisiana Wright is banned from doing in this house.”

He holds up two tattooed fingers. “Cooking…and math.”

Dallas huffs a laugh, sinking back into his chair like that is the most unfair thing he’s heard all day. But the tension slips from his face, and for just a second, he looks like a kid. Just a kid. Not a survivor. Not a problem to be fixed. Just a boy laughing at something dumb and harmless.