Thai takeout containers line the counter because Cole ordered from the place I order from twice a week, the same pad see ew for me and the same chicken satay for Chesca. I know he knows the order because he's been watching me for seven years, and he knows I know he knows, and neither of us says a word about it.
Chesca pulls Cole into the volcano project before he's finished setting down the food, no preamble and no hesitation, with the social fearlessness of an eight-year-old who has decided this person belongs in her kitchen.
"You have to help. It keeps falling over."
Cole studies the leaning cone for three full seconds, then he pulls out a chair and sits down. "The structural problem is your base. You need to redistribute the weight."
"It's avolcano."
"Volcanoes have structural integrity. This doesn't." He picks up the wadded newspaper Xander abandoned and starts packing it around the base, his hands moving with the same precision he brings to everything else, as though margins of error matter even for third-grade science projects. "You need more support here before you add another layer of paste. Otherwise, it'll keep leaning."
Chesca watches him work, her skepticism shifting to interest. "Xander said we should just tape it."
"Tape is a temporary fix. This is engineering."
"Oh,nowit's engineering," Xander mutters from across the table. "Four hours of my life, and I get 'Xander said we should just tape it.'"
Chesca ignores him, leaning closer to Cole. "What about the lava? His lava wasn't red enough."
"It was magenta. Magenta is close," Xander protests.
"Magenta ispink."
"It's between red and purple, technically," Cole says, not looking up from the base he's reinforcing with wadded newspaper.
He glances at the small bowl of red-pink liquid sitting on a paper towel away from the volcano, the baking soda and vinegar test batch. "She's right. You need more red food coloring. And less vinegar, or the reaction will overflow before it looks impressive."
"See?" Chesca points at Cole like he's a star witness. "He knows things."
"We're not testing the lava until the structure dries," Cole adds, and Chesca's face falls for exactly two seconds before she rallies.
"Tomorrow?"
"If the base is solid."
Xander catches my eye across the kitchen, his eyebrows raised and hands still up, the look of a man who has been outranked by an eight-year-old and a newcomer in the span of thirty seconds. I press my lips together to keep from laughing, which Chesca catches and giggles at, which makes it worse.
I unpack the takeout and watch from the counter.
Cole measuring baking soda with a plastic spoon, his sleeves pushed to his elbows. Chesca leaning into his space the way she leans into mine — without caution, without the careful assessment of distance that I perform with every adult male whoisn't family. The overhead light making the kitchen look warmer than it is.
He glances at me once, mid-volcano. Brief, as checking onme, not Chesca. His eyes hold for half a second longer than necessary.
I look away first.
Xander leaves after dinner with a fist-bump for Chesca and a nod at Cole. A look passes between them that I don't catch, some shorthand I'm not part of. Then he's out the door and it's three people in a kitchen, and then two, because Chesca runs upstairs to brush her teeth without being asked.
She never does that. She's showing off for Cole.
The kitchen is quieter with Xander gone. Cole washes the takeout containers. Rinsed, sorted, placed in the recycling bin under the sink that he should not know the location of.
I dry a plate and set it in the cabinet. The silence between us isn't comfortable but it's not hostile either, just full of every observation I've filed away today and refused to process. His hand in the stairwell. The jacket. The level scoop of baking soda.
"She doesn't warm up to people like that," I say, and don't know why I'm saying it.
Cole rinses the last container. "She's eight. She warms up to everyone."
"No. She doesn't." I put the plate away and don't look at him. "She's polite and she's friendly, but she doesn'tlean. She leaned into you."