I keep my attention on the braid. Cross over center. Add hair. Cross over center.
"Almost done."
"Can you do two? Like, one on each side?"
Angelina checks the time on her phone. "You have thirty minutes before Xander gets here and you haven't eaten breakfast."
"That's not a no," Chesca says.
"That is not a no," I confirm.
Angelina sets her mug down with a deliberate click. "I'm going to need both of you to stop ganging up on me before seven AM."
"We're not ganging up," Chesca says, at the exact moment I say, "We are not ganging up."
Angelina's lips press together. Her eyes cut to the window. Chesca twists around to grin at me. I tie off the braid with the elastic from her wrist.
"One braid, for today."
She runs her hand down the back of her head, feeling the pattern. "It's bumpy. Like ridges."
"That is the French part."
"Cool." She hops off the chair, grabs her juice glass, and drinks half of it standing up. "Can I have toast?"
"Please."
"Can I have toast, please."
I make toast. Angelina watches me locate the bread, the toaster, the butter dish. Seven days, and I move through her space like I built it.
She knows, has known since the first morning.
A knock at the side door. Three short, pause, two long. Xander's pattern. Chesca shoves the juice glass onto the counter, grabs her backpack straps, remembers the backpack is already on, and barrels toward me instead. Her arms wrap around my waist with the casual force of a child who hasn't yet learned to guard her heart.
"Bye, Mr. Cole! Don't let anyone mess up my braid!"
"I will defend it with my life."
She grins and runs for the door.
"What do you say?" Angelina calls.
"THANK YOU BYE."
The door closes and the kitchen goes quiet.
Mine.The thought surfaces before I can stop it, Chesca's strawberry shampoo still on my fingers, her arms still warm around my waist.Both of them. Mine.
Angelina rinses Chesca's juice glass. Her hands move through the water, long fingers, nails trimmed short, the thin scar across her right palm. The silence isn't hostile. That's new.
She dries her hands on the kitchen towel and turns to face me, arms crossed, chin level.
"We should talk about last night."
"We need to leave in twenty minutes."
"That's not an answer, Cole."