My hand clenches around my fork. Every instinct I have is telling me to lunge across the table and shut him up. I force myself to loosen my grip.
One finger at a time. Pinky. Ring. Middle. Index.
Meanwhile, another part of me—the one I don’t like to acknowledge—isn’t mad because he’s wrong. It’s mad because he’sright.
Because Harper flinches when doors slam. She hoards snacks in her dresser. She didn’t know how to ride a bike. I’ve been watching her gather these pieces of a normal life ever since she got here, like someone who’s expecting them to be ripped away at any second.
And Silas? Sure, he’s different now.
But that doesn’t erase who he was when she needed him most.
“So maybe,” Harper says suddenly, cutting through the tension with a voice so even it almost sounds pleasant, “maybe Z could get a job that keeps him out of trouble.”
She’s smiling, but it’s not real. It’s the kind of smile you use when you’re holding a knife behind your back. She’s playing Silas. Strategizing. Running this breakfast table like it’s a poker game and she’s bluffing.
I watch her work. Watch the way Silas processes it—how his eyes flick to Z, then back to Harper, doing the emotional math. Keep Z close, keep Harper compliant. Minimize chaos. Maintain control. It’s disturbing how efficient heis.
Watching him play Harper playing him.
“Maybe he could work at your club,” I hear myself interject, looking back and forth between Mom and Silas.
It comes out too fast, like my brain skipped the part where I’m supposed to think through consequences. All I know is that we need a pressure valve in this house. And putting Z in a structured job near parental figures is the most elegant solution.
But Mom chokes on her orange juice. Her napkin flutters up to her face like a white flag. When her eyes meet mine, they’re wide. Not in a panicked way, not exactly. Just… like I’ve said something that activated a landmine buried under the hardwood floor.
“The club is for adults, honey,” she says, forcing a laugh that lands about ten degrees south of convincing.
I frown, confused by her reaction.
“He wouldn’t have to go inside.” I’m already mapping this out in my head like a calculus problem. “He could park cars. Valet. That’s all outside, right? Easy. He never needs to see the inside of the club or be around alcohol. And he could stay busy and make money.”
It’s a good plan. Elegant. Clean. It gets him out of the house.And conveniently away from Harper for more than five minutes at a time.
Z grins. Too wide. “Hell yeah. I’ll drive rich people’s cars around. Might even jack one for fun.”
Silas doesn’t laugh. Neither does Mom. They exchange a look I can’t decode. There’s something else going on. Something about the club they’re not saying.
But it’s Mom who recovers first, giving Z a smile that’s all polished charm. “Do you have a license?”
“Since I was fifteen.” He shrugs. “Hardship license. My old man lost his from a DUI.”
Of course.
Silas exhales like he’s been holding his breath since the dawn of time. “We’ll think about it.”
Which, in Silas-speak, meansthis conversation is over.
“Now finish your breakfast. You’ll be late.”
Z puts a hand dramatically over his heart, looking at Harper. “Notlate for school! The horror.”
Harper snickers. Just a quick little sound, barely a breath. It’s private. A joke I’m not part of.
And for the first time since she moved in, I feel like a stranger in my own kitchen.
The driveto school is quiet.
Not peaceful quiet—tensequiet. The kind that hums with everything we’re not saying.