My throat tightens. She’s too smart. Too observant. I open my mouth to deflect, but Noah speaks first.
“You play basketball?” he asks, nodding in the direction of the carport where a hoop hangs against the back brick fence wall.
Stella blinks, caught off guard by the shift. “Yeah. I mean, not like on a team or anything. Just for fun.”
“What’s your range?” Noah asks, leaning one hip against the counter. “You a three-point shooter? Mid-range?”
A small smile tugs at Stella’s lips. “I’m working on my free throws. Dad says I shoot too flat.” Her father is the one who installed a basketball goal at the end of the carport—with my permission.
“Your dad might be onto something,” Noah says easily. “But flat’s better than too much arc. You can adjust flat. Too much arc, you’re fighting gravity the whole way.”
Stella’s smile widens. “You play?”
“Used to. Pickup games mostly, back in Chicago, where I grew up. Haven’t had much time lately, but I can still hold my own.”
“Maybe we could play sometime?”
“Anytime,” Noah says easily. “I’d love to.”
Stella glances at me, then back at Noah, her earlier tension easing. “Cool.”
I exhale slowly, relieved she let the questions drop. “Dinner’s almost ready. Why don’t you go wash up?”
“Okay.” She grabs her backpack, then pauses in the hall. “Noah?”
He turns. “Yeah?”
“Marvel or DC?”
“Marvel. Captain America.”
Stella grins. “Good answer.”
She disappears upstairs, her footsteps light and quick.
I turn back to the stove. “Thank you,” I say quietly. Talking to my daughter isn’t in his job description.
Noah shrugs, picking up his water glass. “She’s a good kid. Smart.”
“Too smart sometimes.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
I plate the salmon and arrange the potatoes. “She’ll ask more questions later. Especially if her father keeps playing it up.”
“Then we answer what we can,” Noah says simply. “Kids know when you’re lying. Better to give her the truth—just the version she can handle.”
I glance at him, surprised by the steadiness in his voice. “You sound like you’ve got some experience.”
“I have a younger sister. Maya. When she was a teen…” He trails off, a faint smile touching his lips. “Let’s just say I got good at managing questions I didn’t want to answer.”
“And how did that work out?”
“She still doesn’t trust me when I say everything’s fine.” His smile widens. “But she knows I’ll tell her when it matters.”
I set the plates on the island and call Stella back down. As we settle into dinner—awkward at first, then easier as Noah asks Stella about school, about her play rehearsals, about her friends—I realize something.
For the first time in weeks, I’m more relaxed. Less fearful.