I watched Jay add a block, then another, widening the base the way I’d taught him. “If you build too high without support,” I told him, “it’ll fall.”
Jay nodded solemnly like I’d handed him a law of physics.
Kirsten kissed the top of his head. “And we can’t have that,” she said.
Her smile was perfect.
I didn’t notice my own hinge tightening until my phone buzzed.
A text.
Lucas Hunt: Drink soon. Been too long, brother.
Lucas was an old friend from my Army intel days, the kind you could go years without seeing and still pick up mid-sentence. We’d both taken the exit ramp out of that world, at least in public.
Kirsten glanced at my phone like it was nothing. “Work?”
“Just Lucas,” I said. “He wants to catch up.”
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