It was the kind of cold that gets inside the house no matter what you do with the thermostat, the kind that finds the edges of windows and the gaps under doors and reminds you that warmth is something you maintain, not something you can take for granted. Lily had just gone back to campus after a visit and the house had that particular hollow quality it gets when she leaves, all her noise and energy and the specific way she fills a room still echoing slightly in the empty spaces.
Jax grabbed his headphones and shrugged on his jacket around nine.
“Going for a walk,” he said, not really asking.
“It’s freezing,” I said.
“All the better to vibe with my bad life choices,” he said, completely deadpan.
I told him to be back by ten. He saluted with one gloved hand and left.
I went upstairs to work through the laundry pile that had been developing opinions about itself in the corner of my room. I was folding towels when I heard it.
A tiny, broken cry.
I stopped moving.
My heart started before my brain caught up. I stood completely still for a moment, listening over the heater and the distant sound of cars, telling myself it was a cat or the wind or my own exhaustion playing tricks.
