Chapter 6
Vance
The break room was quiet when I walked in for coffee.
Cedric sat at the table, scrolling through his phone. Luca was by the window, stirring something in a mug. They both looked up when I entered.
"There he is." Cedric set down his phone, leaning back in his chair with that look he got when he'd been waiting to say something. "Mr. Punctual."
"What?"
"You're leaving on time again. That's four days in a row."
"Five," Luca said quietly.
"Five days in a row." Cedric shook his head. "I've worked with you for three years. You've never left on time five days in a row. You barely leave on time five days a year."
I poured my coffee, keeping my back to them. "I'm being more efficient."
"Efficient." Cedric snorted. "You used to sleep in the security office. Now suddenly you have somewhere to be at six o'clock?"
"I didn't sleep in the security office."
"You napped. I saw you. Head on the desk, snoring."
"I don't snore."
"You absolutely snore. But that's not the point." He leaned forward. "The point is, something's different. You're checking your phone constantly. You bought groceries—I saw the bags in your truck. And yesterday, in the meeting, you smiled."
"I smile."
"You don't smile. You do this—" He made a flat, neutral expression. "That's your happy face. That's also your angry face. And your confused face. You have one face."
"He's not wrong," Luca said.
I turned around, coffee in hand. "I don't have one face."
"You have one face." Cedric stood up. "But lately, you've been making other faces. Human faces. It's unsettling."
"Maybe I'm just in a good mood."
"For five days? You?" He walked past me toward the door, then paused. "Whoever she is, I hope she's worth it."
"There's no 'she.'"
"Sure." He grinned. "No 'she.' Just spontaneous personality changes, grocery shopping, and leaving work on time. Totally normal behavior."
He left. The door swung shut behind him.
Luca stayed by the window, watching me with those quiet, observant eyes.
"He means well," Luca said. "He's just curious."
"I know."
"But he's not wrong." Luca set down his mug. "You do seem... lighter. Recently."
"Lighter?"
"Less tense. You used to carry yourself like you were expecting an attack at any moment." He shrugged. "Now you don't. It's a good thing."
I didn't respond.
"I'm not asking," he added. "Whatever's going on, it's your business. Just... it's good to see."
"Thanks."
He nodded and left.
I stood alone in the break room, coffee cooling in my hands. Cedric was curious but harmless—he'd move on to the next piece of gossip soon enough. But Luca was different. Luca noticed things. Luca remembered.
I needed to be more careful.
I finished my coffee, rinsed the mug, and headed home.
Something was different.
I could feel it the moment I opened the door, before I even stepped inside. The air smelled wrong. Not wrong-wrong, just different. Like lemon and something herbal, and actual food that hadn't come out of a takeout container.
I stopped in the doorway.
The laundry pile was gone.
Not shoved somewhere else, not kicked under the coffee table, not hidden in a closet where I wouldn't see it. Gone. Completely gone, like it had never existed, like three weeks of accumulated gym clothes and work shirts had simply evaporated.
I scanned the room like I was securing a perimeter, cataloguing changes: the throw blanket folded over the arm of the couch in some kind of decorative arrangement, the mail stacked in a neat pile on the coffee table, edges aligned with military precision, the remote positioned parallel to the table's edge, the cushions on the couch arranged symmetrically instead of mashed into whatever shape I'd left them in that morning.
On the windowsill, in a small ceramic pot that hadn't been there this morning, sat a plant. An actual living plant with green leaves.
"What the hell?"
"Oh, you're home."
Tobias emerged from the kitchen wearing my old Army t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants rolled at the ankles because they were too long for him.
He had a dish towel slung over one shoulder, as if he'd been born with it there.
There was flour on his cheek, a streak of something red on the collar of the shirt, and his hair was slightly mussed, falling across his forehead in a way that made him look younger than twenty-six.
He looked like he belonged here.
The thought landed wrong, stirring something in my chest I didn't want to examine.
"What did you do?" The words came out sharper than intended.
His smile faltered, just a flicker, but I caught it. "Made dinner. Cleaned a little."
"I didn't ask you to clean."
"I know. I wanted to."
I didn't know what to make of that. People didn't just want to clean my apartment.
They didn't want to do anything for me without expecting something in return.
That was a lesson I'd learned early in foster homes, where nothing was free, and again in the Army, where every favor came with strings attached.
"Where did you get a plant?"
"There's a small hardware store two blocks over. The one with the green awning and the old man who sits on the porch." He paused, something careful entering his expression. "They had a sale. I used the cash you left for emergencies."
"That was for emergencies."
"Your windows face southeast, which means you get the best natural light in the morning, but your furniture was blocking it.
The couch cut off the light path, and the overhead fixture—" He gestured toward the ceiling with disdain.
"Single-source, dead center. It flattens everything.
Creates harsh shadows. The plant helps soften the corner and adds some life to the space. "
I stared at him. He stared back, chin lifted slightly, something stubborn in the set of his jaw that I was beginning to recognize.
This wasn't the compliant ghost I'd found shaking in a service corridor, begging me not to send him back.
This was someone else. Someone who analyzed spatial flow and natural light paths and stood his ground over twenty-dollar purchases.
Someone who clearly knew more about interior space than I ever would.
"Fine." I closed the door behind me, dropping my keys on the hook by the entrance. The hook that was now perfectly aligned with the others, whereas before they'd been a jumbled mess of random placement. "What's for dinner?"
The table was set.
Not just set, arranged. Two plates positioned opposite each other, centered on placemats I definitely didn't own, probably from the same hardware store that sold plants. Utensils aligned at right angles. Glasses filled with water, ice cubes floating in perfect symmetry.
And napkins. Folded into little triangles beside each plate.
I stood there, staring at the napkins as if they were going to attack me.
"You folded the napkins?"
"Is that wrong?" Tobias emerged from the kitchen carrying a pot of pasta.
He'd made the sauce from scratch, judging by the splatter patterns on the stovetop that he had somehow cleaned up since I'd last glanced that way.
"I wasn't sure about the fold. There are at least six acceptable variations, but I went with the basic triangle because I didn't have proper linen to work with. Paper requires different techniques."
"There are six variations of napkin folding?"
"At least." He set the pot on a trivet that was also new. "The fan fold, the bishop's hat, the candle, the rose, the envelope pocket, and the basic triangle. For formal occasions, you'd typically use the rose or the bishop's hat, but those require cloth napkins with a certain weight and stiffness."
"I don't think I've ever folded a napkin in my life."
"I can show you. It's not complicated." He began serving the pasta, movements precise and practiced despite the fact that I knew he'd never served his own food before last week. "The triangle is the most versatile. Works for any occasion."
"Why would I need to know how to fold a napkin?"
He opened his mouth, closed it, and looked genuinely puzzled, as if he had never considered a world where napkin-folding wasn't a necessary skill. The idea of living without proper table settings seemed foreign to him.
"Never mind." He served the pasta. "I made carbonara. Or tried to. The sauce broke twice before I got it right."
"Sauce can break?"
"Eggs. Heat. It's a whole thing." He sat across from me, arranging his own napkin on his lap with unconscious precision, smoothing out invisible wrinkles.
"You have to temper the eggs before adding them to the pasta; otherwise, they scramble.
I watched three tutorials. The first two disagreed about whether to use whole eggs or just yolks.
The third suggested a compromise that didn't work at all. "
"How do you know when it's right?"
"When it coats the pasta without looking scrambled." He picked up his fork, then paused. "Also when the bacon is crispy but not burnt, and the cheese is melted but not clumped. There are a lot of variables."
I took a bite.
The pasta was better than anything I'd made in the past year. Maybe the past five years. Rich and creamy, the bacon crispy, the cheese somehow silky instead of stringy. Exactly the right temperature, exactly the right consistency.
"It's good."
"Really?"
"I'm eating it, aren't I?"
He ducked his head, but I caught the edge of his smile before he hid it. That smile did something complicated to my chest, something I didn't want to think about too hard.
We ate in silence for a while. Not awkward, just quiet. The kind of quiet that happens when two people run out of small talk and don't mind. The kind of quiet I'd never experienced with anyone else in this apartment.
"You didn't have to do all this," I finally said. "The cleaning. The plant. The placemats. Any of it."
"I know."
"So why did you?"
He set down his fork, considering the question more seriously than it warranted. His pale green eyes went distant, as if he were looking at something I couldn't see.