Chapter 38
Silas
The suit feels like something borrowed from a life that was never supposed to fit me.
Not because it looks wrong. Worse than that, it looks right enough to be unsettling.
Jacob’s tailor clearly knows his job. The jacket sits clean across my shoulders.
The watch on my wrist makes me look polished instead of dangerous.
Even the shoes are too quiet on the hardwood, too expensive, too decent.
Every piece of it turns me into something easier to place in a house like this, which only makes the whole thing feel more unreal.
At the bottom of the staircase, I check the time again.
Cheyenne and Maria are supposed to be here soon.
The plan is simple on paper. Let the girls pile into the car, drive them to Spokehaven’s formal, stay with them because Jacob decided that if I’m going to escort three girls to a school event, I should look like I belong there instead of like the driver they hired last minute.
Somewhere between dinner and now, that suggestion turned into one of his suits draped over my arm and a look that made it clear refusing would only make him more insistent.
So here I am.
Dressed like a man I’ve never been.
Waiting beneath a staircase that keeps drawing my eyes upward even though I know she still hasn’t come down.
That is the worst part of it. Not the suit.
Not the waiting. The knowledge of what she’s doing upstairs.
The knowledge that the reason she is taking longer has my fingerprints all over it.
She is up there getting ready for the formal, yes, but she is also trying to hide me.
Concealer. Fabric. Hair. Whatever girls use when they need the world to stop reading a boy’s mouth and hands off their skin.
The thought should make me feel guilty enough to stop looking toward the stairs every few seconds.
It doesn’t.
If anything, it makes the waiting more fun.
Would Stephanie still be smiling at me if she knew exactly why her daughter was running late?
Probably not.
That thought sits hot in my chest while the house stays too quiet around me.
“Look at you,” Stephanie says.
The camera is already in her hands when I turn. There is no pause between her seeing me and deciding I need to be photographed. The woman apparently sees a boy in a suit and immediately becomes a documentarian.
My hand goes up on instinct, palm out, blocking the lens before the flash hits.
The reaction gets what she wanted. A smile tugs at my mouth before I can kill it, small but real enough that her whole face lights up.
“There it is,” she says, delighted with herself. “That smile. Keep that one.”
The almost-laugh that rises in me doesn’t quite make it out, but the effort is enough to make her beam harder.
She lowers the camera, looking me over properly, head tilting as she takes in the jacket, the tie, the watch, the fact that I’m standing in her foyer looking like I’ve done this a hundred times before instead of once under protest. There is something so uncomplicated in her approval that it nearly does me in.
“You clean up beautifully, Silas,” she says.
The sentence lands in a place I don’t know how to defend.
Not because it sounds flirtatious. Because it doesn’t. Because she says it the way mothers say things to boys they’re proud to put in pictures, with an easy kind of fondness that still catches me off guard every time she points it at me.
Jacob steps into the hall a second later, straightening one cuff with the same unhurried composure he brings to everything. His eyes move over me once. Taking in the whole picture, his expression shifts by half a degree.
“Well,” he says at last, “you don’t look half bad.”
The praise is so dry it almost qualifies as mockery.
Almost.
“High praise,” I mutter.
“It is,” he says, completely serious.
Stephanie rolls her eyes, raising the camera again. This time I’m too slow. The flash catches.
“Steph,” Jacob says, but there is no real reproach in it.
“What?” she asks, smiling. “He looks handsome.”
Handsome.
The word sits strangely on my skin.
There are a lot of things people have called me. Handsome is not usually one of them, at least not in a tone this clean. No edge. No expectation underneath it. No hand waiting behind the kindness to take something back. Stephanie’s obliviousness would be easier to manage if it weren’t so genuine.
Another glance goes to the staircase.
Still nothing.
No soft footstep. No rustle of dress fabric.
No warning that Octavia is about to appear and make this whole room feel twice as dangerous.
Just more waiting, more awareness of the quiet, more knowledge that every minute she stays upstairs is probably another minute spent trying to cover what I left behind last night.
Would Stephanie still be snapping pictures if she knew how long Octavia was taking because she was standing in front of a mirror trying to hide me?
The thought hits hard enough that I have to look away from the stairs and back to the watch just to stop myself from smiling at the wrong time.
Jacob notices that too.
His gaze follows mine to the staircase, then returns to me with that same unreadable calm that always makes it impossible to tell how much he knows and how much he’s simply choosing not to say.
“Nervous?” he asks.
The question sounds casual enough for Stephanie to hear only the surface of it. That is probably deliberate.
My thumb brushes the edge of the watch face once. “About chauffeuring three girls in heels?” I say. “Absolutely.”
Stephanie laughs. Jacob’s mouth shifts at one corner, just enough to suggest he finds me more amusing than he’s willing to admit in front of her.
The camera lifts again. Another flash. Another moment stolen before it has a chance to turn into something else.
The whole house feels suspended, polished into stillness while it waits for the night to begin.
Upstairs, Octavia is still not coming down.
Down here, her mother is smiling at me with no idea why her daughter is taking so long.
Her father is watching me with the kind of patience that always feels half-earned.
Out on the driveway, any minute now, two more girls are going to arrive and break the spell of all this waiting.
For now, though, it is just me in Jacob’s suit, standing at the foot of the staircase, trying not to look like every thought in my head is upstairs with her.
Stephanie drifts down the hallway still talking to herself about dead batteries, camera settings, and how nobody ever has the decency to stay in one place once they’re dressed properly. The second she disappears around the corner, the energy in the foyer changes.
Jacob steps closer.
Not enough to make it obvious. Not enough that, if Stephanie turned back too soon, she would immediately know something had shifted. But the space between us narrows just enough for it to become private.
Whatever he is about to say is meant only for me.
His expression loses some of its usual distance then. Not all of it. He is still Jacob. Still careful. Still the kind of man who seems to weigh every word before deciding it deserves to exist. But something softer comes through anyway, something quieter, but heavier than warning.
“Make her feel like a princess tonight,” he says. “She deserves it.”
The sentence lands with a force I don’t expect.
For a moment, all I can do is look at him.
Because that isn’t suspicion. It isn’t a threat. It isn’t even a loaded fatherly challenge disguised as kindness. It is trust, handed to me so simply that it almost feels more dangerous than if he had gotten in my face and told me not to screw this up.
Then he reaches out.
The handshake is brief and firm, the kind of clasp between men that says more than either one is willing to say aloud. Something small presses into my palm at the same time. A box.
Jacob lets go first. His face settles back into its usual composed shape immediately, as if the moment never happened, as if he didn’t just put something far more difficult than approval into my hand.
The realization comes slowly, but once it arrives it hits hard enough to leave me still.
He has accepted us.
Not everything, maybe. Not every detail of the past week, not every time I’ve touched his daughter like she was the only holy thing left in the world.
But enough. Enough to have chosen silence.
Enough to keep whatever he suspects to himself because, for reasons I still do not fully understand, he believes I am going to treat her right.
And the worst part is that he is right.
No matter how ugly the world gets around us, no matter what else comes for us, I will.
My thumb lifts the lid of the box.
Inside, resting against black velvet, is the necklace I had asked him to pick up for me a few days ago.
A small gold moth, delicate enough to look almost fragile at first glance, until the light catches the pink diamond set at its center, turning the whole piece into something more beautiful.
The second I see it, the image of Octavia wearing it rises in my mind with enough immediacy to pull a smile out of me before I can stop it.
Not the fake one.
Not the one I use when I need something from somebody.
A real one.
Jacob notices.
Something faint changes in his face when he sees it, some quiet confirmation that whatever gamble he is making on me has not been misplaced. Still, he says nothing else. He doesn’t need to. The gesture has already said more than any speech could have.
Then the knock comes at the door.
The moment breaks.
Stephanie reappears at exactly the right time, battery triumphant in hand, all bright maternal energy again.
She swings the door open with the full force of her hospitality, immediately flooding the house with warmth that feels almost absurd after the quiet thing that just passed between me and Jacob.