31
Lila
Something was off with Jade. I couldn’t say exactly what had changed, only that I knew my daughter well enough to feel it when she wasn’t quite herself.
She was quieter over breakfast, too quick to say she was fine, too careful with her phone.
Whenever I got close to asking, she smoothed it over with something ordinary.
I could push and risk her walls going up or trust she would come to me when she was ready.
I hated that part of parenting. Sometimes loving your kid meant sitting beside a fear you couldn’t fix yet. I let it go for now, but I kept watching.
Later, Jade sat cross-legged on the couch with a show murmuring while she stared more than scrolled at her phone. A knock sounded, and something in her face brightened before I reached the door. Whatever Jackson and I still had to untangle, I couldn’t ignore what happened to her when he showed up.
He stood outside in a dark Henley with the sleeves shoved up his forearms, his cut over it, sunglasses hooked at his collar.
He leaned one shoulder against the frame like he was making an effort not to crowd me, which would have been more convincing if he didn’t fill the doorway anyway. “Morning, Princess.”
I gave him a look, refusing to reward the pet name even as my body recognized it. “It’s almost noon.”
His mouth tipped with the easy confidence that made resisting him exhausting. “Still mornin’ if I haven’t eaten lunch.”
I stepped aside before I could reward him with an argument. Jade was already off the couch by then, all that quiet distraction gone from her face. “Hey.”
Jackson’s whole expression changed when he looked at her. The shift was subtle, but I knew him too well to miss it: his mouth softened, his eyes warmed, and something in him settled. “Hey, baby girl.”
The name landed on Jade too. She straightened a little, caught between not knowing what to do with that tenderness and wanting every bit of it. Jackson lifted the bakery box in his hand. “Brought peace offerings.”
Her brows rose as she came closer. “Food?”
He smirked, clearly pleased he had found the right currency. “Best kind.”
Jade opened the box right there, and the pleased little sound she made almost hid the question. “Donuts?”
“From that bakery Blue found,” he said as he came inside. Once the door was clear, he added, “Kinsley & Peanut’s. Rook’s got a thing for their triple chocolate peanut butter muffins. Won’t let anybody near ’em. Mean bastard acts like they’re protected property.”
That pulled a real laugh from her, and some tension eased out of Jackson. I shut the door while Jade carried the box to the couch. His attention flicked to me before returning to her, as if he was still learning how to divide himself between us.
Jade chose a glazed donut with chocolate icing and inspected it like proof of his progress. “You got the good kind.”
His mouth tipped at one corner. “I’m learnin’.”
“I can see that.” Dry as the words were, there was a smile beneath them, and Jackson caught it.
For one painful second, I saw the life that should have been ordinary: Jackson walking into a kitchen with donuts for our daughter, Jade giving him attitude, me pretending not to enjoy any of it. I hated when my mind built those ghosts. They always looked too much like home.
Jackson took the far end of the couch and left the space between them for Jade to close.
Eventually she shifted nearer while he asked about school and let her decide how much to give him.
She talked about teachers, unfamiliar hallways, and what she liked better than expected.
He listened without prying, hearing the gaps too.
Her school life had already become something he tracked because it mattered to him.
I escaped to the kitchen before standing there became too much like watching something private. The sink was empty and the counter already clean, so naturally I started wiping it again while their conversation carried in from the living room.
“...and the art teacher actually knows what she’s talking about, She said my lines were clean and precise.” Pride slipped through Jade’s voice despite how casual she tried to sound.
Jackson answered with a low note of approval. “That helps.”
Jade didn’t hesitate this time. “A lot.” Whatever else was still wrong with her, this subject belonged to a part of her that felt steady.
Jackson must have heard the pride too, because he stayed with the subject instead of moving on. “What kind of stuff do you like doing most?” The question sounded casual, but he asked it like the answer mattered.
A small pause followed. Jade rarely showed people the parts of herself she cared about most, even when she wanted them noticed. “Drawing, mostly.”
“Yeah?” Jackson’s interest stayed easy, giving her room instead of demanding more. “What do you draw?”
Jade answered with the dry humor she used whenever sincerity got too close. “People sometimes. Eyes a lot. Hands when I hate myself.” She could joke about the frustration because admitting how much the work mattered would have left her more exposed.
His laugh came low and warm rather than dismissive. “Hands’ll do that.”
“Exactly.” Jade laughed too, softer now, and I heard some of the caution leave her voice. Jackson had found another place where she was willing to let him in.
He gave her enough quiet to decide whether she wanted to keep talking before asking, “You any good?” The challenge in it was light, almost teasing.
“I’m not terrible.” Translation: she knew she was good and wanted him to figure that out without making her say it.
His grin was audible from the kitchen. “That so?” He sounded exactly like a father calling his daughter on false modesty, and the normality of it caught me off guard.
Jade kept the modesty act going. “I mean, I’m not saying I’m amazing.”
“But you’re thinkin’ it.” He had her figured out quickly enough to make her laugh again, and the pride beneath his teasing was impossible to miss.
When the laughter faded, his voice gentled. “You gonna let me see some of it sometime?” He didn’t ask to be handed everything at once. Just one more piece.
The silence that followed had a different weight. “Maybe,” Jade said, and for her, maybe was permission cracked open.
Jackson understood that too. “Alright. I’ll take maybe.”
I paused over the same spotless patch of counter and closed my eyes for half a second. Their laughter shouldn’t have hurt. It was exactly what I wanted for her. Somehow that made the ache sharper, and I called toward the living room before I could sink too far into it. “You want anything?”
“Coffee,” Jackson said immediately, because apparently being injured and stubborn also made him predictable.
I didn’t even consider it. “You’re not getting coffee.”
“That was for me,” he called back, amusement already creeping into his voice.
“I know.” The answer made Jade snort, which was almost worth Jackson’s presence by itself.
I turned and braced one hip against the counter, catching his eyes over her head. “There’s juice in the fridge.”
His brows lifted. “For me or her?”
“For whichever one of you is thirstier.” The second the words left my mouth, I knew better.
His gaze held mine, heat sliding through it with slow intent. “Dangerous thing to say to me, Princess.”
Jade made a face before I could recover. “Can you two not be weird for, like, ten minutes?”
I straightened, suddenly aware of every inch between me and the living room. “We are not being weird.”
Jackson betrayed me without hesitation, his innocence far too convincing. “You hear that? We’re not bein’ weird.”
Jade bit into her donut and gave us both the same unimpressed look. “Sure.” Apparently sarcasm was one more trait we had successfully passed down.
I pointed at her. “You’re awfully mouthy for someone eating my groceries.”
“These are his groceries,” she said around a smile, immediately siding with the enemy.
Jackson leaned back, entirely too pleased with himself. “That’s right.”
I should have been annoyed. I was. But something softer slipped in around it, because the three of us were arguing over donuts and juice as if this were normal. That was the danger of Jackson. He could make impossible things feel ordinary, and ordinary had always been what I wanted most.
He stayed for more than an hour, long enough for Jade to settle completely into his company. They ended up shoulder to shoulder over some ridiculous mobile game while he accused her of cheating and she called him old. I stopped pretending his presence didn’t alter the apartment.
Eventually Jade stood and stretched. “I’m gonna go get dressed before Cage comes by.”
Jackson’s head lifted immediately. “Cage is comin’ over?”
She went still for a fraction of a second, then recovered. “Yeah. We were gonna hang out.”
The corner of his mouth twitched around the word, protective suspicion surfacing immediately. “Hang out.”
Jade heard exactly where this was headed. “Oh my God,” Jade muttered. “Don’t start.”
His expression turned offensively innocent, fooling absolutely nobody. “I didn’t say nothin’.”
“You didn’t have to.” Jade had already learned to hear everything he left unsaid.
He looked at me like he expected backup. “You hear that? She can hear attitude now too.”
“I believe it,” I said, because I had spent years living with hers.
Jade narrowed her eyes at both of us. “You’re the worst.” Then she disappeared down the hall before either of us could prove her right.
The apartment changed in her absence. Jackson had come for Jade, but he had also stayed, and the quiet between us made that impossible to ignore. I folded the dish towel once before setting it down rather than strangling it in my hands.
I finally said it. “You do realize you don’t have to turn every visit into some kind of campaign.”
His mouth twitched, though the humor didn’t quite reach his eyes. “That what you think I’m doin’?”