CHAPTER 2
Harper
The smoke alarm starts screaming before I even realize the chicken’s gone from golden to combusting.
“Are you kidding me?” I cough, waving a dish towel beneath the shrieking white circle on the ceiling as if that will somehow shame it into silence.
At the same time, my cell phone vibrates across the counter, skittering dangerously close to the edge. The screen lights up with an incoming call I can’t see because—
Ding-dong. Ding-dong…
DING-DONG!
Whoever is at the door has apparently mistaken the bell for a stress ball.
“Hold on!” I yell, though no one can possibly hear me over the smoke alarm’s high-pitched death cry and the increasingly frantic barking of Beau, my seventy-pound golden retriever.
He’s decided this is either a home invasion or the most exciting event of his life.
He’s leaping in tight circles between the front door and the kitchen, nails skidding against the hardwood, tail whipping like a metronome set to chaos.
“Beau! Sit!” I shout.
He doesn’t sit.
The phone keeps ringing. The doorbell keeps donging. The smoke alarm keeps screaming. The chicken, meanwhile, is absolutely done for.
Whoever’s on the phone is just going to have to leave a message because I only have so much bandwidth. I sprint to the front door, nearly tripping over Beau, and yank it open. A delivery guy stands there, holding a small rectangular package and wearing a bored expression on his face.
“Signature,” he says flatly, shoving the electronic pad and stylus toward me.
“I’m so sorry,” I breathe, pushing hair out of my face. “The oven—”
He doesn’t care about the oven as evidenced by his yawn.
I scrawl what somewhat resembles my name across the screen while Beau wedges his snout past my hip, attempting to greet the man, because in Beau’s world, everyone should love him unconditionally.
“Is that a golden?” the guy asks, finally cracking a hint of interest. Beau’s butt waggles furiously now that the man’s made eye contact with him.
“Yes,” I mutter, trying to muscle the dog back with my hip. “And currently unhelpful.”
He hands me the package, already stepping backward. “Have a good one.”
“You too. Sorry about the—” I gesture vaguely behind me, where the smoke alarm is still wailing like we’re in a five-alarm blaze, but the courier is already bounding down the stairs without a backward glance. Beau chuffs his dismay and looks at me with forlorn eyes.
“Sorry, buddy,” I say as I shut the door with my foot and pivot toward the kitchen.
Smoke curls in a ghostlike haze upward from the oven as I fling it open. The chicken breasts inside no longer look edible. They’re blackened around the edges (well, maybe more than just the edges), a crime scene of poor timing and divided attention.
“Great,” I mutter, grabbing the oven mitts and sliding the pan out. “Just great.”
The alarm continues its relentless beeping, my blood pressure spiking in cadence with it.
I glance up at it, then at the counter before dragging a chair over. I climb onto it, balancing, while considering how much of adulthood includes scaling kitchen surfaces to silence household devices. I reach up, twist the smoke detector loose, and yank the battery free.
The beeping dies mid-scream. The silence is immediate and practically sacred.
Beau tilts his head at me from below, as if mildly disappointed the excitement has concluded. “Don’t look at me like that,” I tell him, climbing down. “You contributed nothing.”
My phone rings again and I grab it just before it goes to voicemail. “Hello?” I answer, breathless.
“Hey,” Dylan’s voice comes through, casual as can be, just like all seventeen-year-olds. “I’m gonna be home later. I’m at Devon’s. We’re studying for chem.”
I glance at the clock. “How late is later?”
“Not crazy late. Just… later.”
I force myself to let it go—the need to have an exact time because I’ll worry if he’s one minute late. “Text me when you’re leaving,” I say, keeping my voice light and airy but I know he’s rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. It’s a patented teenager move.
“I will.”
“And don’t take the shortcut past the park.”
Dylan sighs dramatically. “Harper.”
“Just don’t,” I say, my voice veering into the “mom” tone I try not to leverage too much because he mostly just wants me to be his older sister.
He huffs his frustration but gives me what I want. “Okay. I won’t.”
“There’ll be dinner in the fridge.” My eyes drift to the pan of charred chicken sitting on the stovetop like a warning. “Or… something resembling dinner.”
And that’s enough to get a laugh. “It’s fine. I’m not five.”
My voice softens to a tenderness that’s not forced but so very natural. The love for my brother knows no bounds, even when I want to strangle him. “I know you’re not five. Just be careful getting home.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hang up and stand there for a second, staring at the chicken. “Okay,” I mutter, grabbing a knife. “We’re not dead. We’re just… crispy. Crispy can work. Some people like crispy, right?”
I transfer the chicken to a cutting board and begin surgical excision. The knife scrapes against the charred edges as I slice off the blackened parts, revealing perfectly edible meat underneath. Not exactly Food Network, but edible.
“That’s right,” I say under my breath. “We adapt.”
Beau’s stationed himself directly at my feet, his entire body vibrating with hope. His tail thumps rhythmically against the cabinet.
“This isn’t for you,” I inform him.
His tongue lolls out in disagreement.
I stare at my masterpiece before proclaiming, “Blackened. It’s called blackened.”
I scoop the salvaged pieces into a clean bowl and turn to the stove. The rice, miraculously, hasn’t joined the rebellion. I lift the lid and a soft cloud of steam rises, fragrant and cooked to perfection.
“See?” I tell Beau. “We’re not completely incompetent.”
I fluff it with a fork, then begin assembling plates. One for me. One for Dylan.
I portion out the rice first, then layer the sliced chicken over the top, drizzling a little sauce across both plates to give everything a unified look—like this was the plan all along.
Then I pause.
I study the two plates.
Dylan’s portion looks… fine.
But he’s seventeen. He’s six feet tall and still growing. He eats like someone preparing for hibernation.
I glance down at the plates, hating that I didn’t buy another few breasts of chicken for him, but it was that or a pack of bacon for breakfast. He has the lion’s share, but it’s not enough and I don’t need that much.
Without overthinking it, I slide a decent scoop of rice from my plate onto his. A few extra pieces of chicken follow.
“There,” I murmur. “That’s better.”
I cover his meal carefully with aluminum foil, pressing the edges down tight, then open the fridge and place it on the middle shelf where he’ll see it immediately when he gets home.
“Dinner,” I say quietly, closing the door. “Handled.”
I carry my plate to the small kitchen table that only seats two and takes up so much room, I have to push it out of the way to open the cabinets or sit down. The apartment feels somewhat subdued again, finally. No alarms or doorbells or ringing phones.
Just me and Beau, who positions himself beside my chair instantly, sitting tall and attentive, panting softly, eyes locked on my fork.
“You’re shameless,” I tell him.
His tail thumps once.
I take a bite. It’s… fine. Not terrible. The char is mostly gone. The rice is warm and comforting.
Beau’s gaze intensifies and I sigh. “I can’t believe I’m negotiating with a dog.”
I spear a small piece of chicken and hold it up. “This is it. A small one.”
He takes it gently from my fingers, as if he’s doing me a favor.
“That’s all,” I warn.
His eyes say otherwise.
I eat another bite, then give him a little rice. Then another small piece of chicken. His gratitude is immediate and overwhelming—tail wagging, body leaning against my leg like I’ve just rescued him from famine.
I reach down and run my hand over his head, fingers sinking into the soft fur between his ears. “You and me,” I murmur, scratching along his neck. “We’re a disaster.”
He nudges my hand, insistent. I look around the small kitchen—the slightly crooked cabinet door I keep meaning to fix, the counter still dusted with flour from earlier, the faint smoky smell lingering in the air.
It’s not glamorous, but it’s ours.
I press my forehead lightly against the top of Beau’s head. “We’re going to be okay, Beau.”
By the time I finish eating, the kitchen has cooled, the earlier chaos reduced to a faint smoky scent that lingers stubbornly in the air.
I rinse my plate and begin the familiar task of washing dishes—warm water running steadily, soap foaming against cheap plastic plates, Beau lying stretched across the floor as if he’s just survived a natural disaster.
There’s a grounding feeling about cleaning up after a mess you’ve created yourself. It restores order. It suggests control, which I often seem to lack.
I dry my hands on a dish towel and finally turn toward the package sitting unopened on the counter. It’s small and rectangular, light enough that I barely felt its weight when the delivery guy handed it to me. I rotate it slowly, inspecting the label.
The return address makes my stomach dip.
It’s from my employer, the beauty brand where I work customer service—or, more accurately, where I answer calls from people who are furious that their serum arrived cracked or their foundation oxidized two shades too dark.
It’s not ideal, and it’s certainly not the role I imagined for myself when I first fell in love with the industry, but it’s adjacent to where I want to be.
And adjacency matters.
The job pays decently and gives me flexible hours, which means I can schedule shifts around Dylan’s school and my other work as a chauffeur. It keeps the lights on and groceries in the fridge. It keeps us afloat.
And more than that, though I don’t always admit it, it’s an education.