CHAPTER 3
What the Watch Knows—Lainie
The kitchen smelled like coffee.
That was the first good thing about the morning, and Lainie held on to it with both hands—or rather, with both hands wrapped around the mug Kalen slid across the counter toward her.
He stood on the other side of the island, a kitchen towel cinched around his hips, golden eyes apologetic as his gaze flicked from Lainie to Jenna and back.
Because of course. Six-fifteen in the morning on the biggest day of her life, and the first thing she had to deal with was a half-naked dragon in her kitchen.
"I'll be right back." He was already heading to his bedroom.
Jenna pressed her fingers to her mouth, smothering a laugh that came out as a snort.
Lainie took a long pull of coffee—hot, lightly sweetened, exactly right—and let the heat of it spread down through her chest. The coffeemaker was still gurgling on the counter, finishing its cycle.
One thing, at least, was as it should be.
She'd taught Kalen early on that walking around shirtless (or towel-clad, or anything-less-than-fully-dressed) wasn't going to work with teenagers in the house.
In his book world, this was standard dragon behavior.
In her world, it was a conversation she'd rather not have with her thirteen-year-old.
Kalen came back in the navy-blue robe she'd given him for Christmas, the belt tied at his waist, his curly hair still damp at the temples.
"Morning, lovelies." His smile was warm and steady—the kind of calm that looked chosen, not natural. "Don't worry about the rain. It'll stop soon. The grand opening will go off without a hitch."
His positive vibe helped her mood.
Lainie set down the mug. "Jenna said Brennon's car isn't in the driveway. I don't know where he is."
His brow creased. "Have you tried calling?"
"Not yet."
She fished out her phone, hit Brennon's name, and tapped the speaker icon. It rang four times, five, then clicked to voicemail.
"Brennon, it's Mom. Call me as soon as you get this." Her voice held. Her hands didn't. She ended the call and set the phone on the counter before her hands gave her away.
"No answer."
Kalen held her eyes. His golden stare was steady, and something behind it—concern, maybe, or calculation—flickered and went still before she could name it.
"I'm worried."
"He's a smart kid. I'm sure he's fine." He tipped his chin toward the stove. "Let's focus on getting ready. We've a lot to do."
She pressed her lips together. Nodded. What else could she do?
She touched the timepiece and waved focused on the counter.
Eggs—scrambled, steaming. Bacon in thick strips. Sausage links. A plate of toast. A bowl of mixed fruit. And cinnamon rolls the size of softballs, glazed and golden and ridiculous. The cinnamon rolls alone could feed a soccer team. Her stress had a generous appetite.
The kitchen filled with the smell of all of it at once, rich and warm and too much.
"I think you overdid it a bit, Mom." Jenna was already reaching for a strawberry.
"That's been known to happen when I'm upset."
Sawyer appeared in the kitchen doorway, his tail high, his nose working. "Finally. Something decent to eat." He hopped onto a chair and surveyed the spread with a nod that could only be described as royal.
Chinchy padded in from Kalen's room, small and soft and gray, whiskers twitching. Kalen scooped the chinchilla up, set him on the counter near a dish, and fixed a plate for Sawyer, who accepted it without comment. Which, for Sawyer, was the highest form of approval.
For a few minutes, the kitchen felt normal. Rain against the windows, food on the counter, Jenna grazing from the fruit bowl, Kalen slicing a cinnamon roll with quiet precision. A pocket of heat and noise inside the storm.
Then the garage door rumbled open.
Brennon walked in looking like he'd slept in his clothes, which he had. His hair stuck up on one side. He rubbed the back of his neck and stopped when he saw every face in the kitchen turned toward him.
Her whole body unclenched. He was home. And right behind the relief: anger.
"Where have you been?"
"Todd's." He dropped his keys on the counter. "I had a few beers, so I spent the night. You've always told me never to drink and drive."
"You—" She bit down on the first three things that came to mind and took a breath. "I'm glad you made a responsible choice. But you should have called."
Brennon pulled out a chair and dropped into it, his posture loose but his gaze tight, as if he expected the kitchen to explode into accusations at any moment.
He reached for a cinnamon roll, tore off a chunk, and popped it in his mouth without tasting it.
The silence pressed at the table, crowding out the scents of breakfast and the last shreds of coziness.
"There are too many secrets floating around this house.
" His voice was too calm for a shouting match, but it cut deeper for that—a monotone honed to land exactly where he aimed.
"I'm not talking about stuff like you getting on my case about curfew or whatever.
I'm talking about the other stuff. The weird stuff.
The stuff nobody wants to talk about, but it's here, all the time, in the background.
" He didn't look at her. His gaze flicked to the timepiece around her neck and then bounced off, as if it burned his retinas.
"I know you think you're protecting me," he went on, this time looking at Kalen, then back at Lainie, "but I see it.
I see the way you guys talk in code. The way you don't answer questions.
I see the dragon-shaped holes in the story, Mom.
I get why you don't want to tell me everything.
But I can't keep pretending like nothing's different. "
Jenna froze, her strawberry halfway to her mouth.
Kalen met his eyes and nodded, as if Brennon had made a point worth tallying. "Noted," was all he said.
Sawyer made a huffing sound and swatted at a sausage link.
Brennon stood up, cinnamon roll left behind. "I just wanted one night to feel normal. That's all. Instead, I get home and—" He gestured vaguely at the kitchen, the rain, the storm outside, the buzzing tension that had followed him into the room. "This is what it is now, isn't it?"
The words sat in the air between them.
Lainie's throat tightened. He wasn't wrong.
Their lives had turned inside out in the space of a few months—magic, monsters, a dragon in the guest bedroom, a talking cat who critiqued her cooking.
Brennon had handled all of it with a maturity that made her proud and broke her heart in equal measure.
He was seventeen. He should be worrying about prom and college applications, not whether the pocket watch around his mother's neck attracted something dangerous in the night.
"I'm glad you stayed at Todd's. That was a good decision." She swallowed around the ache. "But I need you to call. Even a text. I was scared."
He dropped his chin. Not quite an apology. Close to one.
Jenna had been watching the interchange closely, her eyes bouncing between Lainie and Brennon. "Are you safe? Are you okay?"
Brennon made a motion with his hands—something between a shrug and a wave—that seemed to be their own private language. The air in the kitchen eased. Jenna grabbed a handful of grapes and a cinnamon roll, no plate, and Lainie didn't even bother correcting her.
The conversation shifted to grand opening logistics. What time did guests arrive? Who was handling parking? Whether the outdoor setup would survive the rain.
The watch rested quietly against Lainie's chest. The immediate crisis had passed. But the deeper thing—the thing she couldn't name, the low-grade wrongness running beneath the morning—hadn't gone anywhere.
Twenty minutes later, Lainie stood in front of the bathroom mirror with wet hair and a critical eye.
The gray at her temples had multiplied since the last time she'd looked. Or maybe she just hadn't looked in a while. She angled away from the mirror—a reflex she'd carried since John, when the less she looked, the fewer things he found to correct.
She pursed her lips, dismissed the thought, and filed it under "later" with the highlights appointment she kept meaning to make.
She closed the bathroom door. Sawyer was a cat who shifted into a man, which meant extra precautions were nonnegotiable. She could've kicked him out of her bedroom entirely, but she'd grown accustomed to the weight of him in the chair.
Lainie dressed on automatic, as if her hands belonged to someone else—someone meticulous and untroubled by the thought of teenagers going missing or dragons showing up before coffee.
She pulled on the black pants she'd laid out the night before, the fabric stiff but forgiving, a gift to herself from a rare good week. She buttoned the crisp white blouse—soft as old laundry, not the kind you’d wear to court but the kind you’d want to bleed in, if it came to that.
She sat on the bed to pull on her boots, low-heeled, practical, but with just enough shape to be aspirational.
The boots could tromp through wet grass or stand their ground in a boardroom.
They made her look, for all intents and purposes, like a person who belonged somewhere important.
She checked her reflection with one eye squinted, as if bracing for impact.
The pants did their job, the blouse fell right, the boots lent her a height nobody would ever mistake for confidence, but might, on a good day, read as competence.
She looked like she could run a vineyard.
She looked, in fact, like she did run a vineyard.
But there was something about the cut of her jaw, the set of her shoulders, that screamed imposter louder than any outfit could fix.