23. Stryker
STRYKER
Iknow the exact second Nora starts regretting asking for help assembling furniture.
It happens when I deliberately palm one of the screws she needs and slide it into my pocket while she’s kneeling cross-legged on Paxton’s bedroom floor surrounded by instruction manuals.
“You are genuinely the most irritating person I have ever met,” she says flatly while glaring up at me from beneath messy blonde hair she shoved into a clip twenty minutes ago.
I lean back against the half-assembled wardrobe pretending innocence. “That feels dramatic, sweetheart.”
“It is not dramatic. You are stealing my hardware.”
“Borrowing.”
“You hid it in your pocket and are not giving it back. How is that borrowing?”
She looks me with narrowed eyes. The late afternoon sun coming through the window catches the irritation across her face and somehow makes her prettier instead of less intimidating.
Several weeks ago she barely tolerated us inside this house. Now she’s glaring at me like we’ve known each other forever.
I like this version better.
Sounds from upstairs echo faintly through the house while Lena and Paxton race between rooms carrying dinosaur figurines and folded blankets with the kind of seriousness only children can assign to imaginary games.
Every few minutes one of them appears in the doorway to report critically important updates about forts or stuffed animals before disappearing again.
The entire scene feels so domestic it should probably concern me more than it does.
Instead, I’m sitting on the floor of Nora’s son’s bedroom, helping assemble furniture like this has always been my life.
“You absolutely should’ve let us buy this stuff,” I tell Nora, finally handing over the missing screw.
She snatches it from my fingers. “I told you already, I can buy things for my own child.”
“You can,” I agree easily. “You just don’t have to.”
She rolls her eyes and ignores me, going back to struggling with the instructions.
The thing about Nora is that she keeps pretending this arrangement still surprises her while simultaneously falling into routine with us more every day.
She expects breakfast now. Expects us at school drop-offs.
Expects help carrying groceries or fixing plumbing or building furniture.
Most importantly, she expects us to stay.
Paxton appears suddenly beside me, waving both hands until I look over.
His grin stretches wide before he signs excitedly. Lena says dinosaurs cannot live in castles, but she is wrong.
I glance toward the hallway where Lena’s dramatically offended face appears seconds later. Dinosaurs are too big for castles, she signs emphatically.
That is not true.
It is true because I said it.
“Solid argument,” I tell her solemnly.
Nora laughs under her breath while signing toward Paxton. Maybe the dinosaurs can live outside the castle.
He considers this deeply, then nods once, like we’ve solved an international conflict. Okay.
And just like that the crisis ends. I watch Nora watching him while she reorganizes pieces for the nightstand.
There’s something different about her lately.
Softer around the edges maybe. Not weaker.
Nora Martin could probably survive nuclear fallout through sheer stubbornness alone.
But softer and more willing to lean into moments instead of bracing against them constantly.
The first time we found her again outside that gas station she looked like someone waiting for disaster every second of the day. Everything about her had been tightly controlled. Careful. Even her posture looked prepared for impact. Now she laughs more.
I stand stretching my shoulders after finishing most of the bed frame. “I need the drill.”
“It’s in the garage,” Nora answers automatically before pausing. “Actually no, Paxton took it.”
My eyebrows lift. “Your five-year-old stole power tools?”
“He likes helping and I just take the tips and batteries out.”
“That does not answer my question of where it is...”
She sighs dramatically before standing. “Come on.”
I follow her downstairs and the kitchen smells faintly like garlic and chicken from whatever she started prepping earlier.
Half-chopped vegetables sit abandoned beside the sink while tiny plastic dinosaurs cover most of the table because apparently Paxton’s prehistoric empire expanded downstairs.
Viper is going to be pissed him missed baked chicken night.
Blade is already with the team in LA. The shipment is supposed to drop sometime in the next eighteen hours. Viper is at the clubhouse getting things ordered for their arrival back with the goods.
I had an excuse for being responsibility free today because Lena begged for a park day with Nora and Paxton.
Nora bends near the pantry cabinet searching shelves while I lean against the counter watching her.
“You know,” I say conversationally, “normal people usually buy furniture already assembled.”
“Normal people also pay three hundred extra dollars for it.”
“Worth it.”
“Not when I have free labor.”
I place a hand dramatically over my chest. “You wound me.”
She finally finds the drill before straightening. “I think you’ll survive.”
“Debatable.”
Her mouth twitches. There it is again. That almost-smile she tries to suppress every time she catches herself enjoying me too much.
“You’ve been less weird today,” she announces suddenly.
I blink. “Less weird?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Actually I don’t.”
She waves vaguely toward me. “Less…antagonistic.”
“Sweetheart, I’m always antagonistic.”
“Yes, but usually with extra emotional terrorism.”
I laugh loud enough that she startles slightly before glaring at me again. “Emotional terrorism is harsh.”
“You compared my measuring skills to a drunken raccoon earlier.”
“That was constructive criticism.”
“That was bullying.”
“You’re very cute when you’re irritated.”
Nora freezes for half a second before she clears her throat quickly and brushes past me toward the stairs. “You’re insufferable.”
“And yet you keep inviting me over.”
By the time the furniture is fully assembled two hours later, Paxton’s room looks almost entirely transformed.
The teal walls Nora painted weeks ago with Viper finally feel complete now. New wardrobe against one wall. Matching bookshelf. Small nightstand beside the trundle bed. Paxton’s dinosaur blankets already spread messily across the mattress because apparently waiting until bedtime wasn’t an option.
Lena sits cross-legged helping organize books while Paxton proudly explains where every stuffed dinosaur belongs.
Nora watches the two kids quietly from the doorway beside me.
“They already act like siblings,” I murmur.
Her jaw shifts once slightly. “Yeah.”
A while later, after dinner, we clean up together while the kids disappear upstairs, supposedly to keep playing. The house gradually quiets around us while dishes clink softly in the sink and warm yellow light fills the kitchen.
It feels easy as Nora hands me another plate to dry. “You missed a spot.”
“You’re becoming very demanding lately.”
“You dry dishes like a distracted teenager.”
“I am deeply wounded by your lack of appreciation.”
“You survive worse daily.”
Fair. The house goes suspiciously quiet upstairs. Every parent instinct in Nora activates instantly.
She straightens from the sink immediately. “That’s never good.”
“Silence is always suspicious,” I agree.
We head upstairs together expecting disaster. Instead we stop short in Paxton’s doorway.
Lena is completely asleep, curled on the trundle bed below, wrapped halfway in a dinosaur blanket while Paxton sleeps sprawled across the top mattress above her.
One stuffed triceratops dangles dangerously near his face.
A picture book lies open beside Lena’s arm, like they passed out mid-conversation.
Both of us go still for a second. Nora softens beside me while watching them sleep.
“I don’t want to wake them,” she says quietly.
I glance toward her. Something passes silently between us.
Then Nora clears her throat awkwardly. “I mean…if you want, Lena can just stay here tonight.”
There it is. I watch realization hit Nora almost immediately afterward, too, because she suddenly looks nervous in a way she wasn’t thirty seconds ago.
I step beside her calmly. “That’d be alright with me, babygirl.”
Nora pulls out her phone and snaps a picture of the kids sleeping. A second later my phone buzzes from the group chat.
Nora:
Apparently furniture assembly exhausted them.
Blade responds almost instantly with a heart reaction before sending another message and Viper’s reaction pops up soon after.
Blade:
Where did that bed come from?
Viper:
We didn’t buy that.
Nora laughs quietly under her breath while tucking her phone away again. “Unbelievable.”
“They’re offended you spent money without us,” I explain.
“That is insane behavior.”
“No I agree with them.”
“Because you’re all insane.”
I chuckle and follow behind her downstairs. With the children asleep upstairs the house settles quieter around us. I dim most of the downstairs lights while Nora makes tea she doesn’t actually drink much of.
I sit at the kitchen island, watching her move around the space barefoot in leggings and an oversized sweater that constantly slides off one shoulder. Her hair’s halfway falling out of the clip now from the long day.
She looks comfortable and soft and entirely too fucking pretty for a random night assembling furniture.
“You’re staring,” she says eventually, without turning around.
“You’re distracting.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
“It definitely is.”
I huff a quiet laugh from the other side of the kitchen. Nora glances toward me and immediately goes still again at the fact I’m still staring.
The awareness shifts the whole room and I see it happen in real time.