The afternoon was quiet in the best way.
Lucy ca back after lunch and they watched sothing completely mindless on the laptop...so cooking competition show they’d gotten into months ago when Aria was still a maid and Lucy used to sneak her phone into the laundry room so they could watch it between shifts. They’d never finished the season. They finished it now, sprawled across the bed with a bowl of grapes between them, arguing about whether the wrong person had won.
"She deserved it," Lucy said.
"The presentation was better, the food was not..."
"Aria. The food was incredible...."
"You haven’t tasted it, Lucy, you’ve only seen it..."
"I can tell by the judges’ faces...."
"That is not a valid tric...."
It was, Aria thought, one of the best afternoons she’d had in months.
Simple and pointless and exactly what she hadn’t realised she needed. No urgency, no threat assessnt, no being careful about what she said or how much she showed. Just her friend and a laptop and a completely unimportant argunt about a cooking show.
She felt so tight thing in her chest loosen.
She hadn’t even noticed it was there until it went.
Her phone rang at half seven.
She was alone by then....her mother had gone to get dinner started with Mrs. Chen, Lucy had been called downstairs, Damien hadn’t co back yet but he’d texted twice, which she’d learned to read as his version of checking in without hovering. The room was going golden with evening light and she was half-reading the dical journal she’d given up on three days ago when the screen lit up.
She answered.
"You’re back at the estate." Alexander’s voice, even and controlled in the way she’d co to recognize as his version of trying not to say too much.
"I am."
"How was the first day?"
She thought about Mrs. Chen’s soup and Lucy’s comntary on the cooking show and her mother’s hands over hers and the note Damien had left propped against the lamp.
"Good," she said. "It was actually good."
A pause that lasted just a beat too long. "I’m glad."
She could hear sothing underneath it....the effort of saying that and aning it. Of being glad she was at Damien’s estate and not Singapore, even though every part of him had wanted the opposite.
"Thank you for calling," she said.
"I said I would."
"You did." She shifted against the pillows. "Dad. You okay?"
Another pause. This one surprised her, she could tell.....he hadn’t expected to be asked. "I’m fine," he said, and then, after a beat, with the particular quality of soone making an effort: "I’ve been thinking about what you said. In the hospital. About going around you."
"I ant it."
"I know. I know you did." He paused. "I’ve been trying to understand whether I can actually change that reflex or just suppress it. There’s a difference."
"There is," she agreed.
"I haven’t figured it out yet." He said it plainly. No decoration on it, which she was starting to understand was Alexander at his most honest....when he stopped performing certainty and just said the actual thing. "But I’m trying to figure it out. That’s what I wanted you to know."
She looked at the evening light on the ceiling.
"That’s enough for now," she said. "Trying to figure it out is enough."
He was quiet for a mont. When he spoke again his voice was slightly different....sothing underneath the evenness.
"Get so rest," he said. "I’ll call tomorrow."
"Okay."
"And Aria?" A pause. "I’m glad you’re save."
She didn’t respond imdiately. Just sat with that for a second, the word save from his mouth, and what it ant that he’d used it for the estate. For Damien’s estate.
"Goodnight, Dad," she said.
She hung up and looked at the ceiling for a long mont.
Then the bedroom door opened and Damien walked in, still in his work clothes, his jacket over his arm, looking like soone who had been dealing with sothing difficult for the better part of twelve hours. His eyes went to her imdiately....that specific scan that she’d stopped finding intrusive because she’d realised a long ti ago it wasn’t surveillance. It was just him making sure she was okay. It was just what he did.
"You ate," he said, clocking the empty soup bowl.
"Mrs. Chen was very persuasive."
"She always is." He dropped his jacket over the chair and ca to sit on the edge of the bed beside her. "Alexander called."
"How did you know?"
"I guessed, because i know that he would "
"What did Marcus need?" she asked.
Damien’s jaw did sothing. A small thing. She caught it.
"Tomorrow," he said. "I’ll tell you tomorrow."
"Damien...."
"One day." He looked at her steadily. "You had one good day. Let it finish being good." He reached out and pushed a piece of hair back from her face. "Tomorrow."
She held his gaze for a mont.
The thing in his jaw. The careful way he’d said tomorrow. Whatever Marcus had brought him this morning, it wasn’t small.
But she looked at his face and decided to wait till tomorrrow.
"Fine," she said. "Tomorrow."
He let out a slow breath.
"Lie down," she said. "You look exhausted."
"I’m fine."
"You look exhausted," she repeated, "and I’m a doctor, so I’m going to need you to listen to ."
Sothing shifted in his face....that thing he did where he was trying not to smile and not quite succeeding. He lay down beside her, still fully dressed, and she turned toward him and put her hand on his chest and felt his heartbeat under her palm.
"Good day?" he asked.
"Really good," she said. "Lucy and I finished the cooking show."
"Who won?"
"Wrong person."
"Obviously."
She smiled against his shoulder. "Mrs. Chen got her hands on my mother’s secret recipe."
"I know. She told . She seed very pleased with herself about it."
"She should be. That soup was genuinely extraordinary."
His hand ca up and rested on her hair, the way it always did. Like gravity. Like sothing that didn’t require thought.
"Tomorrow," she said. Not a question. A reminder.
"Tomorrow," he confird.
She closed her eyes.
She was asleep before she finished deciding she wasn’t tired yet.
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