Page 108 of The Final Cut

“When bleeding.”

Delia’s gaze moves to the hallway, concern etched into her features.

Ever cracks eggs into a bowl. “Delia, how do you like your eggs?”

She turns her mug again. “I’m vegan.”

The kitchen goes silent. Ever freezes with an egg in one hand and half a shell in the other.

I look at the bacon, then the eggs, then my sister’s now completely untroubled face. My brain tries to place veganism inside Isabel’s house and fails so thoroughly that nothing comes out of my mouth.

The front hall opens before anyone recovers. Shiloh walks in with damp hair, a hospital visitor badge still clipped crookedly to his jacket, and Deacon strides in behind him looking pale and irritated in the way men do when they have been ordered to rest and are ignoring the order.

Shiloh stops at the edge of the kitchen. “Why are we all staring at breakfast like it made a threat?”

Deacon’s eyes sweep the room. “What happened?”

Ever points the spatula at Delia. His expression is offended in a way I have never seen before. “That one is a damned vegan, and now I need meat substitute so she gets enough protein and shit.”

Homer chooses that exact moment to leap onto Delia’s lap.

He lands badly, all elbows and entitlement, and she sucks in a breath through her teeth as his weight bumps her knees. Before I can stand, her hand comes down over his back. Not grabbing. Not pushing him away. Just holding him in place, startled by his warmth.

Homer looks at Ever and meows. Accusingly.

I stare at Delia. “I don’t see how it’s possible that wretched woman allowed you to be vegan.”

Delia sighs.

“I’m just fucking with you.” She strokes Homer once, slow and careful. “I’d like my eggs poached, please.”

Ever’s face changes. “You want them poached?”

Delia looks up at him, perfectly composed. Then she giggles.

It is not much at first. A small break in her breathing, a sound she seems as startled by as the rest of us. Then it slips out again, clearer this time, young and high-pitched and entirely at odds with the bruises around her wrists.

Everyone stops.

Shiloh’s smile fades into something softer. Deacon looks away as if the sound costs him to hear. Ever stands at the stove with the spatula still raised, cheeks going red because Delia Hart has somehow defeated him with eggs. Even Nash, appearing silently in the hall with his phone in hand, pauses before stepping into the room.

Then Shiloh laughs.

He cannot help it. It comes out low and delighted, and that is all it takes. The pressure in the kitchen cracks. Ever mutters something about poached eggs being an unreasonable ambush. I laugh harder because his ears are red now, and because Delia is still petting my awful cat with one bandaged hand, and because for one minute no one is bleeding fresh.

Delia’s giggle disappears quickly, tucked away the second she realizes the room has noticed, but the sound stays behind.

It changes the air.

Shiloh crosses to me first, presses a kiss to the top of my head, then drops a paper hospital bag on the table. “For the record, Cal is stable, the night nurse is terrified of me in a fond way, and the cafeteria coffee is a war crime. Also, I brought muffins made by professionals.”

I look toward the sink where my bowl is drowning in shame.

“You told him?” I ask Ever.

“I had concerns.”

“I was making breakfast.”