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Then his eyes flick toward the rest of the tray, lingering on the black pen and the little notepad beside it before coming back to me, uncertainty gathering in his expression again, as if he’s trying to work out exactly what I expect in exchange for any of this.

“Why what?” I ask him.

He nudges another piece of cookie dough around the bowl without eating it. “Why did I earn it?”

Ah.

I lean back, bracing my palm against the mattress. “Because I told you good behavior gets rewarded, and you were good.”

The spoon stops moving.

Kamden looks at me like I’ve skipped several steps in an explanation. “I already was?”

Something in his voice—not just surprise, but the fragile tone of someone waiting for the other shoe to drop—catches me right under the ribs.

He genuinely thought there would be some unspoken probationary period, apparently. Some invisible threshold he had to reach before anything he did counted, or enough points he had to accumulate before I acknowledged that he’d tried.

“Yes, sweetheart. Already.”

A pretty red flush climbs his neck, but this time he doesn’t hide behind the rabbit. He just looks down at the bowl and takes another small bite, chewing slowly.

I continue, “You told me what you were thinking even when it was hard. You asked questions instead of sitting there making yourself sick with them. You cooperated when I took you out of the room, and even when you were angry with me, you stayed honest.” I lift one shoulder. “Seems reward-worthy to me.”

He swallows, then glances at the pen and notepad.

“Those are part of it too,” I say.

He reaches for the pad first. “What are they for?”

“I thought you could sketch.”

His gaze snaps up to mine. The reaction is subtle but unmistakable—the sudden alertness, the way the exhaustion recedes from his face for half a second.

“Sketch?” he whispers.

“Yeah.” I pick up the pen and turn it between my fingers. “I know this isn’t exactly professional-grade equipment. The notepad’s small, the paper is shit, and I don’t have anything other than that pen for you to draw with.”

His mouth curves faintly. “I can draw with pen.”

“I figured you probably could.”

“I just can’t erase.”

“Which seems like a pretty substantial flaw in the plan.”

A little more of that smile appears.

I hold the pen out. “This is just for today. I’ll get you real supplies.”

The smile vanishes. Suspicion tightens his expression. His eyes dart from the pen to the pad to my face, searching for the trick. “What kind of supplies?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You’re going to buy things when you don’t even know what they are?”

I gesture toward the pad. “You can tell me what you need for it. Sketchbooks, pencils, colored pencils, whatever.”

“You don’t have to do that.”