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Peach.

Glitter.

Pretty colors.

Dangerous colors.

My throat closes around a sound I don’t recognize until it breaks out of me as a tiny whimper.

Adrien moves.

The box disappears from my line of sight, shoved somewhere behind him, and then his body replaces it completely as he kneels on the floor in front of me.

“Hey. Come here.”

He doesn’t wait for me to figure out whether I can move.

One arm slides behind my back, the other beneath my butt, and then I’m being pulled forward and down into his lap.

My arms lock around his neck so fast I nearly knock his chin with my forehead, and I bury my face into the warm space beneath his jaw, fingers twisting into the back of his shirt until the fabric bunches beneath my fists.

Adrien makes a quiet sound of surprise, then cups the back of my head and holds me against him. “That’s it, baby boy. I’ve got you. Daddy’s right here.”

I cling to him even harder.

I know I’m here, wherever here is, and not at home.

I know I’m nineteen, not ten.

I know Steven isn’t in this house, and that Adrien—no, my Daddy—would probably kill him if he walked through the front door.

That thought should make me feel better.

It does, a little.

But memory doesn’t seem to care about logic.

Adrien’s palm moves gradually between my shoulder blades, traveling from the base of my neck to the middle of my back and then up again in the same unchanging path, over and over, while his other hand stays tangled gently in my hair.

“No polish,” he murmurs against my ear. “Forget the polish.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”

“No.”

“I thought I could—”

“You don’t need to do anything.”

His beard brushes my forehead when he lowers his face. “Nothing in that box matters more than you being okay.”

I breathe against the hollow of his throat.

In. A shaky, shallow pull of air.

Out. A tremor I feel all the way in my ribs.

The next breath goes deeper, scraping less. The one after that finds a rhythm by matching his.