Page 95 of Click of Fate

I grin. “Well, good thing one of you has faith in me.”

Maple trots over and bumps her head against my knee. I give her a scratch behind the ears, then glance up at the screen door just as it creaks open.

Harper steps out, arms crossed, wearing leggings, a hoodie, tall fuzzy boots and the unmistakableI-have-a-six-year-oldexhaustion. But she’s smiling.

“She waited out here for you,” she says, nodding toward Lilly. “Insisted she needed to be the welcome committee.”

“Seems like she’s got this place running on a tight ship.”

Harper laughs under her breath, then her eyes soften. “Good job.”

I raise a brow. “For what?”

“For not giving up on her,” she says, quiet enough that only I can hear it.

That lands deeper than I expect. Because there were moments, dark, heavy ones, where I almost did.

But I didn’t.

And now I’m standing here, watching the kid who keeps calling me her friend, the dog who follows me around like I hung the moon, and the younger sister who will probably always give me the side-eye even though she’s also given me her blessing.

The front door opens a little wider, and there she is, wearing jeans and a soft navy blue sweater, hair tucked up in that loose knot I pretend not to obsess over.

“Hi,” she says, cheeks flushed. “Lilly insisted we wait for you on the porch. But honestly, it’s too cold for that.”

“No complaints here,” I say, eyes locked on hers.

Lilly tugs on Maple’s leash. “Okay, now you two go do love stuff or whatever. I have a bath and a Barbie spa night to get to.”

Harper ruffles her daughter’s hair. “Say goodnight, Lil.”

Lilly gives Stella a huge hug, then Stella leans down to give Maple a kiss on the nose. While she does this, Lilly looks up at me. “Don’t forget to tell Aunt Stella she’s pretty. She forgets sometimes.”

I glance at Stella, who rolls her eyes but she’s smiling.

“Noted,” I say. “But for the record, I never forget.”

She shakes her head, but her eyes are bright.

We walk down the steps together, side by side, and I swear, for the first time in a long time, it feels like the start of something that might actually last.

Dinner is easy. The kind of easy that used to scare me—until her.

We don’t talk about big things right away. Just laugh about Maple’s latest chaos—she chewed through the corner of a throw pillow yesterday—and how Lilly tried to convince Harper to let her wear a tiara to school, but sadly, she had to leave it at home. I tell her Maddie caught one of our new instructors sneaking a date into the gym through the back entrance and trying to convince the girl he owned the place. Stella nearly chokes on her drink laughing.

It’s normal. It’s good.

When we get back to my place, she kicks off her shoes like she belongs—like this isn’t new anymore, just us slipping into something easy. And it hits me, quietly but all at once, how right this feels. The way she grabs two glasses from the cabinet without asking. How she always ties her hair up before dinner, like she already knows I’m going to end up pulling it loose.

We end up on the couch, the glow from the TV playing across her face. Something comfortingly mindless is on, neither of us really paying attention.

Her legs are tucked under her, fingers playing with the hem of my sleeve.

Then, softly, like she’s still testing the words out, she says, “So… my landlord’s selling the house.”

I shift slightly, surprised. “Yeah?”

She nods, eyes fixed on some invisible point past the TV. “I got a letter last month. Said I have first option to buy.”

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