Sam
Jenna is still at the door, keys in hand, when I catch it out of the corner of my eye—my dad's shoulders locked tight, his jaw working the way it does right before he says something he doesn't want to say.
He's not talking to Bobbie or Marcus. He's talking to a woman I don't recognize.
"See you next week," I tell Jenna, my voice on autopilot, my eyes already sliding past her toward the back of the shop.
The woman is maybe in her forties. Nondescript in a way that feels almost deliberate—brown hair, plain jacket, nothing that would
make you look twice if you passed her on the street. But my dad is looking at her like she's a ghost.
I know that look.
I've spent months learning to read rooms, read tension, read the things people don't say out loud. This is not a stranger. Whatever
