Chapter 88 Moon

Chapter 88 Moon
My mom gets discharged Tuesday. Caleb texts before I even ask. What time does she get out? I'll drive. No explanation needed.

She insists on cooking that night, moving slow but refusing help with the sauce, waving me off every time I reach for the spoon.

Over dinner, she tells embarrassing stories, the way moms do when they finally have an audience who'll actually listen. Mia at six, wearing rain boots to school for a month straight because she refused any other shoes. Mia at nine, alphabetizing the pantry by color instead of letter because it made more sense to her that way.

Caleb listens like he wants every last detail, laughing in the right places, asking questions that make her light up even more.

After dinner, he helps dry the glasses beside me at the sink.

"I like it here. This feels real."

"It is real."

He looks at me, towel still in his hands. "I don't want this to end when the sixty days run out."

"Neither do I."

Neither of us speaks again for a moment, the water still running, my mom humming something in the next room, and for once the silence between us doesn't feel like something we need to fill.

Danny wanders in for seconds, spaghetti sauce already on his chin. "You guys are being weird and quiet."

"We're drying dishes, Danny."

"You're staring at each other while drying dishes. That's different." He grabs another plate and heads back to the living room, unbothered, leaving the two of us alone again at the sink.

Caleb laughs under his breath. "Your brother doesn't miss much."

"Neither does my mom, unfortunately."

"I like this family. I know I've mentioned that already tonight, but I mean it every time."

"They like you too. Which honestly surprises me more than it should."

"Why's that?"

I dry the last glass, setting it carefully in the rack. "Because you're supposed to be the arrogant hockey captain who called me manager girl for three months. This version of you is a lot harder to hate."

He takes the towel from my hands, setting it aside. "Good. I was hoping you'd stop eventually."

"Don't get used to it."

"Too late," he says, and the smile that follows makes it hard to remember why I ever wanted to keep hating him in the first place.

My mom calls me back into the kitchen once Caleb's gone, dishes finally done, the house quiet again.

She settles slowly into her chair. "He's good with your brother. Danny doesn't warm up to people that fast."

"Danny warms up to anyone who'll play video games with him for an hour."

She takes my hand, her grip still weaker than it used to be but steadier than it was in the hospital. "It's more than that and you know it. I like watching you with him, Mia. You look less like you're bracing for something bad to happen."

"Old habits."

Her voice catches slightly. "I know. I gave you plenty of reasons to build them, between your father leaving and me getting sick. I just want you to hold onto something good without waiting for the other shoe to drop every single time."

"I'm trying."

She squeezes my hand once more. "I can tell. That's enough for tonight. Go to bed. You look happier than I've seen you in a long time, and I don't want to keep you up analyzing it instead of just enjoying it."

I kiss her forehead and head upstairs, the spaghetti sauce smell still clinging faintly to my sleeves.

Caleb texts once I'm upstairs, like he can somehow sense when we've just been talking about him downstairs.

Your mom likes me, right? I couldn't totally tell.

She adores you. Told me so the second you left.

Good. I was nervous, actually. More nervous than I've been at any press conference.

Why?

Because press conferences don't matter to me the way tonight mattered. I wanted her to see I'm not just some rich kid using her daughter for good press.

She saw exactly that. Trust me.

I do trust you, he writes back. That's the part that still surprises me a little, how easy it's become to trust you with things I don't usually let anyone see.

I read the message twice, the warmth from dinner still lingering, and type back the most honest thing I can manage before finally turning off my light. Same here. Goodnight, Caleb.

Goodnight, Mia, he writes back, and I drift off quicker than I have in weeks, the sixty day countdown feeling smaller somehow than it did this morning.

Chloe sends one last message before I finally put my phone away for the night.

How'd dinner go? Did your mom interrogate him properly?

She adored him. Practically adopted him on the spot.

Called it. I told you she would.

You did. Repeatedly, actually.

That's what best friends are for. Being right and never letting you forget it.

I laugh quietly in the dark, spaghetti sauce and dish towels and a boy who fit so easily into my small, complicated family that it almost scared me how natural it felt.

Get some sleep, Chloe adds. Tomorrow you get to keep being disgustingly happy in front of the rest of us.

I don't argue with that either. I set my phone on the nightstand, the sixty day countdown finally feeling like something we might actually get to choose instead of something counting down toward an ending neither of us wants anymore.

Down the hall, I hear my mom moving around her room, quiet footsteps, the soft click of her lamp. I knock gently before poking my head in.

"You're still up?"

She pats the edge of her bed. "Couldn't sleep. Good kind of restless, for once. Come sit a minute."

I sit, the room dim except for the small lamp on her nightstand.

"I like him, Mia. Really like him. Not just for what he's doing for you financially, either. For how he looks at you when he thinks nobody's watching."

"I've noticed that too."

She squeezes my hand. "Good. Hold onto that. Whatever else happens with his father, or the contract, or any of it. That look is the part worth keeping."

"I will."

She kisses my forehead, same as always. "I know you will. Now go to bed. You look happy, and I don't want to keep you up analyzing it instead of just enjoying it, same as I told you last week."

I laugh softly and head back to my own room.

Danny's light is still on when I pass his door, muffled sound of a video game bleeding through the crack.

"You're supposed to be asleep."

"You're supposed to be asleep too. Rules apply to both of us equally."

"Fair point." I lean against his doorframe. "Good night, though. All of it."

"Yeah. Caleb's cool. Don't tell him I said that."

"Your secret's safe."

"Good." He pauses the game to actually look at me. "You seem happy lately. Like, actually happy, not just okay happy."

"I am."

"Good." He shrugs, twelve years old and suddenly serious in a way that surprises me. "You deserve that. After everything with Mom and everything else."

I don't have a quick response for that, so I just ruffle his hair on my way past, same as our mom does to him, and head to my own room, the whole house finally quiet, the whole night one I know I'll want to remember for a long time.