Kitchen – 6:18 p.m. – Post-babysitting pickup

You’re helping Mara unload groceries while Violet’s on the floor coloring a picture of a tiger. It’s casual. Familiar. Too familiar, maybe.

You’re bent slightly over the counter, organizing cereal boxes when Violet chimes in out of nowhere.

“My mom said you were dangerous.”

You laugh lightly. “Oh yeah?”

Violet doesn’t even look up. “She said you’d ruin her if she wasn’t careful.”

You glance over your shoulder at Mara, who’s frozen mid-unbagging.

“She did, huh?”

Violet keeps going. “She said you’d ruin her in a good way. Like, wreck her.”

You choke on air.

Mara mutters, “Jesus Christ—”

Violet continues sweetly, like she’s reciting from a memory book. “She said you had that face that makes people say yes before they hear the question. And that if you ever—” she pauses, brow furrowed, “—if you ever sat on her lap again, she wouldn’t walk straight the next day.”

You drop the cereal box. Mara drops the entire grocery bag.

“Violet.”

“What?” she blinks up innocently. “You did say that.”

Mara clears her throat, eyes flicking to you. “Time for homework, baby. Let’s go.”

“But—”

“Now.”

Violet sighs dramatically, grabs her notebook, and marches into the other room, leaving a silence so charged you could strike a match with it.

You turn to Mara, arms folded, lips twitching with amusement and a lot of something else.

“You got anything else you wanna confess while she’s occupied?”

Mara steps forward, slow. Close. Close enough that her voice barely needs to move.

“She left out the part about me thinkin’ you’d sound real pretty beggin’.”

Your stomach flips.

“I thought we were keeping it professional,” you murmur.

She leans in, voice dark, gritty. “I thought I was too. Then you bent over for the oatmeal and I lost religion.”