Page 56 of What We Don't Say: Part One

Garrett waits, steady beneath me.

I lift my head and tap twice against his chest.

“Yellow,” he says softly. “Almost, then.”

The word almost settles something I couldn't settle by myself. I nod once, relieved enough that my throat tightens, and Garrett’s hand presses between my shoulders with careful weight.

“We’ll watch it,” he says. “You don’t have to handle that alone.”

I lower my face to his neck again.

For a little while, Garrett lets the study stay quiet around us. He moves one file closer with his free hand and reads without shifting me out of place. When his phone buzzes beside his elbow, he glances at it and leaves it there. His hand stays on my back, warm through Callie’s hoodie.

My mouth brushes his throat when I turn my face.

Garrett breathes in, and I feel the change in his body beneath mine. He stays still, but the air between us warms. My fingers grip his shirt before I decide to do it.

“Color,” he says.

I tap once.

Garrett doesn't move toward me. That is what lets me move first.

I lift my head. My lips touch the corner of his mouth and stop there, clumsy with nerves. He keeps one hand at my back and lets me fix the angle. When I try again, his mouth meets mine gently, the pressure restrained enough that I can leave if I need to. I don't leave.

The kiss is different from Callie’s and Sloane’s. Garrett holds more still than both of them, giving me one careful answer at a time. My body warms too quickly anyway, need rising through my stomach and into my throat until I have to stop and tuck myself back against his chest.

Garrett lets me curl down instead of chasing the kiss.

I count his heartbeat beneath my ear until my breathing slows. The study stays around us, close and steady, but the missing pieces of the house keep pressing at the edges. Callie’s empty room. Sloane’s note in the kitchen. Idris’s folded blanket in the sunroom.

“Where’s Callie?” I ask softly.

Garrett’s hand pauses for a second. “At the school. She had work to finish before tomorrow.”

My fingers tighten in his shirt.

“She should be home before dinner,” he adds, and the answer helps without fixing everything.

I look toward the open study door.

“Sloane stepped out for a while,” Garrett says. “Idris is at Blackline.”

The house feels too quiet again as soon as he names everyone gone. My body folds closer to his before I can stop it.

“They thought quiet would help,” he says. “So did I.”

I shake my head once against his shirt.

Garrett sits with that for a moment. His arm shifts around me, holding me more securely, and when he speaks again, the words are careful without feeling fragile.

“Then we misunderstood the kind of quiet you needed,” he says. “We can change that. The house doesn't need to be empty for you to settle. Someone can be home, or close enough for you to find, while you learn the rooms.”

I nod into him.

He reaches into the desk drawer and takes out a phone in a plain black case. It is already charged. When he presses the side button, the screen wakes to a simple background and asks for a passcode.

“I was going to give this to you after dinner,” Garrett says, placing it in my hands. “When your voice locks, you shouldn't have to wait for someone to guess what you need.”