Page 39 of Grim

Abuela smiled. “Good. Now go before he eats the whole plate.”

Sophia hid her smile behind her hand. Her brothers ate like that, too, like food was a competition. Grim didn’t know it, but he was already fitting into the rhythm of her family.

Sophia pushed the kitchen door open and stepped back into the living room, Abuela’s words still echoing in her chest.

He looks at you like you settle him.

Settle him. The idea lodged somewhere deep, warm, and frightening all at once. She wasn’t ready to think about that. Not when her pulse was already doing strange, fluttery things.

Grim was exactly where she’d left him, perched stiffly on the edge of Abuela’s floral couch, boots planted on the braided rug like he was afraid to sink into the cushions. His shoulders were too broad for the room, too tense for the softness around him. But his eyes lifted the moment she walked in.

Not a big movement. Not dramatic. Just immediate. Like he’d been waiting for her.

Abuela laughed softly, patting his arm. “You eat like family.”

Grim froze. Sophia saw it — the way the word hit him like a blow and a balm all at once. Family. He didn’t wear that idea comfortably. She always had.

Her heart squeezed. He didn’t know how to take the word, like it was something sharp instead of soft. He didn’t know what to do with the warmth in her abuela’s voice. Didn’t know what to do with being welcomed instead of tolerated.

Abuela, of course, noticed everything. She moved past Sophia with a knowing smile and set a glass of horchata in front of Grim.

“For you, mijo.”

Grim blinked at the glass like it was a test he hadn’t studied for. “Uh… thank you.”

Sophia bit back a smile. He looked so out of place, this lethal, quiet man surrounded by crocheted blankets, family photos, and the smell of cinnamon. But he wasn’t mocking it. He wasn’t judging it. He was trying. Really trying.

And that did something to her.

She crossed the room and sat beside him, not too close, but close enough that her knee brushed his when she settled.

Grim went still.

Not tense. Not startled. Just aware.

Sophia pretended not to notice. “Sorry. Abuela likes to talk.”

“She likes you,” Grim said quietly.

Sophia blinked. “You can tell?”

He nodded once. “She looks at you like you’re her whole world.”

Sophia’s throat tightened. “She kind of is mine. My parents worked a lot when I was growing up. And my brothers…” She huffed a soft laugh. “They were chaos. Still are.”

Grim’s gaze softened — barely, but enough that she felt it. “You’re close to her.”

“Yeah,” Sophia said, voice gentler than she meant it to be. “She’s home.”

Grim looked away at that word. Not dismissively. Not coldly. More like it hurt.

She’d never realized how much she took that for granted, the feeling of belonging. He looked like a man who’d never had a place to land.

Sophia’s chest squeezed. “Did you have anyone like that growing up?”

He didn’t answer right away. His jaw flexed once, twice. “No.”

Just that. Simple. Honest. Heavy.