Page 7 of Override

She smacks his hand with the spoon.

He looks genuinely wounded. “You used to love me.”

“I did. Then you put ketchup on homemade lasagna.”

Bullet lowers his phone just enough to mutter, “That was hard to watch.”

“I was experimenting.”

“You committed a hate crime,” I tell him.

Wheels points at me with the piece of garlic bread. “See? This is what I mean. He’s been extra hostile for months now.”

The kitchen goes quiet. Instantly. Wheels freezes with garlic bread halfway to his mouth. Matt closes the fridge door slower than necessary. Bullet looks up from his phone with the expression of a man witnessing an incoming train wreck.

Rachel’s eyes narrow. “Raymond.”

“What?” Wheels asks, horrified. “I was kidding.”

I blink once at all of them. Then once more.

“Oh,” I say slowly. “You all still think I’m upset about Cindy.”

The silence somehow gets worse. Which is fascinating, honestly. Because from my perspective, the situation resolved itself months ago. Problem identified. Threat removed. Lessons learned. Done.

Rachel turns the stove off and faces me fully, crossing her arms. “Keaton, you worked seventy-two straight hours last week and slept in the Grayline office because you said your apartment felt ‘structurally irritating.’”

“It was quiet.”

“You installed a second security system after a woman cheated on you.”

“That was unrelated.”

Matt hands me a beer. “It absolutely was related.”

I take it but don’t open it. “Correlation does not equal causation.”

Bullet snorts into his drink. Traitor.

Rachel stares at me for another long second before her expression softens into something dangerously close to pity. “Honey…”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re getting weird again.”

“I was always weird.”

“That’s true,” Wheels says carefully around garlic bread. “But before, you were like…fun weird.”

I look at him flatly. “You once got arrested in Prague for stealing a police horse.”

“It was not stealing. The horse followed me willingly.”

Matt drags a hand down his face while Rachel laughs under her breath.

The sound settles something strange in the room.

Normal.