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He looks at me. “I do.”

Something tightens in my throat.

“I don’t think I’m a particularly good mother,” I admit, picking at a crumb on the counter. “One of my kids is still desperate for his father’s approval, and the other ran off and married a hitman.”

I wince the second the words leave my mouth.

Levi’s eyebrows lift slightly, but his expression stays calm.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I say.

He just looks at me.

I sigh. “Fine. It’s exactly as bad as it sounds. But she’s happy. And he’s…surprisingly decent to her.”

Levi watches me for a long beat, studying my face.

“You think you could ever get past something like that?” he asks. “Knowing what he does?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. It’s her life. I have to respect her choices.”

“But what do you think?”

I take the muffin from his hand and peel the paper away for him. “I don’t like it. It scares me. He seems so normal, but he must have done horrible things.”

Something shifts in Levi’s face.

“Sometimes people get pulled into things,” he says quietly. “Doesn’t always start as a choice. They get in deep before they realize there’s no clean way out.”

I give him a strange look. “That’s a weird hill to die on.”

His mouth twitches, but his eyes stay serious. “Maybe. Just saying.”

“You’re not defending hitmen now, are you?”

“No.” He leans forward and takes the muffin straight from my fingers, his gaze dark and steady on mine. “I’m a respectable neighbor.”

“Who broke into my house a few days ago.”

“That was a security check.”

He swallows the muffin, then reaches for me with his good arm and pulls me against his chest. I go easily. My cheek settles against him and for a while we just stand there in the kitchen, quiet and comfortable.

Comfortable is the dangerous part.

“Can I ask you something?” I take a breath, trying to keep my voice light. Sensible. Casual. None of the things I actually feel. “What are we doing here?”

“I like this,” I continue carefully. “You. Theo. The muffins. The locks. The…” I wave vaguely around the kitchen, because it suddenly feels too intimate to name. “Whatever this is.”

Levi tenses.

“And I’m not asking you for anything big. I know my life is complicated. The divorce hasn’t even started yet. I just want to know if this is…going somewhere.”

The silence stretches.

I wish I could shove the words back into my mouth.

“I’m a monogamous kind of woman,” I add, because panic makes me talk more. “And if this is casual for you, that’s fine. I just need to be realistic. At some point, I’ll have to think about dating seriously again.”