The smell of pasta sauce fills the kitchen as I stir the pot, the familiar Thursday night routine a small comfort after the week I've had. Four nights at the casino, three special clients, and a bank account that's finally catching up to tuition season. Worth it, but damn if I'm not tired.

  "You're going down, tiny girl!" Chloe's voice booms from the living room, followed by a thud that makes me wince. My sister isn't exactly known for her restraint.

  I peek around the corner to see Diane pinned under Chloe's muscur frame, both of them red-faced and ughing. My daughter is no slouch, those hours at the gym have built her into something formidable, but Chloe's got six inches and two decades of training on her.

  "In your dreams, old dy!" Diane grunts, trying to leverage her hips to throw Chloe off bance. It's like watching a wolf cub challenge the pack leader. Adorable, futile, but necessary for growth.

  Shane sits perched on the edge of the couch, knees pulled up to his chest, eyes darting between his textbook and the impromptu wrestling match happening on our living room rug. Each time Chloe sms Diane down, he flinches slightly. Poor kid never did like conflict, even the pyful kind.

  "Come on, Shane," Chloe calls out, not even winded as she holds Diane in a headlock. "Jump in! I'll take on both Gray kids at once!"

  Shane's eyes go wide with something between terror and embarrassment. "I'm good," he mumbles, sinking deeper into the couch cushions.

  I watch as Chloe flips Diane onto her stomach, twisting her arm behind her back while my daughter ughs through gritted teeth. What started as pyful roughhousing is quickly turning into something more competitive. I know that look in Chloe's eye. She's showing off now, making a point about who's strongest.

  "Aunty! Aunty!" Diane yelps, still ughing but with an edge of real discomfort.

  Chloe doesn't let up. "Say I'm the queen of the house!"

  "Never!" Diane growls, struggling harder.

  I gnce at Shane again. He's abandoned any pretense of reading, watching his sister and aunt with visible anxiety. His knuckles are white where they grip his knees.

  That's enough.

  "Chloe!" I bark, spping the wooden spoon against the pot with a sharp crack. "Stop fucking around and come eat dinner!"

  Chloe releases her grip on Diane, rolling off with a dramatic sigh. "We weren't even fighting that hard, Will. Just blowing off some steam."

  I shoot her a look that could curdle milk.

  Chloe catches my expression, then gnces over at Shane still curled up on the couch. Something shifts in her face, a rare moment of self-awareness breaking through.

  "Ah, sorry, Will." She runs a hand through her short pixie cut, actually looking sheepish for once. "Come on, Diane. It's spaghetti time."

  Diane bounces up from the floor like she wasn't just pinned in a submission hold, rubbing her shoulder but grinning. "I almost had you that time."

  "Sure you did, kiddo," Chloe snorts, ruffling Diane's hair as they head toward the kitchen.

  Shane uncurls himself from the couch, textbook clutched to his chest like a shield as he follows them in. His shoulders rex a fraction once he crosses the threshold into the kitchen's warm light. Poor kid. Between his aunt and sister, he's constantly surrounded by women who could bench press him without breaking a sweat.

  I grab the serving spoon and start dishing out my specialty, spaghetti and meatballs that would make any Italian grandmother proud. Or at least that's what I tell the kids. The meatballs come straight from Trader Joe's frozen section, but I'll take that secret to my grave.

  "Dad, why are you obsessed with spaghetti and meatballs?" Shane asks as I pce a heaping portion in front of him. Despite his question, his eyes light up at the sight, fork already poised.

  "I'm not obsessed," I defend myself, moving on to fill Diane's pte. "It's called having a reliable meal pn."

  Diane snorts, twirling her fork in the pasta. "Dad, half of our conversations end with you saying 'Can't wait till spaghetti night.'"

  "Is it so wrong to look forward to a dinner with the family?" I ask, feeling oddly defensive as I take my seat at the table.

  Shane looks up from his pte, a string of spaghetti dangling from his lips. He slurps it up quickly before speaking. "But we eat dinner together all the time."

  Chloe scoffs, already three bites deep into her mountain of pasta. "Will just likes it. One day when he was sixteen, he was the daintiest, most scared little guy in the world, then he woke up one day acting like a girl, yelling about spaghetti."

  I nearly choke on my water. If only she knew the truth, that twenty-four years ago I literally woke up in this world, in this body, with no idea how I got here or how to get back. But there's no point telling her. What would I even say? "Hey sis, I'm actually from a parallel universe"? Yeah, that'd go over well.

  "Alright," I sigh, raising my hands in surrender. "I'm so sorry I love a food."

  Chloe chuckles and takes a big bite of her meatball before pointing her fork at Shane. "You know your mom actually hated spaghetti and meatballs."

  Shane's eyes widen. "She did?"

  "Yeah..." I nod, struggling to keep my face straight. "She wasn't a fan at all."

  Shane sets his fork down, suddenly interested in a part of his mother's life he never knew about. "How well did you know Mom, Aunt Chloe?"

  Chloe's expression shifts, her usual bravado dimming slightly. "Not well, kid. Your mother didn't like me much."

  "Because you always threatened to beat up her mom," I add, rolling my eyes at the memory.

  Chloe shrugs, unapologetic. "I thought she was some bitch trying to ruin my baby bro's life."

  Diane nearly chokes on her water. "Wait, why threaten our grandma though? What did she do?"

  A slow smile spreads across Chloe's face, that predatory look I know too well. "Makes it feel more powerful. Made it so her consequences fell to someone else."

  Shane's head snaps up, his fork cttering against the pte. "Is this why Grandma never talks to us?"

  The question hangs in the air like a thundercloud. I set my own fork down, feeling three pairs of eyes turn to me, waiting.

  "No, Shane..." I rub the back of my neck, searching for words that won't hurt him more than necessary. "She just... she just never accepted your mother's passing..."

  "Fucking coward is what she is," Chloe mutters, stabbing a meatball with unnecessary force.

  "Chloe," I warn, shooting her a look.

  She meets my gaze defiantly. "You swore earlier."

  "No… Don't bad-mouth their grandma in front of them," I say, my voice low but firm.

  Diane twirls pasta around her fork absently. "I can't even remember the st time we saw her?"

  "Your high school graduation," Shane answers immediately. "Over a year ago." His face falls as he adds, "She didn't show up to mine."

  The hurt in his voice cuts through me like a knife. I look at my son, my gentle, kind-hearted boy who deserves so much better than to be abandoned by his own grandmother.

  I push my pte away. "You know what? Chloe's right. Grandma is a fucking coward."

  Shane's lips quirk upward, not quite a smile but close enough. The tension in his shoulders eases just a bit.

  "Damn straight," Chloe says, raising her water gss like she's making a toast. "To hell with Judith Gray."

  I'm about to refill my water gss when Diane suddenly turns to me, her eyes curious.

  "What was Mom's favorite food anyway?" she asks. "Like, for real."

  The question catches me off guard, a simple thing that shouldn't hurt but somehow does. Memories fsh through my mind - Macy sitting across from me at that cheap Italian pce downtown, ughing as she picked olives off her slice.

  "Pizza," I say, the word feeling heavy on my tongue. "She loved pizza. Any kind, but especially with extra cheese and bck olives."

  Diane's eyebrows shoot up. "Oh, so not much better than spaghetti and meatballs then."

  "No," I say, shaking my head with a small smile. "Not much better. Your mom wasn't exactly a gourmet."

  Shane leans forward, suddenly engaged. "Did she have a favorite pce?"

  "Princess Pizza."

  Shane sighs, shaking his head. "Typical."

  His comment makes me smile despite the ache in my chest. For a moment, I can almost see Macy sitting at this table with us, dumping her meatballs onto my pte when she thought I wasn't looking.

  We fall into a comfortable silence after that, just the sound of forks scraping against ptes and the occasional request to pass the parmesan.

  I gnce across the table at Chloe, who's demolishing her third helping. "So, how's it going training Lara?" I ask, genuinely curious. My boss isn't exactly the type who takes direction well.

  Chloe pauses mid-bite, her expression darkening. "She's built like a damn bean sprout physically. All height, no substance, but..." She sets her fork down, which is unusual for her. "There's something about her that scares me to my core, Will."

  I nearly drop my gss. In all the years I've known her, I've never heard Chloe admit to being afraid of anyone.

  "Yeah, she's... intense," I offer, thinking of Lara's manic blue eyes.

  Chloe nods, and for once, she doesn't have a smartass comeback or tough-girl posturing. The silence that follows feels heavier than before.

  Chloe: