Sunlight hit the kitchen first.
Ethan came down late on purpose. Late enough that it looked like sleep and not like he had been staring at floating text until his hands stopped shaking.
The Cole kitchen was already moving. Coffee. Toast. The radio on low. A house that ran on schedule whether he belonged in it or not.
Alexandra was at the counter in a sweatshirt, hair up, pulling plates like she had been doing it for years. She looked over her shoulder and her face changed in that small way it always did when she saw him.
"There you are. I was about to come upstairs and check if you were actually alive. You never sleep this late unless something’s wrong, and you look like you lost an argument with your pillow."
Ethan pulled out a chair. "I slept. It just didn’t do much. I didn’t mean to make you wait on breakfast."
"You didn’t make me wait. I made too much because I always do, and I’m not throwing it away because you decided to be dramatic." She set a plate down in front of him. "Sit. Eat before Isabella starts narrating your face."
Isabella was already at the island with her phone and a glass of juice she had barely touched. Nineteen, same age as him, and somehow always dressed like she had somewhere better to be even when she didn’t.
She looked him up and down. "Okay, no, I need an explanation. Why do you look like that? Because that is not I-slept-in hair. That is I-walked-home-and-hated-every-minute-of-it hair."
"I did walk home. It wasn’t that far, and I wasn’t in the mood to ask anyone for a ride after last night."
"You are never in the mood to ask anyone for a ride. You like pretending you don’t need anything, which would be impressive if it didn’t make you look tragic on a Saturday morning." She leaned in a little, grinning. "And your shirt is wrinkled. If you’re going to sneak in after midnight, you could at least look like you had fun instead of like you lost."
Alexandra flicked a towel toward her. "Leave him alone. He just sat down, and he hasn’t even had coffee yet."
"I am leaving him alone. I’m being helpful. There’s a difference. He looks like somebody stepped on him, and if I don’t say it, he’s going to walk around campus like that and make it worse."
"He looks tired, Isabella. That is not the same thing as an invitation for you to do a full review."
"That’s what I said. Tired. Tragic. Same family."
Ethan started eating so he would not have to give either of them a better target. He could feel both of them watching him in different ways. Alexandra like she wanted to fix whatever was wrong. Isabella like she wanted to poke it until he admitted it.
Veronica came in from the hallway with her phone in one hand and a blazer over her arm.
Forty-two. Hair done. Makeup clean. The kind of woman who made a Saturday morning look like a meeting. She took in the table, then him, and the room tightened a little without her raising her voice.
"You’re up late. I heard you come in after eleven, and I don’t love starting my morning by wondering whether you were going to sleep through the day."
"I lost track of time. I should’ve come down earlier instead of letting it turn into a whole conversation."
Veronica set her phone on the counter and poured coffee like the conversation had already been decided. "Ashbourne had something last night. I heard about it before I went to bed, which means it was large enough for people to talk. Were you there?"
Isabella’s eyes lifted from her phone. Alexandra went still by the stove.
Ethan cut into the eggs so he would not have to look at all three of them at once. "There was a party on the east quad. I went for a little while and I didn’t stay. It was loud, and it wasn’t worth the walk back."
"Who invited you? I want a name, not a weather report."
"It wasn’t that kind of thing. Enough people from campus were going that it didn’t need a formal invitation. I wanted to see what it was, and then I left."
Veronica turned to face him fully. "That is not the same as answering me. If you were there, I want to know who you were with and whether I should expect a phone call about it later."
"You shouldn’t. I talked to a couple of people, I got bored, and I came home. That’s the whole night, and it is not going to follow us into this kitchen unless somebody makes it."
Isabella let out a short laugh. "So you went to a rich-kid party, decided you hated it, walked all the way back, and now you look like somebody scraped you off the sidewalk. That is so on brand I almost don’t want to make fun of you."
Alexandra ignored her and watched Ethan instead. "Did something happen? Because you can say it was loud and boring if you want, but you don’t usually come downstairs looking like that over a bad speaker."
He met her eyes and gave her just enough to hold. "It wasn’t my crowd. I thought it might be useful, and it wasn’t. That’s all. You don’t need to turn it into a thing and carry it around all morning."
Veronica drank her coffee, then set the cup down with care. "If someone said something to you, I want to hear it from you. Not from a parent, and not from a rumor two days from now. I will not find out that my house is being discussed because you decided to be private about it."
There it was. Care dressed as a rule.
He could have told her Ryan’s line about the spare kid on the books. He could have watched her face change. He did not.
Pity would make the house softer. Softness would make him easier to keep. He needed the house quiet, not protective.
"Nobody said anything worth repeating. If people want to talk, they can talk. It doesn’t need to come back here, and I am not going to hand it to you just so you can fix a night that is already over."
Veronica studied him for a second longer than was comfortable. Then she nodded once, like she was filing the answer, not accepting it.
"Fine. Then eat. You look thin, and I don’t have time this morning to stand here and drag the rest of it out of you."
Isabella mouthed the word thin at him across the island, delighted with herself.
Alexandra put another piece of toast on his plate anyway. "Ignore both of them. Do you actually have something to do today, or are you going to sit in your room and stare at the wall until you look worse?"
"I need to go back to campus. There are a couple of things I should handle before Monday, and I don’t want them sitting all weekend."
Isabella turned her phone face-down. "Things. That’s very specific. It’s Saturday, Ethan. Normal people recover from humiliating themselves at parties. They don’t immediately invent errands so they can look busy."
"Some of us don’t get to treat Saturday like a personality. I have work to do, and it isn’t that interesting, which is why I am not giving you a play-by-play."
"You’re in a mood, which means it is interesting." She tipped her head, watching him too closely. "Was Madison there? Because if you actually talked to her and it went badly, I want the story. If you went all the way there and didn’t talk to her, that’s worse, and I will not let it die just because you want breakfast to stay polite."
He did not let the pause get big enough to use. "There were a lot of people there. I didn’t stay long enough to take attendance, and I’m not doing this with you over eggs."
Isabella’s smile sharpened, then faded when he didn’t take the bait. That was how she loved him. She pushed until she found the edge, then pretended she had only been joking.
Veronica picked up her phone again and checked the time. "I have a call at ten. If you need the car, you ask me. If you need money for food, you ask me. What you do not do is wander around this city looking like you have no one and then act surprised when people talk."
Ethan looked at her then.
Strict. Controlled. Already halfway out the door. The woman who had taken him in and still talked to him like a standard he was supposed to meet.
He cared about her. That was the problem. Caring made the next part uglier, and he was going to do it anyway.
"I won’t wander around looking like that. I’ll ask if I need something, and I will comb my hair before I leave."
"See that you do." She paused at the doorway, eyes on him one last time. "If you are going back to campus, you will not look like last night followed you there. I mean it, Ethan."
Then she was gone.
Alexandra let out a breath and dropped into the chair across from him. "She’s been like that all week. Work. Don’t take it personal. She does this when she’s stretched thin, and it comes out like she’s angry at whoever’s sitting closest."
"I didn’t take it personal. I heard the rule, not the insult."
"You did a little. I know that face." She softened her voice and kept it between them. "You can tell me if last night was bad. I’m not going to run to her with it. I just don’t like watching you sit there and sand everything down until there’s nothing left to ask."
He almost believed that. Alexandra would keep a secret if she thought it would protect him. That was why he could not give her the real one.
"It was just a party, Alex. If it had been worth talking about, I would. I don’t need you carrying it around all day when there is nothing you can do with it."
She searched his face, then nodded, unhappy and willing to wait. "Okay. Then eat the toast before it gets cold. I’m not making you a third one just because you decided to go quiet."
Isabella slid off the stool and flicked his ear on the way past. "If you actually talked to Madison and bombed, I want details later. If you didn’t talk to her, I’m going to assume the worse version and tell it better than you would. Either way, comb your hair. Mom’s not wrong."
"You’re a menace, and you know I am not giving you a recap in the hallway."
"I’m your favorite, and you know it. Don’t disappear all day and then come home looking worse than you do right now."
She said it like a joke. She also hesitated at the doorway long enough to glance back, just once, before she disappeared down the hall.
The kitchen went quiet except for the radio.
Ethan sat with the food Alexandra had made and the rules Veronica had left behind and the bruise Isabella had turned into comedy.
The air in front of his plate thinned.
[Quest Active: Stand Up Without Help]
[Objective: Secure a private conversation with Madison Blake after the party, or obtain your first independent source of money.]
[Reward: 300 CP]
[Bonus: +100 CP if the Cole household never hears the full story of last night.]
[Current CP: 0]
[Abilities: None]
He looked at the text until it felt less insane than it had at midnight.
Madison would be the faster wound to close. Money would be the one that mattered.
He could do both if he moved like someone who had not just been humiliated in front of half the quad.
Alexandra’s voice came from the sink. "You’re thinking too loud again. I can hear it from over here."
"I’m eating. That is the only thing I am doing at this table."
"You’re plotting. You get that same look when you’re about to do something stubborn and then tell me it was nothing." She shut the water off and dried her hands. "Whatever it is, don’t make it worse. And text me if you’re going to be late. I don’t want to spend the afternoon guessing whether you walked home again."
Ethan picked up the toast.
"I won’t make it worse," he said.
He already knew he would.