Vito went still the moment my arms wrapped around him.
I didn't notice at first. To me, he was the same person he had always been , the one constant on this island, the only person who felt like home. I had been leaning on him since I was five years old, and nothing in me had registered that things between us were supposed to be different now.
But Vito had noticed. He'd noticed before I had.
He was older in ways that went beyond age. Something had shifted in him over the past few years, some quiet internal change that showed up in the way he held himself , careful, measured, deliberate. Where I still moved on instinct, still reached for him without thinking, he had started to calculate every movement. I didn't understand why then. I just knew that lately he kept creating distance where there didn't used to be any.
He cleared his throat and turned back to the stove. "Food's almost ready. Go rest for a bit."
