The idea didn't arrive gently. It never did with Tina. It came in the middle of the afternoon, sunlight spilling through the tall windows of the current house, warm and lazy, catching dust motes in the air. Andrew was half-reclined on the couch, one hand absently resting on his belly, the other scrolling through something on his phone with mild concentration. The room smelled calm—honey-soft, steady, domestic.
Too calm. Tina stopped pacing. That alone should have worried him. She stood in the middle of the living room, silver hair slightly mussed, icy-blue eyes slowly lighting up like she'd just solved a riddle only she could see. Her vanilla-mint pheromones shifted—not sharp, not chaotic yet, but alert. Focused. The pre-chaos state. Andrew glanced up.
"Tiny?"
She snapped her fingers.
"I've decided something."
Andrew sighed, already bracing himself.
"That sentence has never ended well."
