The house always felt different when she was there.

Jon noticed it the second he stepped through the front door.

Usually, coming home meant silence.

Not peaceful silence, either. The kind that settled over the house after a long day of meetings, phone calls, and arguments with people who thought their problems were somehow more important than his. His wife was rarely home anymore—always another business trip, another overseas conference, another excuse for why she couldn’t possibly make it back in time for dinner.

Tonight, though, there was noise.

Laughter.

Three sets of little footsteps thundering across the hardwood.

And then—

“YOU’RE HOME!”

Jon barely had time to take his coat off before his youngest launched herself at him.

“Hey, bug.”

He caught her easily, lifting her onto his hip.

His son appeared next, skidding around the corner in socks.

“Dad! She let us order pizza!”

Jon raised an eyebrow.

“She did, huh?”

From somewhere behind them came a voice.

“Before you get mad, they ate all their vegetables.”

Jon looked up.

And there she was.

The babysitter.

Twenty-four years old, standing barefoot in his kitchen with one of his daughter’s hair ties around her wrist and a smear of what looked suspiciously like tomato sauce on the sleeve of her sweater.

She smiled at him.

“Hi.”

Jon stared for half a second too long.

“Hey.”

It was ridiculous.

He’d seen her hundreds of times.

She’d been babysitting the kids for nearly a year. He knew she liked strawberry ice cream, knew his middle child only ate sandwiches if they were cut diagonally, knew his youngest refused to sleep unless someone checked under the bed first.

He knew all of that.

But lately, he’d started noticing other things.

Like how the house seemed warmer when she was in it.

How his kids laughed more.

How she’d started leaving a little lamp on in the hallway because she knew he hated walking into a dark house.

And, increasingly, how he found himself checking the clock at work and wondering whether she’d already arrived.

“Everything okay?” she asked.