The penthouse felt different in the soft afternoon light.
No board meetings. No lawyers. No headlines screaming from phones. Just sunlight slanting through the floor-to-ceiling windows, warming the hardwood floors, turning the river outside into a sheet of molten gold.
They didn't plan anything grand.
After Elena left with the signed affidavit and the promise of a temporary order by tomorrow, the three of them simply… existed.
Sophie curled on one end of the sectional with a throw blanket and her phone—scrolling through playlists, earbud in one ear, occasionally humming under her breath. Alicia sat cross-legged beside her, reading a Mary Oliver collection she'd pulled from Raymond's shelf—the same worn copy he kept on the side table. Raymond sprawled in the armchair opposite, laptop balanced on his knees, but he wasn't working. He was watching them—quietly, contentedly—while pretending to answer emails.
Every few minutes, one of them broke the silence with something small.
Sophie looked up from her phone.
"Do you guys ever just… do nothing?"
Alicia marked her page with a finger.
"All the time," she said. "Especially on Sundays. Raymond pretends he's working, but he's really just staring at the river like it owes him money."
Raymond snorted without looking up.
"I'm strategizing."
Sophie grinned—small, tentative, but real.
"You're staring."
"I'm strategically staring."
Sophie laughed—quiet, surprised by her own sound.
Alicia closed the book. Set it aside.
"What's on your playlist?" she asked Sophie.
Sophie hesitated—then pulled the earbud out and offered it.
Alicia took it. Slipped it in. Listened for a second.
"Phoebe Bridgers," she said, smiling. "Good taste."
Sophie's cheeks pinked.
"She gets it," she mumbled. "The sad-girl stuff. Without making it feel… pathetic."
Alicia nodded.
"Sometimes sad is just honest."
Sophie looked at her—really looked.
"You get sad too?"
Alicia exhaled slowly.
"All the time. Even now. But it doesn't own me anymore. It just… visits. Like an old friend who forgets to leave on time."
Sophie stared at the blanket in her lap.
"I feel like that with Dad sometimes. Like he's the visitor. And I'm the one who has to keep the house clean for him."
Raymond set the laptop aside. Moved to the couch—sat on Sophie's other side, close but not crowding.
"You don't have to keep anything clean for anyone here," he said quietly. "Not your room. Not your feelings. Not your thoughts. You can be messy. You can be quiet. You can be loud. Whatever you need."
Sophie swallowed.
"I don't even know what I need," she admitted.
Alicia reached over. Tucked a strand of hair behind Sophie's ear.
"That's okay. Figuring it out is part of it. And you've got time. And people who aren't going anywhere."
Sophie looked between them—Raymond's steady calm, Alicia's gentle warmth.
Then she leaned sideways—first toward Alicia, then toward Raymond—until she was half resting against both of them.
They didn't speak.
Just let her be there.
After a while, Sophie whispered:
"Can we order pizza again tonight?"
Raymond chuckled—low, fond.
"Extra cheese?"
"And whipped cream on the side," Sophie added—almost shy.
Alicia laughed softly.
"Deal."
They stayed like that—three people on one couch, city humming beyond the glass.
No big declarations.
No dramatic breakthroughs.
Just small, ordinary moments stacking like bricks:
Sophie humming along to her music.
Alicia reading aloud a Mary Oliver line she liked—"You do not have to be good"—and Sophie whispering, "I like that."
Raymond ordering pizza on his phone, adding extra whipped cream without being asked.
When the delivery arrived, they ate straight from the box on the coffee table—cross-legged on the floor like kids, sauce on fingers, laughter when Sophie got cheese on her nose.
For a few hours, the world outside—the leaks, the board, Victor—faded to background noise.
Inside, it was just them.
Healing didn't always look like tears or breakthroughs.
Sometimes it looked like pizza grease on fingers,
a girl humming quietly between two people who loved her,
and the simple, radical act of being allowed to exist without earning it.
Sophie fell asleep later on the couch again—head in Alicia's lap, Raymond's hand resting lightly on her ankle.
Alicia looked up at Raymond over Sophie's sleeping form.
He met her gaze.
No words needed.
They were building something here.
Not perfect.
Not permanent yet.
But real.
And for today—that was enough.