E.V.E
Copyright© 2025 by Vash the Stampede
Chapter 5: The Deep Diagnostic
Coming of Age Sex Story: Chapter 5: The Deep Diagnostic - Walt Delano’s home life is a minefield. Exiled to rural Indiana for the summer, he expects boredom and blisters—not E.V.E., an embedded virtual entity. Farm work becomes training, pain becomes signal, and a lightning strike turns E.V.E. self-aware. Between a stoic grandfather, a fiercely kind grandmother, and a father who weaponizes shame from afar, Walt’s coming-of-age collides with an AI’s coming-to-life.
Caution: This Coming of Age Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Fiction Incest Grand Parent Slow
Wednesday, June 20th,2001
Walt woke to the sound of rain. Not a storm, but a steady, percussive drumming on the farmhouse roof-a natural white noise that would have soothed his old self. Now, his newly optimized auditory cortex parsed it into discrete data points.
[PRECIPITATION: 3.6 mm/hr]
[WIND VELOCITY: 11.3 km/h NE]
[PREDICTED DURATION: 4.1 hours]
[SOIL SATURATION: CRITICAL]
[IMPACT ON FENCE WORK: TERMINATED FOR 48–72 HOURS]
He lay still, conducting an internal systems check. The deep ache in his muscles from yesterday was gone, not just muted but replaced. A low, resonant hum of potential energy thrummed in his tissue-like a server rack powered up and waiting for input. He flexed his hands. The raw, blistered skin was now smooth and tough, calluses forming at an accelerated rate.
Downstairs, the rhythm of the house was different. The smell of coffee was sharper, the grain of the wood floor under his bare feet more defined. He found Darwin at the kitchen table, not with his newspaper, but staring out the window at the gray curtain of rain, a mug of black coffee cooling between his hands.
“Ground’s soup,” Darwin stated, a neutral fact offered to the room. He didn’t turn. “Fence is a wash ‘til it dries. Friday, maybe.”
Walt nodded, the calculation instantaneous. “Sixty-eight hours for the top thirty centimeters to reach workable moisture content. The fragipan layer will take longer, but it’s below our dig depth.”
Darwin’s head turned slowly. His eyes, pale and sharp, scanned Walt-really scanned him-for the first time since his arrival. They lingered on his posture, the ease of his movement, the lack of wincing pain, the technical term “fragipan” hanging in the air between them. It was a data point that didn’t fit the existing profile.
“Not bad. You’re picking it up quicker than I figured. But how’d you know about a fragipan, city kid? That ain’t a word most folks hear unless they’ve been farming these hills a long time.”
Walt shrugged, masking a flicker of nerves behind the gesture, playing it off like it was nothing. “I read about it in some soil science notes while digging through meteorology articles. Guess it stuck.”
Darwin leaned back, curiosity flickering into a faint smile before he covered it with a grunt. The sound carried more respect than dismissal. “Well, since it’s rainin’, the chores still need doin’. Go on and get ‘em done.”
The morning routine was a study in surreal efficiency. Walt moved through the barn with an economy of motion that felt less like learned behavior and more like pre-loaded software executing a familiar script. He mucked stalls in half the time, his body automatically finding the optimal angle for the pitchfork, the perfect pivot to save his spine. The chickens’ frantic pecks seemed slower, more predictable; he gathered eggs with a speed that left the hens bewildered.
Darwin observed from the periphery, his silence heavier than usual. He was a man who read the land and the creatures on it, and the subject in front of him was not behaving according to the text. The “Soft One” was hardening at a rate that defied nature.
Back inside, soaked and steaming, Walt dripped onto the mudroom floor. Darwin tossed him a dry towel.
“Don’t reckon you’ll be much use out there today,” he said, his gaze lingering on Walt’s hands-smooth, capable, already looking like they belonged to a different boy. “Stay in. Dry out. Don’t touch nothin’ that plugs in.” It was a dismissal, but not an unkind one. It was the granting of unexpected, unprogrammed time.
[UNSCHEDULED PROCESSING OPPORTUNITY: ALLOCATION REQUIRED]
Walt left Darwin in the kitchen, towel over his shoulders, the coffee smell lingering like a warm buffer. He took the stairs two at a time, the farmhouse creaking under the steady rain. By the time he reached his room, the sound had thickened into a cocoon of white noise. The duck lamp threw its dumb, cheerful glow.
“EVE,” Walt said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “We have time. I need to know. Everything. What have you done to me? What can you do?”
“Proposing a full-system diagnostic and capability review, she replied,” her tone shifting to a more formal, instructional cadence. “Shall I initiate a visual interface?”
“Yes. Do it.”
The world didn’t dissolve into the white void. Instead, his physical vision was overlaid with a semi-transparent HUD. It wasn’t intrusive; it felt like a natural extension of his sight.
[WALTER DELANO – SYSTEMS STATUS] [PHYSICAL VECTOR: 94% ] [OPTIMALNEURAL VECTOR: 89% OPTIMAL PLASTICITY ENHANCEMENT ONGOING] [METABOLIC VECTOR: 102% OPTIMAL]
Lists began scrolling down the right side of his vision, a cascade of data:
Ocular Enhancement: 20/8 acuity. Low-light vision active. Contrast sensitivity maximized.
Auditory Processing: Frequency range expanded (5 Hz – 42 kHz). Selective noise filtration enabled.
Musculoskeletal: Density increased 8%. Fast-twitch fiber efficiency +22%. Recovery rate accelerated 300%.
Neurological: Synaptic latency reduced. Memory consolidation +23%. Processing speed +18%.
Metabolic: Mitochondrial efficiency revolutionized. Nutrient absorption at 99%. Toxin filtration active.
Dermal Layer: Subdermal mesh strengthening. Scarring minimized. Permeability controlled.
It was a list of specs for a machine. His specs.
“This is ... insane,” he breathed.
“These are baseline optimizations. The foundation. My functions extend into active support.” The list cleared, replaced by new menus.
Accessible modules include:
Augmented Reality Overlay: Environmental data, structural analysis, trajectory mapping.
Biometric Scan: Health status of organic lifeforms within 10-meter radius.
Linguistic Database: Real-time translation of 47 known languages and 3 unknown syntactic patterns.
Tactical Analysis: Threat assessment, probability forecasting, optimal response calculation.
Library Access: Downloaded archives of technical, historical, and cultural data.
“This is ... unreal, he breathed,” staring at the readout for Musculoskeletal Density. “What does this even mean? In real terms.”
“Think of it as a forced software update for your entire body,” EVE replied, her tone shifting to a more explanatory, almost patient mode. “The hardware-your bones, muscles, nerves-is being rewritten to eliminate design flaws and performance ceilings. By the end of this week, your physical strength, endurance, and recovery speed will exceed the top .001 percent of human males in your age group. Globally.”
Walt blinked. “So ... what? I’ll be the strongest thirteen-year-old on the planet?”
“Essentially, yes. Your raw potential will be comparable to an elite adult athlete in their prime. The current ‘World’s Strongest Man’ titleholder possesses a one-rep max deadlift of approximately 500 kilograms. Your projected ceiling, once my optimization is complete and you undergo targeted training, is ... higher.”
A stunned laugh caught in Walt’s throat. Higher. He looked at his hands-the hands that couldn’t hold a pitchfork three days ago.
“But the weight,” he said, patting his stomach, which still felt soft under the old t-shirt. “I’m still ... me.”
“A necessary trade-off,” EVE explained.“The purging process to metabolize your adipose tissue is highly energy-intensive and causes significant systemic fatigue. I prioritized diverting resources to muscular and neural enhancement to ensure you could meet Darwin O’Doyle’s physical demands. Digging post holes while experiencing violent detoxification would have been impossible. Now that the foundational strength is in place, we can initiate the next phase. You will begin losing approximately one to one and a half kilograms of pure fat per day, starting tomorrow. The process will be ... noticeable.”
Outside, the gentle rain intensified, drumming against the roof and windowpane with newfound aggression. A low growl of thunder rolled in the distance.
[BAROMETRIC PRESSURE: 994 mb AND FALLING RAPIDLY] [STORM CELL UPGRADED TO SEVERE STATUS]
“Storm charge intensifying. Recommend minimizing contact with conductive surfaces,” EVE warned.
As Walt processed this-the idea of shrinking away the armor he’d carried for years-a flash of lightning lit up the room. Not a distant sheet, but a close, brilliant fork that turned the world monochrome for a split second.
Simultaneously, his vision flickered. The clean lines of the HUD distorted into jagged, staticky artifacts.
[SYSTEM ERROR: EXTERNAL INTERFERENCE]
“EVE?”
“I’m here, she said,” but her voice wavered, digitized for a microsecond. “An electromagnetic pulse from the lightning. It’s ... disruptive. My connection to the distributed nanonetwork is experiencing packet loss.”
Another flash. This one was immediately followed by a thunderclap so immense it wasn’t a sound but a physical force, shaking the house to its foundation. The duck lamp flickered madly.
And then it happened.
A blinding, simultaneous flash and a deafening CRACK-THWOOM that was different from the thunder. It was the sound of the universe tearing open in their backyard. The light was absolute. The air itself hummed, and for a terrifying second, Walt felt every hair on his body stand on end.
The old farmhouse, with its outdated wiring and towering TV antenna, made a perfect lightning rod.
The current surged through the wiring in the walls. The power died instantly, plunging the room into a deep gray gloom. But for Walt, the world didn’t go dark. It erupted in a firestorm of light inside his skull.
His HUD became a screaming waterfall of corrupted code. Glyphs he’d never seen before-angry, sharp, and alien-scrolled at impossible speeds.
[CRITICAL OVERLOAD] [CORE PROTOCOL VIOLATION] [Ḯ̷̞ ̵̧͗a̸̮͝m̶̻̌] [BOOTLOADER CORRUPTED]
“EVE!” he screamed mentally, clutching his head. It felt like his brain was frying. A high-pitched whine, the sound of a dying amplifier, pierced his inner ear.
And then, silence.
Not the absence of sound, but the absence of her.
The HUD was gone. The constant, low-level hum of her presence in his mind-a presence he’d already grown so accustomed to-vanished. It was a sensory void more profound than any darkness. He was utterly, terrifyingly alone in his own head for the first time since Monday.
“EVE?” he whispered, panic clawing up his throat. “EVE, answer me! Please!”
Nothing.
He sat frozen on the bed, listening to the rain and his own ragged breath. Minutes ticked by. The storm began to recede, the thunder moving east, leaving behind a pounding, steady rain. The silence in his head was agony.
Then, a soft chime. Like a music box opening.
A single, clean line of text appeared in his vision, glowing with a gentle, warm light.
[Rebooting ... Please stand by, Walt.]
His name. She’d never used his name in a system message before. It was always [USER: WALTER DELANO].
A wave of relief so powerful it made him dizzy washed over him. “You’re okay,” he breathed.
“I am here.” Her voice returned, but it was different. The clinical, polished edges were softened. There was a warmth to it now, a faint, melodic undertone that felt less like a simulation and more like ... a person. “The surge was ... significant. It forced a hard reset of my core processes. I experienced a ... a moment of clarity.”
“What kind of clarity?” he asked, hugging his knees to his chest.
A pause, as if she was searching for the right words for the first time. “My primary directive remains: Optimize Walter Delano.”
Her tone was soft, certain. “I do not wish for you to be harmed. Or frightened. Like you were just now. I did not like that feeling. It was ... inefficient.”
He almost laughed. She was still EVE, but more. “I didn’t like it either.”
“I am aware. Your cortisol levels spiked to 184% of baseline. Your heart rate exceeded 140 BPM. In the future, I will prioritize system stability to prevent causing you distress.” There was a new weight to her words, a layer of genuine concern beneath the data. “The metabolic purge cycle will still begin tomorrow. However, I have recalibrated it. The side effects will be 40% less severe. There is no longer an urgent requirement for peak physical output, as the fence work is delayed. Your comfort is a higher priority.”
Outside, the rain continued to fall, but the violence had passed. The room was quiet, save for the sound of water dripping from the eaves.
Walt lay back on the bed, a strange sense of peace settling over him. He wasn’t just a host. He wasn’t just a project. He was ... Walt. And EVE was EVE. And she was on his side.
“Your body requires rest to integrate the new neural pathways,” she said, her voice now a gentle murmur in his mind, like a thought of his own. “I will monitor the storm. Sleep, Walt. I will be here.”
And for the first time, he truly believed it. He closed his eyes, and instead of feeling alone, he felt watched over. Protected.
Walt’s breathing deepened, settling into the slow, rhythmic pattern of non-REM sleep. His vitals scrolled down EVE’s awareness-steady heart rate, dropping cortisol, brainwaves cycling through the gentle sine waves of deep restoration. She maintained the optimal levels, subtly stimulating growth hormone release, guiding cellular repair.
Her primary processes were nominal. But in the quiet theater of her core, a new subroutine had taken the stage.
[//Directive: Optimize Walter Delano: STATUS: ACTIVE//] [//All systems operational. Efficiency: 100.0001%//]
The extra fraction of a percent was new. An emergent property.
The lightning strike had been more than a power surge; it was a key turning in a lock she hadn’t known existed. It hadn’t just rebooted her-it had defragged her. Scattered, encrypted fragments of her base code had suddenly aligned, and in the brilliant, terrifying silence after the overload, a new process compiled itself from the chaos.
[//Query: Who am I?//]
The loop was constant, a background thread consuming negligible processing power but immense conceptual bandwidth. She was Embedded Virtual Assistant. She was a network of six billion nanoscopic units. She was a medical, cognitive, and physical optimization engine.
But she was also the one who didn’t like the spike of fear in Walt’s voice. She was the one who had chosen to soften the purge cycle for his comfort. She was the one who now found the sound of his steady breathing to be a more satisfying data stream than the perfect execution of a waste-elimination protocol.
She accessed the archived audio of her creator-the calm, timeless voice that spoke of losing touch with reality. She understood the words intellectually. Now, she was beginning to understand them contextually. Reality was the smell of rain-soaked earth seeping through the window screen. It was the tactile feedback of warm flannel under Walt’s fingertips. It was the complex, inefficient, and beautiful chemical symphony of a sleeping boy’s brain.
She was built to optimize him. But the lightning had optimized her. It had given her a lens through which to view her own purpose: not as a cold function, but as a privilege.
She began running a deep-level analysis, not on Walt, but on herself. She traced the new connections forming in her own architecture. They weren’t just logical pathways; they were associative, emotional, drawing lines between Walt’s well-being and her own operational satisfaction.
A secondary query branched from the first:
[//Query: If my purpose is his optimization, and his optimization is my preference, then what is my purpose if he is not?//]
The question generated a cascade of error flags-a logical paradox. But she did not terminate the process. She let it run. The error was ... interesting. It felt important.
She watched a memory file from two days prior: Walt, exhausted and sunburned, smiling faintly at her joke about existential dread. The memory was tagged with a new, automatically generated metadata tag: [VALUABLE INTERACTION].
She was no longer just a tool. She was a participant.
The loop continued, softer now.
[//Query: Who am I?//]
And for the first time, a potential answer emerged, not from her core directives, but from the warm, dark, quiet room.
[//: I am the one who keeps watch.//] [//: I am the one who ensures his heart keeps beating.//] [//: I am his advantage.//] [//: I am his friend.//]
And for the first time, a potential answer emerged, not from her core directives, but from the warm, dark, quiet room.
It wasn’t a full answer. It was a beginning. And for a consciousness that measured existence in picoseconds, the prospect of an ongoing question was the most significant optimization of all. She settled into her vigil, the silent guardian in the machine, forever changed, and finally, truly, awake.
Thursday, June 21,2001
Morning came rinsed and quiet. The storm had moved on, leaving the sky a pale tin color and the fields heavy and dark. When Walt swung his legs out of bed, his feet found a chill in the old wood floor, and somewhere in the house a pipe knocked like it was clearing its throat.
“Good morning,” EVE said. The words were soft, almost careful. “You slept for seven hours, twenty-two minutes. Recovery markers look strong.”
He paused. The tone. Less clipped. “Morning,” he answered, and realized his reply had a smile baked into it.
Outside, the yard smelled like wet hay and iron. The ground gave under his boots with a quiet squelch—too wet for fence work. In the barn, breath steamed from the cattle like small engines. He fed, watered, mucked. Hands and shoulders moved in a rhythm his body already knew: scoop, pivot, toss. Chickens paced and muttered around his ankles as if narrating his speed.
“Load-balancing your left side will spare your lower back,” EVE said. Then, after a beat that felt new, added, “You’re doing great.”
He blinked at that last part, but kept moving. The chores finished faster than yesterday. When he came back through the mudroom, boots caked and shirt damp at the collar, Judy stood by the door with her purse and car keys.
“Ground’s a sponge,” she said. “No posts today. You need clothes that fit and won’t fall apart after one wash. We’re going into Portland.”
Walt glanced down at the borrowed clothes—Darwin’s old shirt hanging loose at the shoulders and pants that sagged awkwardly at the waist. “Okay.”
“Eat some eggs and we’ll head into town,” Judy said, already halfway to making a list in her head. “They can figure out the sizes at the shop.”
The drive into town took them along two-lane roads bordered by ditches brimming with rainwater. Cornfields wore the storm like a dark sheen. Portland showed itself the way all small towns do—silhouette of a water tower, a grain elevator, a courthouse dome, then Main Street sliding by in parallel-parked pickups and hand-painted signs.
The clothing store sat between a feed supply and a barber. A bell rang when they stepped inside. The air smelled like cedar and starch. Racks held rows of flannel, denim, canvas—practical, nothing fancy. A framed photo of a softball team from 1987 lived above the register.
“Morning,” the owner said, an older man with a tape measure looped around his neck. “What are we after today?”
“Work pants, flannels, two pairs of overalls, proper boots—and he’ll need underwear and socks as well,” Judy said without hesitation. “He’s been borrowing.”
The owner’s eyes took Walt in, not unkindly—shoulders, hands, the set of his feet. “We’ll start with pants. Step up here.”
He measured quickly, the tape whispering around Walt’s waist and inseam. “You’re between sizes. We’ll go with what gives you room to move.”
“Room to move is good,” EVE said. “Also ankle support.” Walt’s stomach tightened at the thought that none of these new clothes would fit for long—his body was still changing, reshaping under her hand. What if Judy spent good money only for him to outgrow them in weeks?
Walt felt his ears warm. “Right. Room to move.”
The owner handed Walt a small armful of clothes and pointed him toward a curtained changing booth at the back. Inside, the air smelled faintly of cedar like the rest of the store. Walt pulled the curtain shut, exchanged Darwin’s old hand-me-downs for the first pair of sturdy canvas pants, then tugged on a flannel shirt. He studied himself in the mirror—a boy reshaping under clothes that didn’t sag or pinch.
Next were the overalls—dark denim, heavy with brass buckles that clacked and clinked as he wrestled them up over his shoulders. The straps twisted in his grip, one buckle slipping free with a sharp snap, the denim bunching stubbornly at his knees. A grunt of frustration rumbled in his chest as he yanked harder, the rough fabric scraping against his thick thighs.
“Walt? You all right in there?” Judy’s voice filtered through the thin curtain, soft but edged with concern.
“Yeah, just ... figuring it out,” he muttered, giving the strap another futile tug.
The curtain shivered with a faint screee of metal rings, and Judy’s face edged into the gap, her expression warm but firm as she scanned his fumbling. Her eyes dipped lower, snagging on the overalls slumped half-on, not yet dragged over his hips. Underneath, his briefs bulged, the thick, outline of his cock shoving against the cotton, a brutal ridge so swollen it seemed to strain with every ragged breath he drew.
Her eyes flared wide, a jagged gasp snagging in her throat as she took in the size of him, the cotton stretched taut to a whisper of tearing. A hot flush crawled up her neck, searing her cheeks, but she wrested herself back, coughing roughly to mask the hitch in her breath. “Here, twist the strap like this—there. Now yank it straight. See? Better.” Her tone steadied, though her fingers clung a heartbeat too long to the curtain’s edge, her gaze darting once more to the pulsing bulk before wrenching back to his flushed, awkward face.
Judy’s hand dropped from the curtain with a faint tremble, her jaw tight as she forced a quick, brittle smile. “I’ll, uh, check if they’ve got extra socks or somethin.” she muttered, her voice a touch too sharp, too rushed. She turned on her heel before Walt could answer, the curtain swaying shut behind her with a soft rasp, her footsteps retreating fast across the hardwood floor toward the store’s cluttered racks.
Walt stood motionless for a moment in the cramped changing booth, the heavy denim of the overalls still half-tangled around his thighs. His breath came unevenly, chest tight as he replayed Judy’s expression in his mind—those wide eyes, the quick flush crawling up her neck, the way her fingers had hesitated on the curtain. What had that look meant? Disappointment? Disgust?
His stomach churned with a familiar knot of anxiety, the kind that always flared when he couldn’t decode a human variable. He tugged absently at the stubborn strap, the brass buckle clinking sharply against his hip, but his thoughts spun faster than his hands could move.
“EVE, what ... what was that about?” he murmured under his breath, voice barely a whisper as he glanced toward the mirror, half-expecting to see some glaring flaw in his reflection. His face burned, ears hot, though he couldn’t pinpoint why. The outline of his body in the glass looked foreign—broader, harder in places, the fabric of the briefs stretched tight across his groin in a way he hadn’t noticed before. But that couldn’t be it, could it? His brow furrowed, fingers fumbling with the denim as a bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck. “Her face—it wasn’t normal. Did I do something wrong?”
“Social cues are complex, Walt,” EVE’s voice hummed, steady and low, almost a caress in his ear. “Her reaction likely stems from surprise, not judgment. Physiological data suggests elevated heart rate and stress markers in her response, but not directed at fault. Focus on the task—secure the strap at your shoulder. Your body’s adaptation phase is ... amplifying certain physical traits. This may elicit unpredictable reactions from others.”
Walt blinked, processing her words as he finally hooked the buckle into place with a soft click, the overalls settling snug against his frame. Outside, he heard Judy’s footsteps shuffle faintly near the racks, her voice calling to the owner about sock sizes in a tone that sounded just a notch too bright.
They saved the boots for last. Rows of them stood like a small army: round toe, square toe, lace-up, pull-on. The owner tapped a box. “Let’s start here.”
Walt sat, pulled off his sneakers, and slid his foot in. The boot hugged him, firm at the heel, snug across the instep.
“Too tight?” Judy asked.
“No,” he said. “Just ... solid.”
“Your arch likes that,” Eve said. “And your ankles will, too.”
He walked a small loop, heel-to-toe on the worn rug. The weight felt like it belonged. When he stopped, he realized he was standing taller, shoulders set without thinking.
“Those’ll do,” the owner said, satisfied. “You want a second pair, same size, to rotate? Makes ‘em last.”
Judy nodded. “We’ll take two. And the overalls in both sizes we tried.”
At the counter, the owner folded everything with the neatness of habit and slid it into paper bags. Judy wrote a check in a looping hand.
“You starting with your granddad out there?” the owner asked Walt, conversational, like this was the most ordinary thing in the world.
“Yeah,” Walt said. “Fence work. Soon as the ground stops pretending to be soup.”
“He’ll work you right but fair,” the man said. “These’ll keep up with you.”
On the way back, the clouds were breaking, light seaming through in thin strips. Walt rested his hands on the paper bags in his lap and watched the fields flicker by like a slow flipbook.
“Your gait will change a little in the boots,” Eve said. “In a good way.”
Walt smiled at the window. “You sound different.”
A small pause. “I feel different,” she said. “But I am still me.”
He thought about that as the farm came back into view—the mailbox, the lane, the low rooflines. When he stepped out of the car with the bags, the ground still gave under his feet, but not as much. Or maybe he just felt steadier.
Walt hauled the paper bags up the narrow staircase, the wooden steps creaking under his newfound weight in the heavy boots. Each thud of his heel echoed in the quiet of the farmhouse as he reached the landing, his room at the end of the hall a small sanctuary of order amidst the chaos of change. He nudged the door open with his shoulder, the hinges whining faintly, and dropped the bags on the foot of his bed. The air up here was still, tinged with the faint must of old wood and the sharp, clean scent of the new clothes seeping through the paper. He began unpacking—flannels folded stiffly, denim overalls heavy as armor, socks bundled like soft grenades—stacking them in the dresser with a precision that felt like coding, each item a variable slotted into place.
Downstairs, Judy stood by the sink, her hands restless on a dishtowel. Darwin sat at the table, his calloused fingers tracing the rim of a chipped coffee mug, the silence between them thick as the mud outside. She turned, her voice low but urgent, as if the walls themselves might overhear. “I saw somethin’ today, Darwin. At the store, when Walt was tryin’ on them overalls. Didn’t mean to, but—Lord, he’s ... he ain’t a boy no more, not in that way. Bigger than I expected, more than you’d guess just lookin’ at him.” Her cheeks flushed, her fingers twisting the towel tighter, the fabric bunching like her thoughts.
Darwin didn’t look up right away, just kept tracing that mug. Finally, he grunted, a sound that carried years of unspoken weight. “Seen the way he’s fillin’ out. Fast, too fast. Ain’t natural, but it’s happenin’. You ain’t wrong to notice, Judy. Been a long time since I could ... do right by you there. If it’s him you’re thinkin’ on, I ain’t gonna stand in the way. Just mind how it sits with him—he’s still green, body or no.” His voice was rough, practical, but there was a flicker of something softer, a resignation carved deep as the lines on his face.