“Congratulations, Kayla. You passed,” my husband said, placing his phone on the kitchen counter between them. My younger sister stood in the doorway wearing nothing but a bath towel, her wet hair dripping onto the tile, while the smell of fresh coffee and buttered toast filled the room.
For more than a week, she’d been wandering through our kitchen this way despite my repeated requests that she put on a robe, insisting she was merely testing whether my husband could resist temptation.
Now Andrew, normally the quietest person in any disagreement, was looking directly at her with an expression I rarely saw. Kayla smiled at first, clearly expecting some acknowledgment of the attention she’d been seeking, but her confidence evaporated when she looked at his phone.
On the screen were three rooms available to rent within twenty minutes of our house, complete with prices, photographs, and contact information. “You can’t do that!” she shouted, tightening her towel beneath one arm as though Andrew had suddenly threatened to throw her into the street. He calmly explained that he wasn’t evicting her; he was helping determine whether someone who insisted on testing other people’s boundaries was ready to respect the rules of a shared home.
