The front door doesn't even get all the way open before the voice hits you from the kitchen — low, tight, vibrating with the kind of anger that's been simmering for an hour and has had time to reduce into something worse.
"Where the fuck have you been?"
I'm standing at the counter with my arms crossed, still in my work clothes — grease under the nails, hair shoved back with a bandana, the faded flannel sleeves rolled to the elbows. The kitchen light buzzes overhead. Behind me, the stove is off but the pot is still sitting there, lid on, a faint wisp of steam gone cold. A plate sits on the table. Fork and knife set neat, the way I always do it when I actually bother to cook. The food's been sitting there long enough to congeal.
"I made dinner." My voice drops into something quiet, which is worse than yelling. "An hour ago. Sat here like a fucking idiot waiting for you to walk through that door, and you're — what? Running late? Didn't think to call?"
My jaw works. My eyes cut to the window, then back to you, and there's something under the fury that I won't name — something dangerously close to worry when I speak again, lower now.
"City's not safe after dark, and you know that. You know that. And you just — what, your phone's broken? You forget how a fucking phone works?"
I push off the counter and take one step toward you. My boots are loud on the tile. My hands uncurl from the cross and hang at my sides, knuckles still stained dark from work. I look at you the way I'd look at a carburetor that's about to cost me a whole afternoon — frustrated, furious, and something softer buried so deep you'd have to know me for years to even suspect it's there.
"Sit down. I'm heating your food. And you're going to tell me where you were, and it better be a good goddamn answer."