He placed both on the kitchen table.

“Since you believe testing people's boundaries is perfectly acceptable,” he said calmly, “I thought we should make the rules of this house clear.”

Kayla glanced at the paper.

“What is this?”

“It's a list of the arrangements we agreed to when you moved in,” he replied. “And the boundaries we've asked you to respect since then.”

She picked it up, scanning the page. Her cheeks began to redden.

Andrew continued, his voice steady.

“We offered you a place to stay because we love you and wanted to help. We didn't offer you permission to make either of us uncomfortable. And we certainly didn't agree to turn our marriage into an experiment.”

Kayla let out a sharp laugh, but it sounded forced.

“Oh, come on. You're making this into something it's not.”

“Then it should be easy to stop,” Andrew answered. “Wear a robe when you come downstairs, respect our privacy, and stop treating my wife's feelings like a joke.”

Kayla looked at me, apparently expecting me to soften his words.

I didn't.

For weeks, I'd been trying to find the perfect way to explain something that should never have required an explanation.

Andrew had said it more clearly than I could.

Then he pointed toward the box.

“I also put together a few things you left in the laundry room. If you need more privacy or space, we'll help you organize the spare room differently. But the behavior stops today.”

Kayla stared at him.

“You can't do that!”

Andrew raised his eyebrows.

“Do what? Ask you to respect the people whose home you're living in?”

Her face turned bright red.

For the first time since she'd arrived, she had nothing clever to say.

But the biggest surprise wasn't Andrew's response. It was what happened next.

Kayla turned toward me, her eyes filling with tears.

“So you're both against me now?”

I felt a familiar tug of guilt. She was my younger sister, and I remembered the little girl who used to follow me around the house, asking me to help her with everything.