I folded my arms tighter, trying to ignore the way the house smelled like him now—like pine soap and clean cotton or like the faint, sun-warmed scent of whatever detergent he used. It clung to the air and to the couch cushions.
My home—the one I had fought to rebuild—was no longer entirely mine.
Winnie had started drawing pictures of him.
Crayon stick figures with big smiles labeled in wobbly block letters: AUSTIN. Her latest drawing had been slipped under a magnet on the fridge, and I hadn’t moved it.
He was in her art. Her morning routines. Her vocabulary. He was in my walls.
And worst of all—I didn’t want to chase him out.
“You sure you don’t need anything before I go?” he asked, thumb hooked in the belt loop of his jeans.
I shook my head, maybe a little too quickly. “No, I’m good.”
He lingered, just long enough to stretch the moment taut.
My voice caught somewhere between my throat and my ribs. “So I’m ... thinking about pizza tonight.”
Austin’s brows rose, his hand pausing at the strap of his backpack. “Yeah?”
I knew he must be tired. Austin was essentially working two jobs—one without pay since he wouldn’t take my money, I might add. After surviving our morning chaos, he worked a hard labor job. Feeding him was the least I could do.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I thought I’d order something easy for dinner. Winnie’s been asking for pizza.”
Something flickered in his eyes—something warm, unguarded. “You want me to stay?”
It wasn’t a loaded question. At least, not on the surface, but it pressed against the line we hadn’t talked about since I hired him.
He helped. I worked. He left. That was the rhythm. Our safety net.
Inviting him to stay wasn’t nothing.
I tried to sound casual, breezy. “Only if you’re free.”
Austin nodded slowly as a smile ghosted on his lips. “I’m free.”
Of course he was.
He gave a soft knock to the counter with his knuckles and stepped back. “I’ll see you after work, then.”
I nodded. “Thanks again.”
His brows pitched down. “For what?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
For knowing how I take my coffee.
For slipping into our lives without forcing his way in.
For fixing things I hadn’t even noticed were broken.
“For the mug,” I said instead.
He smiled, the slow kind that curved just one side of his mouth and stayed there as he turned and left, the front door whispering shut behind him.
The silence that followed felt less like stillness and more like absence.
