As we stepped back into the sunlight, arms full of starter plants and a ceramic animal we didn’t need, he adjusted the flat of marigolds under one arm and glanced at me. With my jacket off, I should have felt the chill in the air, but the warmth of Austin’s touch lingered like it had been burned into my skin.
“See you at home,” he said easily.
Home.
It shouldn’t have made my heart clench like that, but it did.
SEVENTEEN
AUSTIN
Another week had goneby since our trip to the nursery. I was sitting on the front porch when their door opened.
The rusted screen let out a familiar creak as Selene stepped outside with Winnie, both wrapped in the golden spill of late-afternoon light. Winnie was mid-story about something that had happened in art class—there’d been glitter, maybe glue, and a very dramatic betrayal involving someone named Harper.
Selene’s eyes met mine as she closed the door behind them. She looked tired, but that warm, distant kind of tired—the kind that had less to do with sleep and more to do with holding too many pieces of yourself together at once.
I stood slowly, one hand braced on the porch rail, and offered a half smile. “Big Friday-night plans?”
“We’re waiting for her dad,” she said, tugging Winnie’s hoodie sleeve down over her wrist. “He’s supposed to pick her up for the weekend.”
The words felt neutral on her tongue, but the way her shoulders tensed betrayed the truth.
Winnie twirled on the sidewalk, her backpack bouncing against her small frame. “We made cinnamon muffins for the drive.”
“I supervised,” Selene clarified with a smile. “Which mostly meant saying ‘Please stop eating the batter’ at thirty-second intervals.”
I chuckled and slipped my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “I should probably head out. Give you some space.”
She looked at me, something unreadable passing through her eyes. Then she shook her head. “No. You’re fine.”
Sick curiosity was eating at me, so I stayed.
At least ten minutes passed, long enough for the sun to fall behind the rooftops. Shadows stretched across the lawn. Winnie sat cross-legged near the steps, chattering to herself as she arranged leaves by color.
When the black sedan finally pulled up to the curb, I watched Selene brace herself like a wave was coming.
The car door opened and a man stepped out, dressed in a crisp button-down and dark jeans. His phone was in hand, sunglasses still on even though the light was beginning to fade.
He looked like a man who used words like “pedagogy” in casual conversation and expected everyone around him to nod thoughtfully.
Winnie stood tall as he walked, unhurried, toward his little girl.
His eyes swept over the porch, pausing when they landed on me.
His gaze flicked from me to the front of the house, then back to me before asking Selene, “New neighbor?” He held a hand out to me. “Hi, I’m Brian.”
I didn’t answer right away, because the prick hadn’t even greeted Winnie.
“Brian, I—” Emotion flickered across Selene’s face, though I couldn’t quite place it—exhaustion or frustration maybe.
I stood and placed my hand in his. Before I could open my mouth, Winnie darted up the porch steps to stand beside me andsaid with all the confidence in the world, “He’s not a neighbor—he’s my nanny!”
I bit down on a laugh. Not because it wasn’t funny—though it was—but because of the way Brian’s jaw ticced. He looked at Selene, who had just stepped off the last porch step, arms crossed over her chest, eyes unreadable.
Brian didn’t look pleased. “Didn’t know you were hiring live-ins, Sel,” he said, voice light but not casual.
There was a moment—just a sliver of it—where I wondered whether I should say something, whether I should just let his dig slide, but I couldn’t.
