I studied the way her eyes lit up when she uncovered something that mattered. The way she got lost in the margins of other people’s stories but still made room to write her own. The way she gave herself so completely to the people she loved, even when it broke her a little.
It wasn’t just Winnie’s laughter or her smiles or her cinnamon muffins.
I wanted Selene.
All of her.
Not just in the flash-fire moments of stolen kisses or tangled sheets—but in the quiet ones. The ordinary seconds that strung together and became something worth holding on to.
Selene tucked the photo gently into the fold of her journal, slipping it between two blank pages like it had been waiting for a new story to live inside. I’d spent the majority of my adulthood enjoying the blank pages of my life, never worrying about what would come next and if it even mattered. Suddenly I found myself sitting on the floor of her living room wanting nothing more than for the woman next to me to see I was more than a stand-in until something real came along.
I was as real as those people in that long-forgotten photograph.
I wanted to crack a joke or think ofanythingto make the lump that expanded in my throat go away.
“You okay?” she asked, catching me staring.
I nodded slowly, unsure how to answer without telling her everything. That this mattered. That she mattered more than she knew.
You make me want more.
I almost said it out loud, but I didn’t.
Instead, I reached for her hand and let our fingers thread together again, warm and steady in the sun.
TWENTY
SELENE
The afternoon lightslanted across the floor, soft as a sigh, turning the worn oak boards golden beneath our bare feet. Everything felt a little hushed, peaceful in a way that I used to misname as loneliness.
Austin hadn’t seemed to mind when I got lost in the restoration work. He flowed in and out, doing his own thing without making me feel as though I had to entertain or appease him. When he’d returned with a gentle knock, I couldn’t help but smile.
He moved easily through my space—tidying throw blankets, stacking books, helping me draw the curtains against the bright midday glare. He didn’t ask what needed doing. Somehow, he just knew. It seemed as though he slipped seamlessly into the quiet rhythm of my day like he’d always been part of it.
I watched him from across the living room as he reached for the last window. His muscular arm lifted, fingers pinching the edge of the linen panel, and in the angled glow of the early-afternoon sun, I caught something in his expression.
A flicker. Brief but unguarded. For a moment he looked almost confused.
It was the kind of look that passed through someone when they realized they’d been let in without quite knowing how it happened.
He pulled the curtain closed, his broad shoulders silhouetted for just a breath before the room settled into a warmer shade of shadow. I stood still, one hand resting against the worn wood of the doorway, something catching low in my chest.
This was the part that sneaked up on you—not the kisses or the incredible sex. It was the way someone turns off your kitchen light like it was theirs too.
“You keep this up and I’m going to have to start paying you,” I said, reaching for levity as I stepped closer. “You’ve got live-in-nanny potential. Ten out of ten.”
Austin looked over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised, lips twitching into a smirk. “As long as it comes with room, board, and occasional sex, I’m in.”
I rolled my eyes, but my smile gave me away. “You have no shame.”
“Not when it comes to you,” he said without missing a beat, and damn it—my knees didn’t stand a chance.
He crossed to me, fingers brushing mine as he took the empty glass from my hand and set it on the coffee table. His body was warm and familiar somehow, the scent of his cologne and cedar soap woven into the fabric of the afternoon. Being near him felt like something I didn’t want to name for fear it might vanish.
Austin’s fingers drummed a lazy rhythm. “Are you hungry?”
I blinked. “I mean, I could eat. Why?”
