This is totally normal.
And yet my pulse is sprinting like it doesn’t believe in normal anymore.
Daisy glances up at me. “Can we show Brendon my rock collection?”
Brendon clears his throat, shifting in his seat. “It’s okay, kiddo. I’m sure your mom has a lot to do.”
I close my eyes for half a second. Daisy is safe. Daisy is here. Daisy is asking for spaghetti like the world didn’t almost knock her out from under me.
I can do this. I can handle one dinner. One hour. One polite thank you.
“I already told you he’s welcome,” I say. “Come on.”
Daisy squeals and scrambles out, boots hitting the snow with a crunch. I follow, my breath fogging in the cold. Brendon steps out last, towering and solid, his movements careful like he’s trying not to startle anything.
I catch him looking at my house before he follows us up the walkway. Not in a nosy way. In a quiet, thoughtful way, as if he’s trying to fit his memories of teenage me into the reality of adult me and finding it doesn’t quite line up.
Good.
It shouldn’t.
Inside, warmth wraps around us immediately, the familiar smell of clean laundry and the vanilla candle Daisy begged me to light “because it makes the house feel happy.”
The entryway is cluttered and untidy after racing to get out of the house this morning. Daisy’s mittens are on the bench, herbackpack hung on the hook I installed lower than the others so she wouldn’t have to reach, a pair of my boots drying near the vent.
My house is not fancy. It doesn’t look like anything on a Pinterest board.
It’s ours.
Daisy shrugs off her coat and kicks her boots off, then darts down the hall like a puppy released from a leash. “I’m changing into pajamas!”
“Hang on,” I call. “Wash your hands and face first.”
“Okay!” she yells, already halfway to her room.
I exhale, slow and controlled, trying to push the adrenaline down into something manageable.
Brendon stands just inside the doorway, not taking off his coat yet, as if he’s unsure whether he’s been invited for dinner or simply allowed to exist in the same room as me.
That thought prickles. I don’t want him to feel unwelcome.
I just don’t want him to feel… comfortable.
“Do you want to take your coat off?” I ask.
He blinks like he’s surprised I spoke again. “Yeah. Sorry.”
He shrugs out of it and hangs it carefully on the hook, like he’s used to doing things in a way that doesn’t take up too much space. Then he looks around again, his gaze catching on the wall by the hallway.
The growth chart.
It’s just pencil marks and dates. Daisy’s name written in my handwriting beside each year. Little notes like “first missing tooth” and “learned to ride her bike” scribbled in the margins because I couldn’t help myself.
Brendon’s eyes linger there.
My stomach flips.
I step in front of it like a shield, ridiculous and instinctive. “Let’s grab you something to drink. The kitchen is this way.”
