He leans forward a little, voice lower.“I’d really like you there.Your support would mean a lot.”
The simple honesty peels away the first layer and then the realization that he needs me is my undoing.“Okay,” I say, breath catching.“If you’re sure you can find someone good for her, then… yeah.I’ll come.”
His smile is quick and real, the kind that sneaks under my ribs.“I’m sure.And I’m glad.”
He helps me wrestle Grayce through dinner like we’re a formula pit crew changing a tire—one of us catching spaghetti before it becomes wall art, the other swapping a bib mid-howl, both of us laughing and cursing and surrendering to the inevitable mess.
Atlas tells me more about practice while he wipes sauce off the high chair straps, and I find myself asking questions about the game.He answers without condescension, a teacher who loves when the student seeks knowledge he can sink his teeth into.
After dinner, he cleans the kitchen and I bathe the kiddo.Grayce responds to water like a flower to rain and she splashes so fiercely, my shirt ends up soaked.
When Atlas sticks his head in the door to check on us, he takes in the material clinging to my breasts.“Thank you, Grayce,” he drawls suggestively.
She beams.
“Creeper,” I mutter.
We get her into pajamas that sayDREAM BIGand Atlas readsBrown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?with the theatrics of a starring role on Broadway.She interrupts to flip back to the page with the purple cat every time, affronted that the narrative continues without consultation.
He adapts.“Purple cat, purple cat, what do you see?”he intones for the seventeenth time.“I see my father losing his mind looking at me.”
I snort into my sleeve.
When she’s down—miraculously, a smooth handoff tonight instead of the extended negotiation she sometimes demands, we drift back down to the living room.
“Listen… I’m going to make the grocery run now so I don’t have to do it tomorrow.The grocery store is mostly empty this time of the evening.”
Disappointment washes over me because I expected him to make a move.It’s what should happen in a sex-only relationship when there’s nothing else to do.Instead, he wants to go grocery shopping.
“Get lots of good snacks,” I say lightly, because I am attempting bravado as a hobby.
“On it.Captain Cutie has demands and I am a humble servant.”
“I’m going to finish my application.”Because saying it out loud might make it real.
His smile is immediate.“Let me know if you want me to read anything.”
“Your grammar is terrible,” I say, to keep the softness from spilling over.“But thanks.”
“Devastating,” he mutters.
I smile and grab my laptop from the table.
And then he says my name.“Mads.”
I look over my shoulder, and he holds my gaze.“I’m glad you’re going to be there tomorrow,” he says quietly.
“Me too,” I say, then nod toward the stairs.“I think I’m going to work in my room, then head to bed.”
Atlas stares at me, and I want him to say anything that leads me to believe he’ll be joining me at some point, but he doesn’t.He just nods.“Text me if you need anything specific outside of our regular list.”
In my room, I sit on the edge of the bed and open my laptop.The application portal is clunky, but that’s not surprising.The money doesn’t flow in agencies like this.
I fill in boxes, list my education, my work history, my licenses, my skills.
I falter at the “Why do you want to work here?”field, because the honest answer is messy.I can’t simply write,Because I’m good at it.Because it feels like something I owe.Because I can do for other kids what wasn’t done for me.Because I want to prove to myself I am more than what my past made me.
Instead, I write a measured truth.
