But what comes out is: “You look like hell."
Her eyes narrow. "Excuse me?"
"You haven’t slept. Your eyes are red. And I’m guessing you haven’t eaten anything, except maybe rage."
She exhales through her nose. “And I’m guessing you know exactly where that ragecomes from.”
"I can take a guess.” I step closer. “I’m not good at being…speechless. That was a new experience for me.”
"Congratulations." Her chin lifts. "How’d the existential crisis go?"
"Enlightening. Humbling. Required a significant amount of swearing and self-loathing. I’d rate it a six out of ten."
Her mouth twitches again, but she doesn’t back down. "Why are you here, Don?"
"I could give you ten reasons," I say honestly. "But most of them are noise. The truth is simple: I want to be."
Emma studies me like she’s trying to find the trap door in my logic, and I let her look, standing there in my dark suit, jaw unshaven.
"Say something," I say. "Even if it’s just to tell me to go to hell."
She opens the door wider.
"Get in here before my neighbors call the cops on the hot silver fox loitering in the hallway."
I step inside and shut the door behind me. "Did you just call me hot?"
"I called you loitering."
"You called me both."
She heads to the couch, and I follow—like a man who hasn’t stopped following her since the night we met.
She sits. I don’t.
I can’t.
I set the Thai food I brought in bags on her kitchen counter, careful not to overstep—metaphorically or otherwise. Clearing my throat, I start to unpack. “I come bearing Thai. Also known as a full bribe menu from Lotus Thai and a lemon San Pellegrino you once said was ‘like citrus crack.’”
Her lips twitch, but she doesn’t smile. “That’s shameless.”
“I call it being effective.” I set a rice container down, gaze locked on Emma’s. “Also stubborn. And apparently prone to acts of emotional terrorism when I think I’ve lost something that matters.”
Emma crosses her arms. “Is that what this is? Emotional terrorism?”
“This is my way of saying I don’t like how we left things.”
“That’s rich. Considering you’re the one who froze like a statue in ice the second I said I was…”
She trails off, and I leave the bag alone, resting my palms on the countertop edge, emotion sitting in the back of my throat as I look at the pinched expression on Emma’s beautiful face.
I exhale. “I panicked. That’s not an excuse, but it’s the truth.” I inhale again, feeling my chest expand, my teeth grinding hard enough to crack. “I’ve never done this before, Emma. I’ve never had to think about what it means to become someone’s father. I never had afather to model it after. Hell, mine taught me more about absences than presence.”
Emma watches me, quiet. Unreadable.
“But I’m not him,” I continue. “I need you to know that. I’m not going to run from this forever. I just needed to get my head straight so I could come back and look you in the eye and say I’m not going anywhere.”
She exhales, slow and shaky, and we sit there in that charged stillness for a beat too long.
