She hollered, shoulders shaking, joy trying to outrun the hurt.
“Women.” I sighed dramatically, like I hadn’t raised two of them with my own hands. “I’m all they had their whole life, and they turned on me for their love for you. Cold world.”
She was still laughing when she started gathering her things, folding herself back into motion, stuffing little pieces of her day into her bag. Watching her do that, seeing her choose to move forward with me even after I’d cracked something, made my chest tighten with gratitude and responsibility all at once.
“Serves you right,” she said over her shoulder, playful but pointed. “Be nice to me from now on.”
“Always, Connie,” I promised, and I meant it like a vow, not a flirtation.
I took the bag from her because service was my repentance. I kissed her on the lips slowly, letting the kiss say what my mouth couldn’t shape clean yet.I’m learning. I’m listening. I’m here.
“Let’s go home,” I told her.
She smiled before turning and walking toward the truck, and I followed, then paused when I saw Nan still on the porch, posted up like a gatekeeper of peace with her book in her hand.
I walked over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll buy your dress to our wedding in two months.”
Nan studied me for a long moment, solemness settling in her expression like she could see timelines in a man’s eyes, like she knew exactly how fragile happiness could be when it was new.
“You should do it sooner than two months,” she said softly. “Call me later so we can plan the best wedding for my girl. She deserves it.”
I nodded because I understood what she was really saying.Don’t waste time. Don’t waste tenderness. Don’t make her pay twice for one man’s fear.Nan’s eyes had that faraway shine, like somebody watching the horizon while everybody else was still focused on the street. Her smile came easily, but it didn’t sit as long as it used to. The night breeze lifted the hem of her house dress, and she adjusted it with a slow patience that felt . . . practiced, like her body had been negotiating with time for a minute, and she wasn’t trying to alarm anybody about the terms.
I climbed into the truck beside my world, and the engine hummed under us like it was trying to soothe what the day had bruised. Solè sat there quietly for a second, lashes low, face soft, and I watched the way the streetlights painted her freckles as we drove. Constellations, for real. Proof that beauty could survive storms.
When we pulled up to my place, the front porch light looked warm, welcoming, almost relieved. And the second the door opened, the twins came flying like they had been holding their breath all evening. They damn near tackled Solè first, then me by association, their arms wrapping around her as if she belonged in the house the way laughter belonged in a room that had been too quiet. Their faces lit up so brightly. It was like the whole home had been waiting for her presence to plug the joy back in.
Solè was in the background laughing, eyes soft, watching us as if this meant everything to her. For a moment, everything in me stilled. Not the dangerous stillness from the mall, but the healed kind. The kind that said,This is what you’re protecting. This right here.
The girls asked if they could go out with their friend Sabrina from the track team.
I hesitated, then sighed a heavy sigh that came from loving something so hard you started seeing danger in shadows. My eyes swept the driveway, the street, the corners, and the blind spots. Protection wasn’t paranoia. It was pattern recognition. It was learning that the world didn’t always announce itself before it got loud.
“Alright,” I finally said, but my voice carried rules inside it. Timing. Location. Check-ins. The whole safety plan was tucked behind one word like a folded note.
I watched my girls move with that teenage confidence that always made me proud and nervous at the same time. Reagan tried to act grown, and Reece pretended she wasn’t watching everything like a whole investigator. They looked like my heart split into two bodies and decided to start making their own decisions.
A few minutes later, headlights swept across the yard, slow and deliberate, washing over the grass and the porch rail like a spotlight finding its mark. A car rolled up smoothly, paused like it was thinking, then settled into the driveway with a quiet purr.
My body reacted before my mind finished the sentence.
I straightened automatically, shoulders squaring on instinct, chin lifting the way it did when you learned you couldn’t afford to look surprised in a world that loved catching you off guard. My eyes swept the street, the corners, the neighbors’ parked cars, and the dark pockets between porchlights. People called it overthinking. I called it surviving long enough to raise two girls.
Then the door opened.
Sabrina’s mom stepped out.
And it was Terryn.
For half a second, my stomach dropped the way it did right before a race started. That split-second freefall where your body remembered an old lane, even when your mind already switchedpools. It wasn’t desire. It was history tapping the glass, a chapter I’d closed, but my nerves still knew the handwriting.
Terryn’s gaze flicked to me, then to Solè, and I watched her clock the whole scene in one breath. Solè stood there, soft and luminous, like peace had a body and decided to wear freckles. I tried to look regular while my heart did laps.
Terryn didn’t say anything at first, with Reagan and Reece still on the porch, standing too close like they could hear grown-up energy even when nobody spoke it. Terryn had tact and waited for the girls to get in the car.
“This is . . . actually funny,” she said, voice lowered, respectful, like she wasn’t trying to throw anything loud into the air. “My daughter’s favorite English teacher being with the man I used to want.”
She laughed softly, not mean, not bitter, but as if fate had a sense of humor and decided to show it off.
