For a long moment, it looked like he might argue and say something arrogant and infuriating that would justify every instinct telling us to throw him out into the night and bar the doors behind him.
Instead, his gaze shifted.
Just slightly.
To Celeste.
She stood there behind my shoulder, arms crossed now, eyes fixed on him with something raw and unfiltered. It wasn’t just fear alone, or anger, but recognition and memory. She had a clear-eyed understanding of exactly who he was and what he’d done.
Whatever he saw there changed something.
His shoulders lowered a fraction. The fight drained from his stance like air from a punctured lung.
“…Fine,” he said quietly.
The word echoed, and Keegan blinked, while Nova lifted a brow.
Twobble, who had been hovering near the wall, whispered loudly, “Huh. That worked?”
I didn’t respond. I just nodded once, sealing the moment before it could unravel.
“You’ll stay,” I said. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
Gideon inclined his head stiffly. “As you wish.”
I turned away before anyone could say anything else, guiding Celeste forward again.
That was when my foot caught on something soft and damp.
I stumbled.
And very nearly trampled my ex-husband.
Toad—or the husband formerly known as Alex—let out a startled croak and flopped sideways, narrowly escaping the full weight of my boot. He puffed himself up indignantly, glaring at me with those droopy, golden, and deeply offended eyes.
“Oh,” I said flatly. “You.”
Celeste winced. “Mom.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I said automatically.
Which was true.
Mostly.
Except I realized in that exact moment that I didn’t feel bad.
Not really.
The absence of guilt startled me more than the toad had. I’d spent years apologizing for Alex’s behavior or explaining it away, while always shrinking myself to smooth over the mess he left behind.
Now he was a toad on the floor in my way.
I stepped around him without another word.
But that was when the guilt finally arrived, late and indignant, trying to insist I should feel worse than I did. I acknowledged it, then let it pass. Some reckonings didn’t require penance.
Behind me, Twobble crouched low and bared his teeth at the toad.
