He slowed, sheepish. “Sorry.”
Lily slid into her chair, swinging her legs. “Are we late?”
“No,” Ethan and I said at the same time.
We exchanged a look.
Then both of us looked away.
We didn’t talk about last night. Not really. We moved around it, passed the coffee, commented on the weather, discussed Lily’s spelling test like it was a matter of national importance.
When we finally did speak, it came sideways.
That night, after Lily was asleep and the house had gone quiet, we stood at opposite ends of the kitchen.
“I don’t want to rush,” Ethan said finally.
I nodded. “Me neither.”
A beat.
“We were… intense,” he added, rubbing the back of his neck. “Before.”
I smiled faintly. “That’s one word for it.”
“I don’t want to be that again,” he said. “I want to do this right.”
“I want to get to know you,” I said. “The version who exists now.”
His shoulders eased, just a little. “Yeah. Me too.”
That decision, I realized, was far more intimate than giving in would have been.
The nights settled into a rhythm.
After Lily was asleep, after the stories and the night-light and the careful kiss to her forehead, I found myself lingering. Sometimes we sat on the porch, mugs cooling between our hands, cicadas filling the spaces where words didn’t need to go.
“Did you hear the bakery changed owners?” I said once.
Ethan grimaced. “Tell me they didn’t mess with the cinnamon rolls.”
“They absolutely did.”
“That’s criminal.”
Sometimes in the evenings we walked the block together, slow, unhurried. The streetlamps casting long shadows across the pavement.
“They painted over the mural,” I told him. “The one by the high school.”
He stopped walking. “What?”
“Apparently it didn’t fit the town’s ‘new image.’”
He shook his head. “That mural taught me more about art than any class I ever took.”
I watched him as he talked, his hands moving as he spoke, sleeves pushed up just enough to expose the strong lines of his forearms. The porch light caught on them, turning the motion almost hypnotic, and my gaze followed before I could stop myself.
I became acutely aware of my own body in those moments, the way my pulse quickened, the way heat gathered low and insistent, the way I had to remind myself to breathe.
