For the first time in my life, I was going to stop bracing for someone to leave—and let myself stay.
CHAPTER 11
Shane
The drive homewas the quietest I’d ever known.
Queens slid past the windows, streetlights casting moving shadows through the glass. The city hummed with its usual restless energy, but inside my truck, everything felt still. Almost sacred.
Zoe had fallen asleep within five minutes of leaving the parking lot. I could see her in the rearview mirror in her pink dress, the tulips wilting in her lap, mascara slightly smudged. There was a small smile on her face—the kind that said tonight had been everything she’d hoped for and been afraid to ask for.
I'd done that. Me. The guy who'd spent three years avoiding anything real had made a thirteen-year-old girl smile in her sleep.
My chest felt tight with it.
Maya was watching me. I could feel her gaze, warm on the side of my face. Every time I glanced in the mirror to check on Zoe, I caught Maya's expression shifting, wondering, like she was seeing something she hadn't expected.
"Thank you," she said softly. "For showing up. For her."
I wanted to tell her it wasn't a sacrifice. That dancing badly in a middle school gym while Zoe laughed at my moves was the best night I'd had in years. That I'd do it again tomorrow, and the day after, and every day she'd let me.
Instead, I just said: "I'm always going to show up, Maya. For both of you."
She didn't argue or deflect. She just looked at me with those brown eyes that saw too much, and something passed between us that I couldn't name.
At her building, I cut the engine and looked at Zoe in the backseat.
"I can carry her up," I said.
"You don't have to?—"
"It’s fine. I’ve got her."
She was heavier than she looked—not a little kid anymore, but not quite grown yet. She murmured something into my shoulder—something that might have beenfive more minutes—before going limp again.
I carried her to the elevator, Maya pressing the button while I adjusted my grip to keep Zoe's head steady. The ride up was quiet, just the hum of the machinery and Zoe's soft breathing against my neck.
When we reached their floor, I stepped carefully over the threshold, avoiding the squeaky spot in the hallway that Maya had mentioned once, weeks ago. I didn't know why I remembered it. I just did.
I remembered the small things.
The ones that meant everything.
In Zoe's room, I laid her on the bed as carefully as I could and stepped back so Maya could do the quiet, practiced things only a mother knows how to do: pulling up the blanket, slipping off her shoes, tucking the flowers beside her pillow.
We stood in the doorway together, watching her sleep.
"She had a good night," I said.
"She had the best night." Maya turned to look at me, and there was something in her expression I hadn't seen before. "Because of you."
The air between us shifted.
This wasn't just a simple attraction anymore. It wasn't the pull I'd felt since the moment she looked at me in that teacher's lounge. This was bigger, deeper.
This felt like the beginning of something I hadn’t even known how to look for before.
We moved to the living room.
