“Yes,” Leo says promptly. “Exactly that.” He sobers. “Tiplet, he was probably worried sick when you left. Give him the respect of not leaving him to stew. You owe him at least a conversation, one where you don’t underestimate him, and trust him to know what he wants, and what he can and can’t do.”
He’s right.
Of course he’s right.
I lean my head on his shoulder, exhausted. “I hate it when you’re this wise.”
“You love it,” he says. “Admit it.”
I sigh. “Fine. I’ll talk to him. After I’ve slept and my face doesn’t look like I lost a fight with a raccoon.”
“That’s my girl.” He kisses the top of my head. “For what it’s worth? Whatever you decide, whatever shape it takes, I’ve got your back. If he hurts you, I know where he lives. Ifyouhurthim, I’ll probably yell at you and then help you apologize.”
“Balanced,” I say wryly.
“Always.”
Chapter 15
Tippi
The house has that weird, sacred quiet you only get in a home with small children: not actual silence, but the hushed creak of old floorboards, the distant hum of the fridge, and the soft, snuffly baby breaths coming from the monitor on the coffee table. Late afternoon light slants through the living room window, painting everything in gentle gold.
I should be working.
Instead, I’m curled into the corner of Leo and Sadie’s sofa with my knees tucked up, staring at my phone like it might morph into a Magic 8-Ball and tell me how to live my damn life.
I have absolutely no idea what to do.
Leo’s words from last night keep looping in my head:“Think about what a future with him would look like and make it happen.”
And my brain, ever helpful, responds with:Cool, let’s catastrophize instead!
Because here’s the thing: I have spent my entire adult life carefully constructing a lifestyle with zero weak spots. No mortgage. No kids. No partner who could clip my wings. I’m a single-woman traveling circus. I fly in, sleep with whoever I want, write about it, fly out, repeat. No roots for anyone to yank up. No heart for anyone to break but my own, and I’ve always kept that under lock and key.
Except now there’s this tall, serious, sweet as honey autistic British man with a bird tattoo and a mouth that says “please” and a cock that says “mine” and a soul that’s quietly, stubbornlyextraordinary -
And my heart appears to have yeeted itself into his hands without consulting management.
It would be funny if it didn’t make me want to crawl out of my own skin.
I open TikTok, close it. Open Instagram, close it. Open my email, scan past three PR pitches about edible underwear and a polite follow-up from a sex toy brand I forgot to reply to, close it. My ADHD brain is trying to spin twelve plates at once while my emotions have gone full toddler meltdown in aisle five.
Bottom line?I don’t want to break up with Jacob.
The thought alone makes something in my chest twist so hard it’s almost physical pain.
I also don’t understand how I can possibly keep Jacob and keepme.
Because if I stay… if I pick one city, one country, one life… I stop being the woman who can throw a dart at a map and be there next week. I betray the little girl who screamed in her playpen because the bars kept her in one place.
But if I go… if I pick Sicily or Thailand or the next random place that calls my name… what does that do tohim? To this man who literally just found out his brain works differently and is only just starting to lean into that instead of apologizing for it? Do I become another item on his list of ‘things that changed without my consent’?
And if I stay with him as the nomadic, non-monogamous, chaos human I am… what if I wreck him? What if I become his dad’s greatestI told youso?
My thoughts start looping faster, more jagged. My leg bounces. My scalp prickles like static. I feel that familiar mental pressure building, the one that sayssay it out loud or implode.
Fine.
