She rides me hard enough that I have to dig my hands into her hips to ground myself, but she likes that, too—grinds her teeth and shudders when I leave finger marks, then leans down and kisses away the apology before I can even form one. Her hairfans around us, sweat sticking it to her forehead and my neck, and the smell of us together fills up the room, dense and sweet and a little wild.
The first time she comes, it’s all tension and shiver, a sudden tensing that makes her nails rake down my ribs. The second, she’s loud about it—throws her head back and swears at the ceiling, then collapses forward, hands on either side of my face, foreheads pressed together like we’re sharing the same lungful of air. It takes longer for me, because I’m trying to make it last, trying not to fuck this up with my usual speed and need, but that’s the problem with Hildy: the better you try to be for her, the more she wants to break me.
When I finally lose it, she rides it out, snapping her hips with a final, savage twist that knocks every last rational thought from my skull.
We collapse after that, both of us, like runners at a finish line—sweaty, fucked-out, still clutching at each other as if we might float away otherwise. She rolls off and flops her arm across my chest, palm flat over my pounding heart, and I drag in air, lungs burning, like I just skated a triple overtime.
After, we collapse into a tangle of limbs and sweat and bedsheets, breathing in stereo.
She lays her head on my chest and traces shapes on my stomach. "You okay?" she asks again, quieter this time.
"Yeah," I say, and when I run my hand down her back, she melts against me, like all the fight has gone out of her, and all that's left is this.
We're still like that when the sun starts to creep through the blinds, lighting the room in strips of orange and gold. I shift beneath her, trying not to wake her, but she stirs anyway.
"You sleep?" I ask.
She makes a noise, then pulls my hand tighter around her. "Don't move. Stay.”
“Never leaving,” I whisper against her hair, then even lower. “I love you, Hildy Sullivan.”
Her whisper is even quieter, like the wind, but I hear it, “I love you, too.”
We lie there for a long time after the words “I love you.”
Hildy is half draped over me, hair a copper spill across my shoulder and chest. I just watch the light catch in it.
She said it. Not in the heat of the moment. Not in fear. Not because she felt cornered. She said it because she meant it.
When she finally slips back to sleep, I ease out from under her carefully. She makes a small sound of protest but doesn’t wake fully. I pull the sheet back up over her shoulder and stand there for a second longer than necessary.
My girls.
The kitchen is quiet when I step into it. I start with coffee first, decaf of course. Then eggs. Toast. I slice fruit the way Lucy likes, small and neat. I even attempt pancakes, which I do not normally do, but today is their first day of school, and it feels like a pancake day.
Lucy comes padding down the hall in socks, hair wild again from sleep despite yesterday’s polish.
“Daddy,” she says, serious already. “Today is the day.”
“It is,” I agree, crouching to her level. “You ready?”
She nods, then pauses. “Will Mommy cry?”
I huff out a breath. “Probably.”
She considers that. “It’s okay. I’ll be brave for her.”
Hildy appears a few minutes later, wrapped in one of my shirts, hair loose and shining from yesterday’s treatment. She looks… soft, but also nervous.
“Breakfast is ready for my girls.”
Breakfast is louder than usual. Lucy talks nonstop about colors and letters and how she is “basically five and a half.” Hildy smiles, nods, laughs at the right moments, but I see the tightness around her eyes.
After breakfast, I have an idea. “Lucy, we’d like to mark your height before you leave for school, so that each year we can see how you’ve grown.”
She grins and does a little hop, “I’m gonna grow so big.”
When we walk out of the house, Scotti is already waiting out front. I open the door for the girls and slide in behind them.
