The corner of his mouth lifts, but he doesn’t push it. Doesn’t tease.
Instead, he just keeps driving, one hand steady on the wheel, the other one taking mine.
Patient, waiting. Which somehow makes it even freaking worse.
“She looked smaller than I remembered.”
“That’s because you became more than she ever wanted you to believe you could.”
Chapter 32
The Parents
Lenzin
It’s Tuesday, and I managed to keep my two ladies busy enough that they didn’t notice a little project I started on my own yesterday. I wasn’t fully happy with some of the changes, but by the time the crew left today, the room finally felt right for her. No longer an empty space that was ‘good enough’. Not a corner of the house where Hildy had been trying to wedge her life between piles of books on a tiny desk that never quite held everything she needed. This will give her that space, and a bit more.
The desk alone does most of the talking. Solid walnut, wide, deep, the surface polished smooth enough that the light from the windows glides across it. The kind of desk that belongs in an old university reading room. Something meant for serious thought, long nights, unfinished drafts, stacks of books that seem to breed when you turn your back.
Behind it, floor-to-ceiling shelves line the wall. Empty for now, but not for long. Hildy has enough books stacked around here to fill at least a couple of shelves.
I stand in the doorway for a minute after the movers leave.
Trying to imagine it the way it will look once she claims it. Her books are everywhere. Papers spread across the desk. That habit she has of pushing her hair up into a messy knot when she’s deep in something.
My intelligent, stubborn, wildly attractive future wife sitting right there, surrounded by the work that will eventually gain her a doctorate.
The image settles in my chest in a way I didn’t expect. Then my brain betrays me.
Because it isn’t hard to imagine her standing behind that desk, leaning over it with that focused little crease between her eyebrows. Glasses sliding down her nose. Pencil tucked behind her ear.
Or sitting on the edge of it, long legs crossed, explaining something to me that she assumes I won’t understand. Which, to be fair. Then there’s the far less academic version of that mental picture. Hildy sitting on that desk while I stand between her knees, papers shoved carelessly aside, the whole library aesthetic suddenly much less scholarly and much more stimulating, for me at least.
I drag a hand down my face.
“Focus,” I mutter to myself.
Because she hasn’t even seen the room yet, and I’m already turning her office into a fantasy.
Down the hall, Lucy’s room is a completely different energy. Bright. Open. Color everywhere.
I lean against the doorway and look around. Foam floor mats. A low table for projects. Shelves are already filling with books, puzzles, and little science kits that promise to teach children about volcanoes and magnets.
There’s a reading nook by the window with a pile of pillows like the one we put together upstairs
“This is a school,” she declares.
“Sort of,” I tell her.
“For me?”
“For you,” I say. “And maybe some other small people someday.”
She considers that seriously. “Like the babies?”
“Possibly.”
She nods as if this is obvious and immediately begins organizing colored pencils. She is so perfect. As much as I can’t wait to meet ours, there is a big part of me that wishes we had more time with just the three of us. I’ve been reading about adoption, and children could feel pushed aside when others come, even in traditional family situations. We’re far from traditional, and I’m going to make sure she never feels that way.
