Everywhere we go, people look.
Some because I’m me.Some because I’m with Lucy and her kid.I should mind that.I don’t.By the time the sky starts bruising purple and the string lights over the square come on, Quinn’s running on fumes.
She falls asleep ten minutes into the drive home, frog clutched to her chest, face paint smeared at one edge.
Lucy turns in her seat to check on her, then settles back with a soft sigh.“She had fun.”
“Yeah.”
Another quiet sigh.“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For all of it.”
I keep my eyes on the road.“Didn’t do much.”
She laughs softly.“You bought a booster seat.”
“That was practical.”
“You waited in line for face paint and you let Quinn get a pink glitter heart painted around your eye.”
I let out a laugh.“Okay, that was painful.”
“You held a goat.”
“It smelled terrible.”I scrunch my nose.
Her laughter fills the SUV again, lower now, warm with exhaustion and something else.
Comfort.
That’s the part I can’t shake.I’m comfortable here.She’s comfortable here.
Driving them home with a sleeping kid in the back and her mother beside me should feel foreign, too soft, too close to a life I never signed up for.Instead it feels easy.
Right, in a way I never imagined anything this domestic could.
We pull into her driveway, and I kill the engine.The porch light washes gold over the yard.For a second, neither of us moves.Then Lucy turns toward me.Her hair’s a little messy from the wind.There’s a smudge of powdered sugar near her wrist from the fried Oreos.She looks tired and happy and real.
And I’m in trouble.Deep enough now that pretending otherwise feels childish.
“You okay?”she asks.
I look at her.Really look.“Yeah.”
She studies me like she’s not sure that’s the whole answer.It isn’t.But I don’t trust myself with more.I get out, unbuckle Quinn gently, and carry her sleeping into the house while Lucy opens doors and laughs quietly when Quinn mumbles something about goats in her sleep.
Inside, I settle the kid onto her bed while Lucy peels off her sandals.Then we meet in the hallway outside Quinn’s room, both of us keeping our voices low.
“She’ll sleep hard tonight,” Lucy whispers.
“Good.”
She nods.Then, after a beat, “I had a really nice time.”
Something in my chest tightens again.“Me too.”There’s more in that than there should be.
