Something in her tone made me pause. “Should I know that name?”
She groaned softly. “Probably. My family’s been here forever. Big donors, old money, old everything. Please don’t hold it against me.”
I smiled. “Noted. No judgment for your lineage.”
“Good,” she said with mock seriousness. “I left all that behind.”
I chuckled. “You don’t strike me as the type anyway.”
That earned me a small laugh, warm and genuine, and she seemed to relax a little.
“What about you?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” I said, leaning back. “I grew up a couple of hours south in a small town. Church on Sundays, church on Wednesdays, church for fun.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “That sounds . . . intense.”
“It was,” I said, smiling faintly. “By eighteen, I thought getting married would solve everything. So, I did. At nineteen.”
Her eyes widened. “Nineteen?”
“Yeah,” I said with a self-deprecating chuckle. “I was very sure of very wrong things.”
She tilted her head, curious but kind. “And now?”
“Now I’m sure of different things,” I said. “Like the fact that questioning what you were taught isn’t rebellion, it’s growth.”
Her expression softened. “That’s . . . really beautiful.”
I shrugged. “Mostly it’s messy. But I got a pretty great kid out of it, so I can’t complain.”
She smiled. “Leo’s wonderful. Ava adores him.”
“Yeah, he told me. Apparently, she thinks his tutu is ‘legendary.’”
Eleanor laughed. “That tracks.”
I hesitated for a beat, then added, “His mom and I still live next door. She’s remarried now to a woman named Mel. They’re both incredible. We share custody.”
Eleanor’s eyebrows lifted. “Ava actually told me that. She said Leo has one dad and two moms. She thought it was cool.”
“That’s because it is,” I said with a grin.
She smiled, resting her chin on her hand. “You seem . . . really happy.”
“I am,” I said honestly. “It took a while to get here, but yeah. Things are good.”
Something about the way she looked at me made the air shift between us. The world outside blurred a little, all warmth and low hums and the faint clatter of cups.
We fell into easy conversation after that. Books. The kids. The weird comfort of small-town life when you stop fighting it. Every minute stretched a little longer than it should have, easy in a way that felt rare.
Eventually, Belle reappeared, tapping her watch dramatically. “Hate to break up the coffee date, but rehearsal ends in five. Your tiny humans will come looking for you.”
Eleanor blinked. “Oh my god, I completely lost track of time.”
I laughed. “Me too.”
She gathered her cup, shaking her head with a smile that made something in my chest tighten. “Thank you for the coffee. And the cookie. And . . . the company.”
