And when it was my turn, he kissed my hipbone like an apology before taking me into his mouth—no hesitation, pure need.
We never finished the set.
I exhale, remembering how he looked up at me afterward, eyes wild, chest rising fast.His hands gripping my thighs like he hadn’t realized they were still there.
I don’t know how not to love him.
I sip the coffee.
Immediate regret.
My stomach turns like it has opinions about my life choices, and if it could talk, it would probably say, “Sir, this is not the moment for caffeine.”
Vesper called it sympathy nausea last night, smiling like she’d invented the concept just to mess with me.She called the baby “our miracle parasite” with that bright, wicked grin—like she’s already brainstorming names that would make my mother clutch pearls, and my father combust.
It shouldn’t make me want to marry her on the spot.
It absolutely does.
Because she’s terrified and still funny.Because she’s walking into a house that looks like money and control and expectations, and she’s still choosing sarcasm like it’s a weapon and a life raft at the same time.Because she makes the fear in my body feel survivable.
I look up the stairs, toward our bedroom, and the word hits with a strange sweetness I don’t deserve.Our.Like I didn’t spend years treating intimacy like something I could schedule between practices and flights.She’s going to wreck us both.
And I’m so fucking happy to let her.
My phone buzzes against the counter.Once.Twice.Like a stubborn insect that refuses to die.
I swipe it into voicemail.
If the world is on fire, it can wait until she wakes up.Until I hear her voice.Until my brain remembers I’m not twelve years old in a too-quiet house, waiting for my father’s footsteps to decide what kind of day I’m allowed to have.
The buzzing stops.
Then the phone rings again.
Of course it does.
I stare at the screen like it personally betrayed me, and maybe it did, because my body already knows.My body always knows when the past is about to reach out and grab my throat.
I answer anyway.“Hello.”
“Mr.Winthrop.”A man’s voice—neutral, polished.The tone you use when you’re confirming a dentist appointment.Not when you’re calling to detonate someone’s life.“This is Daniel Kline.”
Daniel Kline.
My parents’ preferred mouthpiece.The man who can make a threat sound like a calendar reminder.The man who bills by the minute and has never once sounded like he’s apologized for anything, even by accident.
“Daniel,” I say, and I put brightness in my voice because I learned early that tone can be armor.“To what do I owe the pleasure?”
There’s a pause that feels rehearsed.Like he’s holding a script he’s read so many times he could recite it in his sleep.
“I’m calling on behalf of your parents.”
“And here I thought you were going to quit working for the oppressors and join my side,” I say, because humor is my reflex and my last line of defense.“What do you want?”
“Your father would like to discuss your recent ...choices.”
The word lands wrong.Choices.Like I’m twelve and I bought the wrong cereal—too sugary, not enough chocolate, or something like that.As if I’m a teenager who stayed out past curfew.Like I’m not a thirty-four-year-old man with a career, a house, and two people who are turning into my whole fucking heart.
