No replaying my father’s tone.
No dissecting my mother’s silence.
No questioning whether I’d said too much or not enough.
And no overthinking the way Logan softly offered reassurance.
Instead, I soothed my inner child by letting Harper take the lead.
The morning started with a karaoke concert in my car. The vibrations of the bass thumped through the cup holders, setting a lively beat for the ride. After lunch at my parents’ the day before, I leaned on Harper’s boundless energy to keep me going.
Harper took over as DJ, flipping through the playlist before she landed on her favorite tune, declaring it her theme song. Despite the off-key versions we belted out, she played it with an unstoppable glee that had us both laughing so hard that my throat ached and my cheeks hurt by the time we arrived at her school.
“Encore!” she yelled, unbuckling herself before the song even finished.
“Next time,” I said, leaning back to catch my breath. “The audience has court today.”
She grinned, hopping out and slamming the door before turning back.
“I’ll see you later, superstar,” I said, smiling and waving dramatically out of the window.
She blew me a kiss and ran off, glittery backpack bouncing, turning once to wave before disappearing into the crowd of kids.
I sat there for a second longer than necessary, then took a deep breath, readying myself for the workday ahead before I drove to the office.
The public defender’s office was already buzzing when I walked in with phones ringing, voices overlapping, and the smell of stale office coffee thick in the air.
I dropped my bag at my desk, booted up my computer, and caught myself humming the last song Harper and I had butchered together.
It should’ve been a normal day.
But despite my effort, a sense of distraction lingered, pulling me away from the present moment.
Instead, my thoughts were on a man who texted meGood morningwith a subtle confidence that steadied me more than caffeine ever could. On the man who had his hands on my hips just a few nights before. We’d talked every day since. Although he danced around what happened that night, things had felt different. He felt closer, more open. And his reassurances last night still clung to me.
As I reached for a file, I realized I had absentmindedly written Logan’s name on the sticky note, where Ms. Thompson’s name should have been.
Heat crawled up my neck. I peeled it off quickly, hoping no one had noticed, and rewrote it properly.
What pulled at my mind most was that I wasn’t sure what to expect when he finally came home. Would I return to feeling unfulfilled, searching for myself, or keep the sense of belonging I’d established with Harper and Logan? The idea was scary, making me tense.
Logan’s grief over losing his wife often surfaced in our quiet moments. Sometimes I heard a pause in Logan’s voice, a new softness, as if he was learning to trust me with his vulnerability. When he mentioned Harper or his plans, his words felt cautious and hopeful, as if he were as uncertain as I was about what lay ahead. I could never fill her place, nor did I want to, but I hoped I could find my own.
I shook my head and pulled a file toward me. I was getting ahead of myself; it was just a kiss with a very grumpy marine who had a few drinks and the confessions that followed were made just to smooth is all over.
I took a steadying breath and tried to ground myself. I needed to focus, with a full slate of work ahead, before picking up Harper for dance class, I didn’t have time to be lost in fantasies.
Just as I had finally settled into a groove I was interrupted.
“Morning, Counselor Moreno.”
I resisted the urge to sigh as Assistant District Attorney, Josh Wilder leaned against my door frame like a walking cliché.
Expensive suit. Polished shoes. That too-practiced smile, the kind that worked well in court and apparently everywhere else.
“Morning,” I replied, eyes already back on my screen.
He stepped inside my office without invitation and perched on the edge of my desk.
