“The red one… Raphael?”
That earned me a smile of approval. I’d passed round two.
The twins babbled at me next, proudly holding up spaghetti strands. I clapped each time politely, and they giggled like I was the funniest man alive. Camille watched all of it, quietly studying every move, every reaction.
Halfway through dinner, Zeke tilted his head. “Do you live far away?”
“Not too far,” I said. “About twenty minutes.”
He frowned, like he was working through an equation. “So… you can still come back if you forget something.”
“Exactly,” I said, biting back a smile. “I’ll never be too far away.”
Camille’s fork stilled, her gaze lifting to mine. For a second, something unspoken hung between us. Heavy. Important.
Then Chloe threw her fork on the floor with a triumphant squeal, and the moment broke.
“Oh no,” Camille muttered, scooping it up and setting it on the counter.
“I’ll get it next time,” I said quickly.
She shot me a look. One that was half amused, half grateful. “Careful. You’ll get stuck on fork duty.”
I grinned. “I’ve survived worse assignments.”
By the end of dinner, Zeke was chattering to me about rockets and ketchup again, the twins were covered in sauce but happy, and Camille was leaning back in her chair, watching all of us with a look that made my chest ache.
When I helped clear the table, she brushed past me at the sink, her shoulder grazing mine. “Thank you,” she murmured.
“For what?”
“For showing up,” she said simply. “For not making it weird.”
The corner of my mouth lifted, but the ache in my throat stayed. I wanted to tell her it wasn’t weird at all. That it felt… right. But the words caught in my throat, too big for the moment. So instead, I just nodded, dried a plate, and thought to myself:You can’t afford to screw this up.
Chapter Twenty Two
Camille
Dinner ended the way every dinner did: dirty hands, sauce stains, and one fork mysteriously missing under the table. Only tonight, there was Hunter at the end of the table, laughing with Zeke and clapping politely at the twins’ spaghetti “performances.”
It was… surreal.
I hadn’t realized how much space another person could take up in this house until he was here. His laugh mixed with theirs. His calm filled the edges of the noise. He didn’t flinch when sauce splattered or when Zeke asked about the physics of spaghetti noodles. He just smiled, listening like it was the most natural thing in the world.
It did something to me.
When I first invited him over, I’d braced for awkward. Polite smiles. Quick exits. That familiar look adults get when they realize dinner with three kids under eight means chaos. But Hunter didn’t seem overwhelmed by the noise or the mess. He belonged in it. He met the kids where they were,without trying to take over or tune out.
I kept stealing glances at him, wondering if he saw through me. Through the practiced composure, and the way I tried to make everything look fine. I’d spent years making it look fine. Tonight, I didn’t feel like I had to.
When Chloe dropped her fork for the third time, he simply handed her his.
And Zeke asked. “Are you coming back?” Hunter hesitated only a beat before saying, “If it’s okay with your mom.”
Three little heads turned toward me.
I smiled, pretending my pulse wasn’t thudding in my throat. “We’ll see.”
