“Stop thanking me. It was fun.” I rise from the couch. “I should go. Let you guys have dinner.”
“Stay.”
The word comes out fast, like he didn’t plan it. We both freeze.
“I mean—” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m ordering Italian. There’s always too much. You should stay.”
I should go. Maintain distance. Protect my heart from this man and his daughter and the life they’re offering me one moment at a time.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll stay.”
Maisie cheers weakly from the couch, and Zayden’s whole face lights up.
I am in so much trouble.
But when Maisie grabs my hand and pulls me toward the kitchen, chattering about her favorite noodles, I find I don’t really care.
20
DINNER FOR THREE
Zayden
The Italian arrives in twenty minutes, which gives me eighteen minutes of Maisie talking Tori’s ear off about her best friend Sophie’s hamster, and two minutes of me standing in the kitchen pretending to get plates while actually just watching them.
They’re on the couch together, with Maisie’s legs draped across Tori’s lap as if they’ve done this a hundred times. Tori nods along to the hamster saga with genuine interest, asking questions and laughing at all the right moments. Her hair is coming loose from its ponytail, and she looks more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her.
She looks like she belongs here.
The thought hits me square in the chest, and I have to turn away, gripping the edge of the counter until I regain my composure.
“Daddy, did you know hamsters can run eight miles in one night?” Maisie calls out.
“I did not know that.”
“Tori says it’s because they have lots of energy and nowhere to put it. Like me.”
Tori catches my eye over Maisie’s head, a smile tugging at her mouth. “Her words, not mine.”
“Accurate, though,” I reply.
The doorbell rings, and I grab the food, tipping the delivery guy too much because I’m distracted. By the time I unpack everything on the table, Maisie has dragged Tori to the kitchen by the hand and installed her in the chair next to hers.
“You sit here,” she instructs. “Daddy sits there. Those are the rules.”
“I didn’t know we had seating rules,” I say.
“We do now.”
Tori bites her lip, clearly fighting a laugh. “I guess I’m sitting here, then.”
I pour wine for Tori and myself, apple juice for Maisie, and start dishing out pasta. It feels weirdly domestic—passing containers back and forth, twirling noodles onto forks, the clink of glasses—like we’re a real family instead of whatever we actually are.
“This is really good,” Tori says after her first bite.
“Sal’s. Best carbonara in Brooklyn.”
“Bold claim.”
