Page 34 of How To Not Need You

I am an adult man. I have kept a small human alive for five years. I can open a jar.

The doorbell rings shortly after that.

I answer it with a dish towel in one hand and what I’m pretty sure is sauce on my shirt, and Liv is standing on my porch looking like she walked out of a magazine I definitely don’t subscribe to. Dark jeans, a sweater the colour of red wine, hair pulled back in a way that makes her look both effortlessly put together and like she could destroy something with her bare hands.

She takes in the pan in the sink. The jar of sauce on the bench. The pasta that may already be slightly overcooked.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Jake.”

“There was an incident with garlic.”

She looks toward the open window.

“Did you set dinner on fire?”

“No.”

The smoke alarm gives one accusing chirp from the hallway.

Liv looks at me.

“Fuck off.”

She starts laughing, and the sound fills the kitchen in a way that makes something in my chest twist again. Dinner is still mediocre, at best. Tilly sets the table with no argument, which honestly seems like an incredible achievement that I also choose to put down to my parenting instead of to her ‘best friend’ Liv’s presence.

We eat at the kitchen table. Tilly dominates the conversation with a detailed account of Hades’ rescue journey complete with arm movements to demonstrate her point.

"Hades was a tiny baby," she announces, holding her hands barely ten centimetres apart. "Like this."

"He was a bit bigger than that," I butt in. She ignores me.

“Daddy saved him from a giant drain,” Tilly continues. “And he was crying because he didn’t have a mummy.”

Liv looks completely invested.

I nod at that. "Someone heard him behind the station. We lifted the grate and found him underneath."

"He fit inside Daddy's firefighter glove," Tilly says proudly.

Liv smiles. "Seriously?"

"He really did,” I agree.

"I held him," Tilly adds, "and then Daddy took him to the rescue place."

"With every intention of leaving him there,” I chime in. Tilly gasps dramatically, as though hearing this information for the first time.

“I saved him!” she practically shouts.

I point my fork at her. “You cried to keep him.”

Liv laughs, covering her mouth.

"So you adopted him?" she asks.