Page 26

When Tyson returned, he started dismantling the fort. Sheets folded with precision, cushions returned to their proper places. He worked methodically, erasing the magic to return the room to its adult state. No evidence of the wonderland he’d built for his daughter.

He paused suddenly, head turning toward the window.

Toward me.

Our eyes met across the darkness. Him in his lit living room, me hidden in shadow but somehow still visible. I couldn’t read his expression from this distance. Couldn’t tell if he was angry or amused or indifferent to finding me watching like some creep.

When I got my brain functioning again, I dropped to the floor like I’d been shot, crawling away from the window on hands and knees. Real smooth, Sam. Very mature. He’d definitely seen me duck and was probably calling the police to report a stalker. Great. Perfect. Exactly how I wanted to start my new life in Cedarbrook.

I pressed my back against the wall, heart hammering for no logical reason. It wasn’t like I’d been doing anything wrong. Just looking out my own window. At his house. Into his living room. Watching him with his daughter.

Okay, it was creepy. I was creepy. Add it to the list of personal failures.

My phone buzzed, the sound unnaturally loud in the empty room. I grabbed it, expecting work emails or maybe Lindsay with questions.

Instead, it was my lawyer’s name on the screen. At ten PM, which meant nothing good.

Her text was brief and devastating: “Garrett retained counsel. He’s contesting the divorce. He says he won’t sign.”

I stared at the message until the words blurred. Won’t sign, like he had any right to fight this.

My fingers moved without conscious thought, typing back: “Then we make him.”

Because I was done being passive. Done letting other people control my life. Done accepting whatever scraps of dignity others left me.

If Garrett wanted a fight, he’d get one.

9

— • —

Tyson

Noa’s backpack weighed approximately three pounds and contained one notebook, a juice box, and what appeared to be half the playground’s worth of wood chips, but apparently it was “too heavy” for a five-year-old who could climb trees and wrestle dogs twice her size.

“My arms are tired,” she announced, adjusting her plastic crown from the dollar store. It sat crooked on her head, tangled in hair I’d barely managed to brush that morning. “Also, my legs are tired. And my face.”

“Your face is tired?”

“Very tired. It’s from smiling so much because we’re having pancakes with Sam.”

Right. Sam. The neighbor who’d moved next door and somehow managed to invade every corner of my brain in less than a week. The woman I’d caught watching me through her window last night, who’d dropped to the floor when our eyes met, probably thinking I couldn’t see her army-crawl away from view.

I’d seen. I’d also stood there for another five minutes, staring at her dark window and wondering what the hell was wrong with me.

“Dad, you’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing where you think about Sam and forget to listen to me.”

Jesus Christ. “I’m not thinking about Sam.”

“Your ears are red.”

“It’s cold.”

“It’s really not.”