Page 31 of Single Mom's Daddies
I nod. “They’re good.”
“They are,” she says. Then, more softly, “They’re better than most adults I’ve met.”
That makes me smile.
She walks toward me slowly, the hallway dim and golden with night-lights. Her steps are quiet. Unhurried. Like she’s decided there’s no need to rush anything anymore.
“Long day?” I ask.
She shrugs. “The best kind.”
I study her in the low light. There’s a softness to her now that wasn’t there this afternoon. Or maybe it was and I was too preoccupied with what she represented—an intrusion, a variable, a risk.
Now, standing here, she’s none of those things. She’s justher.And I like it far more than I should. We fall into step, walking down the corridor together like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“You always stay up this late?” she asks.
I lift my glass. “Now and then. You?”
“Always.” She doesn’t elaborate.
“You don’t sleep much, do you?”
She merely shrugs. “When I can.”
We reach the kitchen. She opens a cabinet, pulls down a glass like she already knew where it’d be. The woman’s been here a day, and she’s already at home. I don’t mind it. “I don’t know what you did before this, but you’re good at this.”
“At what?”
“Living in other people’s lives like you were always supposed to be there.”
She blinks. Then smiles faintly. “That’s not a compliment.”
“It is when I say it.”
She doesn’t argue. Just sets her glass down gently. The silence between us expands. Not awkward. Not tense. Something else.
I take a step closer. Not touching her. Just narrowing the space.
She doesn’t move away. Her breath shifts. Her lips part, like she’s about to speak—but no words come out.
I should walk away. This is the moment. The place where all the reasons to maintain distance stack up neatly. But none of them feel like they matter when she looks up at me like that.
And I lean in. Not all the way. Just enough to see the question in her eyes. The uncertainty. The want.
And she leans too.
For a heartbeat, we hover in that breathless space where anything could happen.
But she pulls back. Not harshly. Not in fear. Just…a step. A breath. Her hand lifts, fingers brushing the air between us like she might touch me, then thinks better of it. “I should get to bed.”
“I’m not stopping you.”
She lingers for half a second more. Then turns.
I don’t follow. Just watch her disappear into the hallway, her silhouette dissolving into gold and shadow. My hand tightens around the glass.
Not in frustration. Not in disappointment. Just restraint. A reminder that there are still some lines I don’t cross. Even if I’m no longer sure why.
