Page 103 of At First Flight
Inside, the house is still. Peaceful in a way I never thought I’d earn.
Oliver and Evelyn are still out cold, their soft breathing filling the upstairs hall like music. It won’t last. Oliver will be up soon asking for cereal, and Evelyn will want “pupcakes,” which are her version of pancakes but with chocolate chips and the absolute demand of a three-year-old tyrant. But for now, I soak it in. The quiet. The stillness.
And the ache.
Because even in the beauty, the cracks are still there. I pull my phone from my pocket. One missed call. One text.
Dad:
Let’s talk like men. You’re making a mistake.
The words turn my stomach before the coffee even has a chance. He doesn’t say "hello" or "how are the kids." Just that. A warning disguised as concern.
But I know better.
My father has never known how to love without strings. Never offered anything that didn’t come with expectations sharp enough to cut.
He thinks I’m playing house in the coastal town. That moving to Coral Bell Cove is a midlife crisis I’ll grow out of. That I’m not capable of raising Gen’s kids without someone like him and my mom calling the shots.
He’s wrong.
I take another sip and set the mug down. Just as the first sleepy footsteps pad across the hallway inside.
Oliver appears in the doorway, hair sticking up on one side, Star Wars pajamas rumpled.
“Are we making pancakes?” he asks.
“Good morning to you too, buddy.”
He leans against me, warm and floppy and all boy. “Evelyn says she gets the first one because she’s littler.”
“She also said her stuffed bunny is a doctor last night. You sure you want to let her make executive decisions?”
He grins. “Good point.”
We’re still laughing when Lila comes down the hall.
She’s wearing one of my flannel shirts, oversized on her smaller frame, her hair twisted up in a knot that’s already half-falling out. And just like every damn morning since she moved in, I have to pretend I’m not wrecked at the sight of her. Suddenly, I need to be closer to her and move back inside with the kids.
She moves around like she’s always belonged here. Like it’s hers. Like she’s ours.
And I know I shouldn’t be thinking like that. She’s only supposed to be here for the summer—helping with the kids, finding herself again after a breakup that should never have happened to a woman like her. But every day, it’s harder not toimagine what it’d be like if she stayed. And despite her words the night before, I know better than to get my hopes up.
“Morning,” she says, grabbing a mug from the cabinet.
Oliver’s already tugging on her sleeve. “Evelyn says she wants syrup on her pupcakes.”
“Then Evelyn’s going to have to say please,” Lila replies with a smile, handing me the spatula. “You’re on breakfast duty. I’m on coffee recovery.”
It’s simple. Domestic.
Dangerously close to everything I never thought I deserved.
By the time the kids are dressed and fed and cartwheeling through the yard, Lila’s on the deck with a book she’s not reading and I’m standing too close without an excuse.
“I got a call,” I tell her, barely above a murmur.
She looks up, and her eyes soften. She knows. “Your father?”
