Page 34 of At First Flight
Evelyn giggles and says something unintelligible around her thumb. Lila kisses the top of her head like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like she’s always been here.
And something in me settles. Softens.
She hasn’t been here long—five days, maybe six—but the difference is impossible to ignore. The house is cleaner, sure, but not in a sterile way. It’s lived-in. Dinosaur figurines are on the mantel, a crayon drawing of our family (stick figures with very large heads) is taped to the fridge, and the faint sound of beach music plays from her phone on the windowsill.
She fits here. God help me, she fits here too well.
Oliver comes bounding in from the living room, his footfalls heavy and loud like always. He wields a plastic sword in one hand and a bowl of dry cereal in the other. “Lila! Lila! I saved the deck from the lava monster.”
“Again?” she teases, setting Evelyn into her high chair with practiced ease. “That monster never learns.”
“I know!” he shouts, triumphant.
I lean in the doorway, arms crossed, letting the moment play out.
She’s got on an old T-shirt I saw folded in the laundry room, soft and worn in with a faded baseball logo on the front. Her hair’s tied up in a loose bun, and she’s got pancake batter on her cheekbone. I have never seen anyone more effortlessly beautiful.
She catches me watching and freezes for a second, her cheeks pinking as she turns to flip the next pancake.
“Morning,” I offer casually even though my chest is anything but.
She glances at me over her shoulder, giving a small smile. “Good morning.”
Evelyn kicks her feet in the high chair, syrup already smeared across the tray. “Lila made Mickey Mouse pancakes,” she declares with a sticky grin.
I walk forward, ruffling Oliver’s hair as I pass, and glance down at the plate she slides across the counter. Sure enough, there’s a pancake with two smaller pancakes as ears.
“Creative,” I say, raising a brow. “Trying to outshine me already?”
She smirks, a flash of mischief in her eyes. “Just trying to keep morale up in the ranks, boss.”
After breakfast, the house settles into a quiet rhythm. Oliver pulls out his LEGOS and builds a fortress on the living room floor while Evelyn curls into the corner of the couch with a stack of board books Lila picked out from the library.
Lila moves through the space like she belongs in it. She hums when she folds the laundry, plays hide-and-seek while brushing crumbs from the floor, and somehow remembers Evelyn’s favorite snack and Oliver’s least favorite color.
I try to keep to my office, really, I do. But every time I look up from my screen, I find myself listening for her voice. For her laughter. For the sound of her reading out loud.
I catch glimpses through the doorway. Lila sits cross-legged on the floor next to Oliver, helping him sort the blue blocks from the green. She listens with her whole body, leaning in, offering encouragement with a simple touch to his back or a proud smile.
My chest tightens watching it—that quiet, unspoken connection.
It isn’t just that she’s good with the kids. It’s that she sees them. Really sees them. She makes Evelyn feel brave, andOliver feel like the smartest kid in the world. She makes me…feel something I haven’t let myself feel in a long damn time. Safe.
Around midday, I hear her laugh through the back door. I step out onto the deck with a fresh cup of coffee and watch from the top step as she races across the lawn with Evelyn tucked under one arm like a football. Oliver trails them, giggling and shrieking.
Lila collapses onto the blanket they’d spread beneath the oak tree earlier. Evelyn crawls up her chest to nuzzle under her chin.
And that dangerous warmth in my chest blooms again.
It takes every ounce of discipline I have not to go to her. Not to kiss the sun off her cheeks and brush the grass from her hair and ask if she’s felt it too, this pull. This ache that doesn’t feel like infatuation. It feels like coming home. But I don’t. Because she deserves time. She deserves space. She deserves to choose this life without me pushing her toward it.
So I sit with my coffee. And I watch her fall into place in our world.
By the time late afternoon drapes soft golden light across the backyard, the house has quieted into a kind of hush that feels sacred. Evelyn’s finally down for her nap with one chubby fist curled around her plush fox and the other pressed against her cheek. Oliver’s on the couch with a book about knights and dragons, eyelids already fluttering shut despite insisting he wasn’t tired.
And Lila?
Lila’s in the kitchen, standing at the sink with her back to me, sleeves pushed up, wrists wet, humming along softly to some indie folk song playing low on the speaker.
