Page 96 of At First Flight
And for the first time since my father’s call, since the court date, since the past came knocking, I don’t feel like I’m bracing for impact.
I feel like I’m building something.
With her.
Chapter Twenty – Lila
Something about the air after a breakthrough makes everything feel sharper. Cleaner. Like the sky has rinsed the world and left it raw and exposed.
That’s exactly how I feel this morning. Raw. Exposed. Scrubbed down to the bone.
The sheets are still tangled around my legs when I blink awake, the memory from two nights ago cling to my skin like heat. Dean’s hands, his mouth, the gravel in his voice when he told me to hold the headboard.
God. My whole body flushes.
I stretch beneath the sheets, sore in places I hadn’t used in a while, and very aware of the hollow space beside me. The bed smells like him, cedarwood and firelight and something undeterminable but warm. Like safety, if safety had a heartbeat and broad shoulders.
But he’s gone.
I prop myself up on one elbow, blinking against the pale sunlight slipping through the curtains. The room is quiet. Too quiet. No cartoons, no cereal bowls clinking, no sound of Evelyn dragging every stuffed animal in existence down the stairs. Just birdsongs and the soft ticking of the hallway clock.
Then I see it.
A note on the nightstand. His handwriting is steady, clean. Unfussy.
At the lawyer’s. Your mom offered to watch the kids. Didn’t want to wake you. Made coffee. – D
Coffee. Lawyer. Two words that snap me out of the dreamy haze and drop me right into the hard edge of reality.
The past few days weren’t just about stolen kisses and thunderstorms. It was about his father calling, slinging threats like they were commandments, threatening custody and undermining everything Dean had worked for. And for what? Power? Control?
I sip from the steaming mug waiting in the kitchen. The bitter heat grounds me like it’s trying to anchor my thoughts. But they still drift.
I didn’t intend to step into their conversation. But I did. Every word is branded into my skull.
“You think moving to some farm town makes you a father?
“This isn’t parenting. This is hiding. You're a disgrace to the family name.
“I’m going to make sure those kids end up with someone who understands responsibility.”
And Dean’s voice—calm at first, steady, and then shattered.
“You don’t get to dictate my life. You forfeited that right the first time you put money above your family.”
The silence that followed was louder than the thunder outside.
I press my hand to the cool surface of the countertop and take a breath. It hurts how much I feel for him. For the boy he was before the world hardened him. For the man he’s become. The one who tucks notes beside the bed and brews coffee just the way I like it.
The one who still thinks he has something to prove.
I walk through the house slowly, toes brushing the new floorboards freshly scratched from toys, letting the quiet wrap around me like a memory I’m not ready to let go of.
The hallway still smells like rain and maple syrup, leftover from this morning’s pancake chaos. A puzzle sits unfinished on the dining room table, Evelyn’s butterfly puzzle, the one she insists on finishing all by herself, even though she demands my help every other piece. A pair of Oliver’s mismatched socks lie abandoned halfway up the stairs, one inside out, the other crumpled in a way that tells me he took them off mid-chase.
I smile at the mess, at the lived-in feeling I used to avoid. This place isn’t just a temporary address anymore. It’s a heartbeat. A rhythm I’ve come to crave.
My phone buzzes in my hand. I glance down at the screen and freeze.
