Page 127 of Your Second Chance
“I want to be there for her, Nova. Are you planning on staying here, or are you going back?” Austin’s voice was steady, but I could hear the undercurrent of desperation.
“We’re here for a while. Luna has some things she needs to figure out.”
“And your fiancé?” he asked, the words cautious, careful.
I swallowed hard, my throat tightening. “He—he’s coming here, too.”
A thought hit me like a wave: how much Ollie had done for me, for us. He’d been my rock, stepping in when I needed him most, never asking for anything in return. This moment, this conversation with Austin, made me realize how much I loved him—with every fiber of my being.
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting my mind drift to the photo Luna had taken the day Scarlette was born. It was the three of us—me, Scarlette, and Ollie. My hair was a mess, my face was pale, but Ollie was holding me like I was the most precious thing in the world. His smile was tired but so full of love.
That photo was everything. It was a reminder of the life we’d built, of the family we’d become.
I exhaled a steadying breath and opened my eyes.
Austin nodded, but I could see the gears turning in his mind. His expression shifted, and I braced myself for what was coming next.
“I want to be there. I want to sit down with her and tell her I’m her dad. I want to?—”
“I know you do,” I said gently.
He wanted to be her dad. The words should have scared me more than they did. They did scare me—this whole thing was terrifying. But there was a flicker of something else, too. Something I hadn’t expected.
Hope.
I thought about Scarlette and how this could change everything for her. How she could have a relationship I’d never had, something I didn’t even know how to picture. I never knew my dad. He was absent. Mami always said we didn’t need him. And we hadn’t. What if Scarlette didn’t have to grow up with that same void?
Mami wouldn’t want this. She’d want them both involved. She always made room for people at the table, no matter how imperfect they were.There’s always room,she used to say, her voice full of warmth.Family’s not about who’s perfect—it’s about who shows up.
But then there was Ollie. My Ollie. He wasn’t “Dad” to Scarlette, not in the traditional sense, but he was hers just as much as she was his. He was the one who stayed up with me during sleepless nights, who taught her to say her first word, who carried her on his shoulders like she was the center of the universe.
He wasn’t Dad. He was Ollie. That was a role no one could take from him.
This terrified me. The idea of Scarlette’s world expanding to include someone who’d been absent for so long. But it also made me excited for her. Because if this worked—if Austin truly was sober and ready—she could have something I never did.
As scary as it was, there was space at the table. For Austin. For Ollie. For all of us.
“I need to do this in a way that’s healthy for her. I need to make sure it’s not confusing or overwhelming. And I need to know you’re sober.”
The pause that followed felt like it stretched for an eternity.
“I’m married,” he blurted.
My eyebrows lifted in surprise.Married?
“You’re married?” I repeated, my voice carrying more disbelief than I intended.
For a second, I wasn’t sure what to feel. Surprise? Definitely. Relief? Maybe. Jealousy? No, that wasn’t it. But there was something about the idea of him building a stable life that left me momentarily speechless.
I thought of the man I knew before—the one who couldn’t commit to anything beyond the next drink. It was unexpected, to say the least, and for reasons I couldn’t quite name, it stung a little.
Not because I wanted him back—god, no. Maybe because it was a reminder of how much had changed, how far apart our lives had grown.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “To a teacher at the school. That’s why I was there, too. We—uh—recently got married.” He hesitated, fumbling for the right words. “I know that doesn’t exactly prove I’m sober, but I’ve been happy. I don’t drink. I—” He looked down at the table, his uncertainty visible in every line of his body.
I studied him for a moment, and something in me softened. He was trying. I could see it in his posture, hear it in his voice. I loosened my grip on the cup.
“I’ll follow your lead,” he said quietly, leaning forward. “However we approach this, I promise, I’ll do it your way. But I want to be there. I need to be there. I have money, a house—I can show you. We can make one of the rooms into?—”
