Chapter 2 #2
“It’s fine,” I say automatically. “But Marta’s mother is in the hospital, and she can’t do pickup this afternoon. I have a hearing prep call I can’t move. Could you get Michaela from school?”
“Of course.”
The speed of it tightens my throat.
“I can send the authorization to the school,” I say. “And her teacher knows you. It should be straightforward.”
“David.”
There’s no reprimand in my mother’s voice, just gentle impatience.
“You don’t have to explain logistics to me as though I’ve never collected a child before.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m happy to do it.” A pause. “How is she?”
She, meaning Michaela. The gravitational center around the rest of us. Even my father, though he’d rather staple his own hand than say so out loud.
“She’s holding up,” I say. “Better than I expected. Which probably means she’s internalizing everything and will hit me with a devastatingly accurate observation about abandonment over mac and cheese.”
My mother sighs softly. “Poor darling.”
“Yeah.”
“And you?”
I look at the sink. At the streak of toner I missed on the heel of my hand. At the reflection in the microwave door—a man in an expensive suit standing in a half-finished office kitchen before ten in the morning, already exhausted.
“I’m fine.” The words land hollow, even to me.
“David.”
I close my eyes. “I’m managing.”
Which is not the same thing and we both know it.
“All right,” she says, in the tone of a woman choosing not to press because she’d like me to stay on the phone. “Text me the pickup details. I’ll bring her back to your house afterward unless you prefer she stay with me until you’re done.”
“Leonie will be there to greet you. I should be home by six-thirty. Seven at the latest.”
“Then I’ll bring her home so Leonie can leave at a reasonable hour. Though perhaps I’ll stop for a treat on the way.”
“Michaela will consider that an act of moral leadership.”
“As she should.” I can hear the smile in her voice now. “Has she said anything else about . . . the situation?”
“Not much. She asked a few questions. Mostly the impossible ones.”
“The impossible ones are her specialty.”
“Apparently.”
My mother is quiet for a moment. “And what are we telling her? About Kelsie.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut. God, I hate that I’m in this position.
“Anything she wants to know,” I say. “Just nothing negative. I know Dad and Caleb don’t think she has a case, but—”
“You don’t want to poison a little girl against her mother,” my mother says quietly.
“Even though that mother was negligent. Even though she abandoned her before her first birthday. Because our legal system can be cruel, and even after hearing the way Kelsie treated her own child as a baby, the courts may still decide Michaela has to spend time with her.”
My throat tightens. “Yes.”
“I hate this,” she says.
“I do too.” I run a hand over my face. “I’ll text you the details.”
“Good. And David?”
“Yeah?”
“Eat something.”
I look at the clock on the microwave. Nine forty-two. I had coffee. Half of one, anyway.
“I will.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m aspirationally agreeing.”
She laughs softly. “Goodbye, sweetheart.”
The endearment still feels off. Before my parents’ divorce, the Kingsley house didn’t run on sweetheart. My father’s affection came in the form of lists, rules, and the expectation of a stiff upper lip. My mother tried, but by the time I hit my teens, she was emotionally starved too.
Now, from time to time, she says it like she means to make up for all the years nobody said it at all.
“Bye, Mom.”
I hang up and stand there, phone in hand, the kitchen buzzing faintly around me. Somewhere down the hall, Eddie drops something and swears under his breath. The printer smell has evolved from electrical doom into scorched plastic resignation.
My inbox pings.
I glance down, thumb already moving, and the sender line registers before my brain catches up.
Nora Harrison.
My body reacts before my brain does. A flush of heat straight down my spine. The phantom pressure of her mouth. The memory of exactly how soft her skin was under my palms. For three seconds, I’m not in a kitchen that smells like burnt toner. I’m in hers.
Fuck.
I shouldn’t have kissed her.
The thought is immediate, clean, and brutal. Not because I didn’t want to. That would be the easier problem.
I wanted to with an intensity that still feels vaguely humiliating a week later.
I wanted to the first time she called me by my first name in that calm, steady voice of hers.
I wanted to the morning she leaned across her desk to hand a parent a form, and I spent four inappropriate seconds memorizing the line of her collarbone above the neckline of her blouse.
I wanted to every time she crouched to speak to Michaela like my daughter was a whole person and not a small inconvenience in polished shoes.
And I wanted to that afternoon I watched her stand between Michaela and disaster with nothing but competence, kindness, and that maddeningly grounded presence she carries around like it costs her nothing.
But wanting something and being entitled to it are not remotely the same thing.
Michaela is eight—well, eight and a half, if you’re speaking directly to her—and she’s already been dragged through enough instability to last a lifetime.
Years ago, when it became clear that Kelsie was not coming back and I was going to be the only reliable parent my daughter had, I made a decision.
No relationships while she was little. No women drifting in and out of our house.
No risking her attachment, her routine, her sense of safety because I was lonely or tired or wanted someone warm in my bed at the end of a brutal day.
I would not be the kind of parent who made his child absorb the blast radius of his personal life.
It was a simple rule. Harsh, maybe. But simple. And I have been very good at simple rules.
Until Nora.
The problem with Nora is that simple became unfathomable the second I learned what it was like to have her mouth under mine.
That is, unfortunately, the entire problem.
Before that night, attraction was manageable.
Annoying, yes. Inconvenient. But containable.
I could file it under private weaknesses and keep moving.
I could appreciate that she was intelligent and steady and good with my daughter, and still remain a civilized adult with boundaries and a functioning frontal lobe.
Now I know exactly how soft her skin is under my hands. I know the startled sound she made when I kissed her back. I know that, for a few reckless seconds, kissing Nora Harrison felt less like making a mistake and more like finally telling the truth.
Which is precisely why it cannot happen again.
I unlock my phone and open the email. And I hate myself the moment I read the first line.
Good morning, Mr. Kingsley . . .
Mr. Kingsley.
Fuck.