Chapter 8 #2
Nora snorts softly, then covers it with a cough. I look up at her and catch the exact moment she schools her face back into something more neutral. My God, I want to fuck her again.
“Yes,” I say to my daughter. “Something like that.”
Michaela studies me. “I’m willing to be merciful because Miss Nora handled it competently.”
“How generous of you.”
“I know.”
She says it with such absolute conviction that I almost laugh again. The sound feels rusty. Underused.
Nora steps toward us. “She really was fine once we got here. A little annoyed with the communication failures of the adult world, but otherwise fine.”
“That sounds like her.”
“It does,” Nora says, and her eyes meet mine for half a beat too long before sliding away.
There’s an awkwardness to the room now that wasn’t there over the phone—thin, taut, humming under everything. Not because Michaela notices. She doesn’t. She’s too busy kneeling to retrieve the rope toy while Archie pounces after it like a drunken court jester.
“I think,” Nora says, with that calm principal voice that somehow makes everything sound orderly even when it isn’t, “that the prosecution may need a recess.”
Michaela gasps. “Excellent point.” She points at Archie. “Do not flee the jurisdiction.”
Archie, unsurprisingly, flees the jurisdiction.
Michaela takes off after him down the hall.
And just like that, it’s quiet. Or quieter, anyway. The way a room gets when a child leaves it and takes all the uncomplicated oxygen with her.
I look at Nora. And I can’t look away.
She has one hand tucked around her opposite elbow, like she’s holding herself in place. Her sweater sleeves are pushed up a little at the forearms. She looks warm. Soft. Tired, maybe. Entirely too much like a woman who has spent the evening taking care of my daughter while I was nowhere useful.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, because I don’t know what else to offer first. “I should have checked my phone the second we adjourned. I should have had a backup plan. My mother was in surgery with one of her colleagues, and Caleb was in a deposition prep meeting. But none of that changes the fact that Michaela got stranded at school because I missed the call from Marta.”
Nora’s expression softens, though not in a way that feels pitying. “She didn’t get stranded.”
“She was waiting for me. For someone.”
“She was with someone,” Nora says quietly.
I stare at her, the words rearranging themselves weirdly in my head—she was with someone. The kindness in the statement doesn’t let me off the hook, but it offers me a sliver of purchase against what feels like a complete collapse.
“Thank you,” I say. “For bending the rules. I know you don’t make decisions like that lightly.”
“I break them even less,” she admits. “But I figured calling the police would create more trauma than a marshmallow overdose and a few hours of home-cooked dinner.”
“That seems like sound risk calculus.”
She smiles, and I miss her even though she’s standing right there. I want to reach out and touch her face. Tell her I don’t deserve any of this.
But I have a small, fierce daughter to retrieve, old rules to guard against, and an apology to make that I don’t quite have language for.
I clear my throat. “I should get her home.”
“Of course.” Nora straightens, any hint of that soft smile gone. “She has her backpack. Her homework is in the front pocket. She ate soup and a grilled cheese around five-thirty. Plus the hot chocolate.”
She’s giving me the handoff report. The same kind of structured summary Marta gives me at the end of every day—what Michaela ate, what she did, anything I should know.
Except Marta doesn’t look at me like that when she says it, and Marta’s voice isn’t full of careful distance because we’re both trying not to “make this complicated.”
But how can we not? It’s fucking complicated to want something you shouldn’t.
“We also did her reading. And she finished her math,” Nora adds. “Long division. She didn’t need help, but she read every problem aloud to Archie first. He’s had a very educational afternoon.”
“Archie is lucky.”
“He doesn’t know the half of it.”
We’re standing three feet apart in her hallway. Down the corridor, Michaela is still chasing the dog, her voice carrying bright and sharp through the house like birdsong through an open window. I don’t want to go. But . . .
“Michaela,” I call down the hall. “Time to go.”
“Five more minutes!”
“You’ve had about a hundred and fifty more minutes than originally planned.”
“And each one was essential!”
Nora’s mouth does that thing again—the suppressed smile, the slight compression of her lips when she’s trying not to laugh. I have cataloged far too many of her expressions for a man who claims to abide by his own rules.
“Michaela Kingsley,” I say, in the voice that means I’m not negotiating. “Car. Now.”
A dramatic sigh echoes down the hallway, followed by the sound of a child extracting herself from a golden retriever who does not wish to be extracted from.
Archie appears first, padding toward us with the rope toy hanging from his mouth.
Michaela follows, backpack already on, looking aggrieved in the way children do when told that fun has a time limit.
She stops in front of Nora and hugs her.
The kind where she presses her face into Nora’s sweater and holds on with both arms and doesn’t let go until she’s ready.
Nora’s hand comes up to rest on the back of Michaela’s head—gentle, instinctive, the gesture of someone who has comforted a thousand children and still means it every single time.
“Thanks, Miss Nora,” Michaela says into the cream wool. “Today was good.”
“It was good,” Nora agrees, and her voice is steady but her eyes are not. She blinks once, fast, and I pretend not to notice because I think she needs me not to.
Michaela releases her and turns to Archie. She crouches, takes his enormous golden face in both hands, and looks him dead in the eye. “Archimedes. You have been a credit to your species. I will return.”
Archie licks her nose.
“Objection sustained,” she says solemnly, and marches toward the front door.
I watch her go, then turn back to Nora. She’s watching Michaela go with an expression that makes something behind my ribs ache in a way I don’t have language for.
“Thank you,” I say. “Again. I know that’s—”
“If you thank me one more time, I’m going to start charging you.”
“Fair.” I hover, caught between the door and the desire to kiss her. “I’ll sort the pickup situation. Marta’s mother is getting worse. I need to figure out long-term coverage.”
“If you need help—” She pauses. Recalibrates. “The school can assist with coordination.”
The school. Not her. She’s giving me the professional framing even though nothing about the last three hours has been professional.
And I can see what it costs her—the slight tightening around her mouth, the way her arms fold just a fraction closer to her body.
She’s making herself smaller so I can stay comfortable.
I recognize the maneuver because I’ve been doing it my whole life.
I want to tell her she doesn’t have to do that. Doesn’t have to keep translating herself into language that’s safe for my situation. But I don’t, because the alternative is telling her what I actually want, and I’m not ready for the debris field that would create.
“Good night, Nora.”
I turn away.
“Good night, David.”