Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Alec
This isn’t how I expected the day to go.
Not that I ever expect much—low expectations are easier to maintain than hope—but I did start the morning planning to avoid Mara and Mila like my life depended on it.
Now?
I’m on the floor of my penthouse, knee-deep in encyclopedias, discussing Greek etymology and emotional sequencing with an eight-year-old who wants me to father her imaginary sibling by June.
I mean. Sure. Why not? It’s not like it takes nine months to procreate a child. If I didn’t know she takes things too literally, I would tell her to wish for a magical baby. That’s an explanation I don’t want to even try to create.
Did I think about it when she asked?
For a second, yeah. Of course I did. My brain is a cursed machine like that—always throwing me full-color daydreams of things I have no business wanting.
Then I reminded myself: first, I have to figure out how to make her mother fall in love with me. Then, maybe, convince myself I won’t screw it up.
And after that?
. . . maybe a baby. Or two.
Fuck.
Where the hell did that come from?
I blink at the pages in front of me, but they blur. All I can think about is how scarily not terrifying that possibility sounds.
Which probably means I’m in more trouble than I thought.
Mila flips a page like she’s preparing for a midterm. She adjusts her fake glasses—giant plastic frames with no lenses—because apparently, “research mode” has a dress code.
“Who invented love?” she asks like she’s ordering information off a menu.
“There’s no single inventor,” I answer, reaching for a volume with “Mythology” in gold letters across the spine. “It evolved. Human behavior. Biological imperatives. Attachment theory. Rituals. Courtship. There’s psychology. Sociology. Poetry.”
She narrows her eyes. “But someone had to start it.”
Ugh, can’t she just be happy with one answer?
“Okay, so,” I say, pulling the book into my lap like it’s a shield, “the ancient Greeks had different names for different types of love. There was eros for romantic love. Philia for friendship. Agape for universal compassion. And—”
“Which one makes babies?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and contemplate a nice, long swim in traffic.
“Let’s skip that one for now.”
“You skipped it on purpose,” she accuses.
“I’m allowed to have secrets,” I mutter, flipping pages like I can outpace the interrogation.
But Mila doesn’t let up.
“This says people fall in love multiple times,” she says, stabbing a highlighted paragraph with her pointer finger. “It even says three times is normal. That’s barely any. What if I fall in love with, like, twelve people?”
I glance toward the ceiling.
“Twelve?” I ask. “That’s . . . very specific.”
She shrugs, all confidence. “Maybe more.”
“Well, that’s a problem for your future therapist.”
Mila hums. Then she tilts her head, watching me like she’s trying to sort me into a very precise emotional box.
“Which one is Mom for you?” she asks. “First love? Second? Or the third one? The forever one.”
My lungs forget how to function.
Across the room, Mara—mid-pour—goes still. As if the moment has cinched around her and she’s afraid that moving will break it wide open. She doesn’t turn. Doesn’t speak. Just keeps holding the mug as if setting it down might turn this from a question into something she has to answer.
I consider lying.
I could say I’ve been in love before. I could say she’s my second. Or third. Or not even close.
But the truth?
I’ve never said the word aloud to anyone and meant it.
Not once.
“Mila,” I say carefully, “love isn’t a ranking system. People aren’t sequels. There’s no chart.”
She scrunches her nose. “But the book said—”
“I know what it said. But real love doesn’t follow diagrams. Sometimes it’s slow. Sometimes it sneaks up on you. Sometimes it just . . . sits there quietly, waiting until you realize it’s not going anywhere.”
Mila’s eyes widen. “So Mom could be your surprise love?”
Mara lets out a strangled sound—somewhere between a cough and a gasp.
I wince.
“That’s not exactly what I—”
“Or you could be her surprise love,” Mila counters, flipping the page again like she’s unveiling the next plot twist. “She hasn’t loved anyone since Dad died.”
The spoon hits the countertop.
A clink that’s loud enough to make both Mila and me go still.
Mara doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Her hand stays midair like she forgot what it was doing. I see it in her shoulders—the way her entire body seems to draw in, like she’s trying to disappear without actually leaving the room.
“Mila,” she says, her voice quiet but strained, “I don’t think that’s something we should be discussing right now.”
“Why not?” Mila asks, completely undeterred. “Grandma said I need therapy to deal with my grief. That means I’m allowed to talk about it, right?” She scoots closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “That means the loss of my dad—who I barely remember.”
Then she glances up at me again, curious and calm and way too emotionally intuitive for someone who still thinks unicorns might be real.
“Do you talk to your parents?”
The question slices through me with zero malice and all the force of a freight train. It takes everything in me not to short-circuit on the spot. This kid has a gift—a terrifyingly precise one—for hitting the places adults walk around like they’re edged with broken glass.
“My parents died before I was born,” I say, and the second the words leave my mouth, I feel exposed in a way I didn’t prepare for.
That possibility is one I keep folded tight inside me. I don’t open it often. Not unless someone is being paid hourly to listen.
Mila blinks, thoughtful. “So where did you grow up?”
I look to Mara for help, for rescue, for any sort of emotional life raft, but she stands at the counter with an expression that says, very clearly: You’re on your own, buddy.
“Different homes,” I manage.
“Like me?” she asks, brightening as if she’s found a teammate. Someone who’ll understand her. “We stay in different hotels or sometimes apartments. Until now. Aunt stuff.” She gestures around us like this entire penthouse is a temporary project she’s assessing for structural integrity.
For a moment, I just stare at her. She’s wrong—it’s not the same.
But the way she says it . . . the way she offers a connection so casually .
. . it brushes against places inside me I usually keep under lock and bolt.
She’s lived everywhere and nowhere at once, held together by the one person who refuses to let her drift.
At least she has Mara. At least she belongs somewhere, even if the address changes.
“It’s a good thing you have us,” Mila announces, shrugging with the breezy confidence of a child who has never doubted her own place in the world. Then she taps my knee. “You can be part of our family.”
Everything inside me stops.
I don’t move. I don’t speak. Something stirs low in my chest, something deep and disorienting and way too close to a truth I’ve spent years refusing to want.
Family.
She’s offering me her family.
I’ve spent my entire life pretending that word was nothing more than a concept other people got to have. Pretending I didn’t care that nobody ever stayed. That nobody ever chose me. That every home I entered came with an expiration date I could feel before I even unpacked my things.
And now this kid—this tiny storm of questions and sincerity—looks at me like she’s just placed a plate in front of me at her table and said: Here. Sit. You belong—to us.
It nearly knocks the air out of me.
Because she doesn’t know what she’s giving me. She doesn’t know how her words press against old wounds that still haven’t figured out how to heal. She doesn’t realize she just handed me something I’ve been told my whole life I’m better off without.
A place.
A belonging.
My throat goes tight, and I stare at the rug because if I look at her for another second, I might completely unravel. Mila beams up at me, pleased, like she solved a riddle I didn’t know she was trying to crack open.
Mara steps closer, her voice soft, coaxing. “She doesn’t mean it literally.”
But she does. I can see it—clear as a spotlight—shining out of her. She’s already imagining what holidays look like, and where I’d fit on the sofa, and whether I need a drawer for my things. Kids don’t know how to half-love someone.
And something inside me shifts. Not in a neat, manageable way—but in a way that reroutes every instinct I’ve relied on to keep me alive.
I don’t want to run.
Not from her questions.
Not from their losses.
Not from what might be happening between Mara and me—slow, terrifying, impossible, and real enough that it catches in my pulse before I can talk myself out of it.
I don’t know what scares me more: how much this means, how much I want it . . . or if Mara will let me stay.