Chapter Three
Alexei
I wake to the smell of bacon.
Actual bacon, popping and sizzling in a pan. There’s the clink of a dish, the scrape of a spatula, and underneath it all, someone humming—soft, off-key, completely unself-conscious.
I lie there for a few seconds, staring at my ceiling, trying to make it compute.
Then it floods back. The street corner. The store. The broken thermostat and the freezing apartment. A woman with the blue eyes and a baby that isn’t hers, both of them sleeping in my guest room.
Right. That happened.
I’ve lived alone for eight years. Since college, since going pro, my mornings have been the same—alarm at seven, protein shake from the blender that I drink standing at the counter scrolling my phone.
Then I grab my gym bag, keys, and I’m out the door.
Twenty-two minutes. I’ve timed it. It’s efficient. It works.
Nobody cooks in my kitchen. My housekeeper preps meals and stacks them in labeled containers in the fridge. I have a six-burner gas range that I’ve used twice in three years, both times for pasta, and the second time I burned the pot bad enough to throw it out.
But right now, someone is making breakfast in my home, and I’m lying here with this stupid grin I can’t get rid of.
I swing my legs over the bed and stand. The morning situation in my boxers needs to settle before I go anywhere, so I head into the bathroom. Brush my teeth. Splash water on my face. Athletic shorts. White T-shirt. Hand through my hair.
Mirror check.
I stop. Since when do I care what I look like walking into my own kitchen?
I head down the hall.
Ryleigh’s hair is piled in a messy bun—the kind that looks like she twisted it without thinking, and somehow it’s perfect.
Without last night’s makeup, she looks younger.
Softer. She’s barefoot on my marble floor, singing under her breath to some pop song that’s been stuck in everyone’s head, moving between the stove and the counter with this easy, unhurried rhythm.
Like she lives here. Like she’s done this a hundred mornings in a row and this is just another one.
Something about it catches me off guard. Not because it’s strange—but because it isn’t.
“Morning,” I say, voice rough from sleep.
She turns. “Hi. Good morning.” She waves the spatula toward the counter. “There’s bacon and coffee and toast. I figured being an athlete, you probably eat a lot. And then I opened your fridge and saw everything and just . . . went for it. I hope that’s okay.”
“More than okay. This is . . . yeah.” I gesture vaguely at the spread. “This is great.”
Eloquent. Really nailing it.
I pull a mug from the cabinet and pour coffee.
Strong, dark, hot. The first sip makes my eyes close on their own.
I usually grab something on the way to practice—lukewarm, forgettable, functional.
This is none of those things. This is really good, and someone made it for me without being asked, and I can’t remember the last time that happened.
“Your fridge, by the way,” Ryleigh says, sliding eggs onto a plate. “It’s like a museum in there. Everything in matching glass containers with handwritten labels. Individual jars of overnight oats with little almond slivers on top. Who does that?”
“My housekeeper.”
“You have a housekeeper.”
“She cleans and does the grocery shopping and the meal prep too.”
Ryleigh turns from the stove, spatula aimed at me. “So someone else shops for your food, cooks your food, labels your food, and puts your food away. What exactly is your contribution?”
“I eat the food.”
A beat. I watch her try to hold it in—the corner of her mouth twitches, then the other corner, and then she gives up. “What a life.”
“I also put the fork in the dishwasher after. Sometimes.”
“Wow. A real renaissance man.” She turns back to the stove to turn off the burner, but I catch the grin she’s trying to hide.
I grab a plate—bacon, eggs, toast—and settle onto a stool at the breakfast bar. Ryleigh takes the stool beside me with her own plate. Her portions are about a third of mine.
I look at her plate. Look at mine. Decide to wait before saying something.
I last about ten seconds.
“That’s what you’re eating?”
Eyebrow up. “Are you monitoring my food intake?”
“Just pointing out there’s a lot of bacon left.”
“I’m fine.”
“There’s also more eggs. And toast. The toast is just sitting there. Getting cold. You can take more.”
“Oh my gosh.” She reaches for another piece of bacon, and something in my chest settles. “Happy?”
“Getting there.”
“Where’s Ella?” I ask.
“She woke up just before five. Fed, changed, rocked for a while until she stopped fussing. She went back down about ten minutes ago.” Ryleigh tears her bacon strip in half. “She has opinions about being awake before sunrise. I respect it.”
I glance at the clock. Just after eight. “You got up early then.”
“Sleep is a thing I used to enjoy. Now it’s more of a fond memory. Like affordable rent.”
“You should’ve come and gotten me. I could’ve helped.”
She gives me this look—not annoyed, more like she finds it genuinely endearing that I’d suggest such a thing. “You’ve done enough.”
She goes back to her eggs, completely unbothered, and I watch her for a second longer than I should—the way she eats, deliberate and unhurried now that there’s food in front of her.
Last night she barely touched the snack platter at first, like she was rationing.
Like she wasn’t sure when her next meal would come.
This morning she’s more relaxed, and I’m glad.
But I also notice she’s still not eating as much as she should.
“These eggs are perfect, by the way,” I tell her, and I mean it. I’ve paid stupid money at restaurants that couldn’t touch this.
She glances at me, and there it is—a quick flash of pride she doesn’t quite manage to hide. “Glad you like them. Least I could do.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true. You took in a complete stranger and her . . . well, another stranger’s baby. That’s not nothing.”
“It was no trouble.”
“It was definitely trouble.” She points her fork at me. “I’m trouble. Ella’s trouble. Together, we’re a lot of trouble. But I appreciate you pretending otherwise.”
I grin. “You’re welcome.”
She shakes her head but she’s smiling, and something about the ease of this—the banter, the morning light, the coffee—makes my chest feel full in a way I’m not used to.
“Can I ask you something?” I take another bite.
“Depends on what it is.”
“Last night you said you haven’t had a home-cooked meal in a while, but clearly you know what you’re doing in a kitchen. Where’d you learn?”
Something shifts behind her eyes. Not sadness, exactly. More like she’s reaching for something she keeps stored somewhere quiet, a drawer she doesn’t open for just anyone.
“My mom.” She wraps both hands around her mug.
“She cooked everything from scratch. Sundays were her big thing—roast chicken, homemade biscuits, the whole deal. I used to sit on the counter while she worked. She’d hand me a wooden spoon and let me stir things, even when I was way too little to actually help.
” A small, private smile. “I think she mostly just liked having me there.”
She takes a sip of coffee. The moment hangs between us, warm and fragile.
“Anyway. Long time ago.”
I want to ask more—about her parents, the accident she mentioned, what happened to the girl who sat on the counter with a wooden spoon. But she’s given me what she’s willing to give, and I know better than to push.
“Well, she taught you right,” I say. “Seriously. Best eggs I’ve had in years.”
Ryleigh meets my eyes, and her expression goes soft for just a second. “Thanks, Alexei.”
The way she says my name—my full name with this gentle, careful pronunciation like she’s trying to get it exactly right—does something to me that I’m going to have to think about later.
There’s a small cry from down the hall.
Ryleigh puts down her fork and starts to stand. I place my hand on her shoulder—not hard, just enough pressure to stop her.
“Let me. You eat.”
She hesitates. I can see the refusal loading—the automatic I’ve got it, the stubborn independence she wears like armor. Then her eyes drop to her half-finished plate, and something in her gives.
“Okay. Thank you.”
The guest room is dim, curtains drawn. Ella’s on her back in the Pack ‘n Play, arms flailing, legs kicking, face scrunched and red, crying with an impressive volume for someone who weighs less than a bag of flour.
“Hey, princess.” I reach in and scoop her up. She’s so light it catches me off guard—lighter than my sister’s kids were at this age, I think, and I make a mental note to ask Ryleigh if she’s had a checkup. If her mom left that information behind, which I’m guessing she didn’t.
Ella’s fist grabs my T-shirt, tiny fingers curling into the cotton, and her cries start to taper as I settle her against my chest. I rub slow circles on her back and she lets out a shuddering little sigh, her body going slack against me.
“That’s my girl,” I murmur, then catch myself.
She’s not my girl. She’s not my anything.
I carry her back to the kitchen, and when Ryleigh looks up from her plate, some warm, unguarded expression crosses her features, but it’s gone before I can name it. She drops her gaze to her coffee, and I pretend I didn’t see it.
I settle back onto my stool one-handed—Ella in the crook of my left arm, fork in my right. Years of family dinners at my mother’s table trained me for exactly this. Someone’s always shoving a baby at you mid-bite. You adapt or you don’t eat.
“Okay, seriously.” Ryleigh’s watching me cut bacon with one hand while Ella grabs at my shirt. “How?”
“How what?”
“How do you just do everything while holding a baby? Like it’s not even a factor?”
“Professional uncle, remember?”
She snorts. Actually snorts—this completely graceless, delighted sound—and then claps her hand over her mouth.
We finish breakfast like that—the three of us at the counter, Ella blinking at the ceiling, Ryleigh sneaking glances at me when she thinks I’m focused on my food.