Chapter 18 Serena
Three days. Three days of careful distance, stolen glances, and conversations that died before they started. The intimate night after the Pattersons' visit had shattered something between us, and neither Brad nor I seemed to know how to navigate the debris.
I stood at the kitchen sink, mechanically washing dishes while Brad helped Finn with math homework at the table. The domestic scene was so normal it hurt—except for the way Brad hadn't met my eyes since Tuesday, except for how he'd found excuses to leave any room I entered.
"Carry the seven, buddy," he said softly, his patience with Finn never wavering even as tension rolled off him in waves.
"Miss Serena taught me a trick for that!" Finn's voice rang bright as a bell in our careful quiet. "She says the seven's a mountain climber who needs to reach the next peak!"
Brad's gaze flickered to me for a microsecond before returning to the worksheet. "That's... that's a good trick."
"The best tricks usually are," I said quietly, drying a plate with unnecessary focus.
The silence stretched until Finn asked, "Why are you and Dad being weird?"
"We're not—" we both started simultaneously, then stopped, the synchronization highlighting exactly how weird we were being.
"I'm going to Aiden and Ava’s house," Finn announced with the exasperation only a seven-year-old could master. "You two need to use your words like you tell me to."
After Brad delivered Finn to his playdate—a carefully supervised afternoon with the Hendersons—he found me in the living room, pretending to grade papers while actually staring at the same sentence for the twentieth time.
"Get your coat," he said abruptly.
I looked up, startled. "What?"
"You need... we need..." He ran his hand through his hair, frustration evident. "You've been dealing with everything—the Pattersons, this whole situation, us—and you need a break. We both do. Away from the house, away from... Just get your coat."
"Brad, we don't have to—"
"Please." The word came out rough, almost desperate. "Just trust me."
Twenty minutes later, we were driving through mountain roads toward Texas, the silence between us broken only by a playlist stuck on repeat—the same song for the third time, something about almost lovers that felt like being waterboarded with irony.
His fingers drummed violently against the steering wheel as he stole glances at me, like I might evaporate if he didn't keep checking.
"That song again?" I finally said. "Really?"
His ears went nuclear. "Shuffle's broken."
"Brad, shuffle doesn't break in a way that plays one song on repeat unless—" The realization hit. "Oh my God. Did you make a playlist that's just the same song sixty times?"
"No." Beat. "Forty-seven times."
"That's psychotic."
"It helps me think."
"About what, your descent into madness?"
"You." The admission hung between us. "Us. This thing we're doing where we pretend it's still pretending even though we both know it's not."
My heart hammered, but before I could respond, he pulled into a parking lot. The sign read "Artisan Ice Cream Laboratory," and despite everything, I laughed.
"Ice cream? Really?"
"I researched unique date ideas," he admitted, then froze. "I mean, not date. This isn't—unless you want—"
"Brad." I touched his arm, feeling the tension there. "It's okay. Whatever this is, it's okay."
Inside, the workshop buzzed with couples wearing matching aprons, and the instructor automatically handed us "Team Sweetheart" name tags. Brad's expression was priceless—panic mixed with hope mixed with something that looked suspiciously like longing.
"We could leave," he offered halfheartedly.
"Don't you dare," I said, pinning the name tag to his chest with perhaps more contact than necessary. "You brought me here to make terrible ice cream, we're making terrible ice cream."
The competition brought out a side of Brad I'd only glimpsed—intensely focused but playful, his competitive nature channeled into perfecting flavor profiles.
He studied temperature controls with scientific precision while I experimented with wild combinations, tossing in ingredients based on instinct rather than logic.
"Lavender doesn't go with cotton candy," he protested as I added another layer to our base.
"Says who? Have you tried it?"
"No, because I have functioning taste buds."
"Coward," I challenged, offering him a spoonful of our experimental mixture.
His expression as he tasted it was comedy gold—surprise, confusion, then grudging acceptance. "That's... actually not terrible."
"High praise from the culinary expert who once served Finn cereal for dinner three nights straight."
"That was strategic meal planning," he defended, but he was smiling now, really smiling, and my chest ached with how much I'd missed it.
We worked hip to hip in the small space, Brad's hands covering mine to demonstrate proper folding technique. The innocent instruction became something else as he stood behind me, his chest against my back, voice low in my ear as he explained the science of crystallization.
"Too much air and it becomes foam," he murmured, his breath warm against my neck. "Too little and it's basically frozen milk."
"And what do you want?" I asked, the question carrying more weight than ice cream warranted.
His hands stilled on mine. "The perfect balance. Something sweet but complex. Something that surprises you with each taste but feels familiar too. Something that makes you want more even when you know you should stop."
We weren't talking about ice cream anymore.
The workshop's "share your love story" segment caught us completely off-guard. Other couples were taking turns, and suddenly the microphone was in Brad's hand.
He looked at me, panic flickering in his eyes, and I knew he was about to make excuses. Instead, I took the microphone.
"We met during the worst storm in years," I began, weaving truth with fiction so seamlessly I almost believed it myself.
"I was terrified, completely out of my element, and this man—this ridiculous, overprotective, wonderful man—took me in without question.
He shared his home, his son, his life with a stranger because it was the right thing to do. "
I looked at Brad, letting everything I felt show in my eyes. "Except somewhere between emergency procedures and bedtime stories, between cooking and homework help, I stopped being a stranger. And he stopped being just shelter from the storm."
Brad took the microphone, his voice rough.
"She makes everything better," he said simply.
"My son smiles more. The house feels alive again.
I remember what it's like to want tomorrow to come, not just survive today.
She didn't fix us—we weren't broken. But she showed us we had room to grow, space we didn't know existed until she filled it. "
The room erupted in applause and more than a few tears. I saw one woman mouth "beautiful" to her husband, and I wanted to tell her it wasn't performance. Every word was true, even if the timeline was creative.
Our ice cream—honey lavender with Colorado wildflower infusion and crystallized ginger (the cotton candy idea was vetoed by democratic process)—won second place.
Brad lifted me off my feet in celebration, spinning me as I laughed, and for a moment we forgot we were supposed to be maintaining distance.
On the drive home, he took a detour to a scenic overlook. The sun was setting over the mountains, painting everything gold and amber. We ate our ice cream straight from the container, passing the spoon between us with comfortable intimacy.
"I planned this," Brad said suddenly, apropos of nothing. "Before the Pattersons invaded. Before we—" He gestured vaguely at the space between us where that night lived. "Before everything went nuclear. I wanted to thank you properly, kept chickening out because..."
"Because it would've been a real date."
"Because I wanted it to be a real date." The confession hung between us like a held breath. "I asked Theo to pick up Finn from the Hendersons'. He'll be watching him until nine. We have time to..."
"To what?"
"To stop pretending this is pretending."
I set down the ice cream container, turned to face him fully. "Brad—"
"I know we have rules. I know this complicates everything. I know you're supposed to be temporary, that this is just until your cabin is fixed, that we're doing this for Finn and custody and—"
I kissed him, cutting off his spiral of rationalization. It was different from our other kisses—slower, deliberate, acknowledging everything we'd been denying. When we broke apart, his forehead rested against mine.
We arrived home to find Finn had made us a certificate in Theo's distinctive handwriting—"World's Best Ice Cream Makers and Parents" with elaborate crayon decorations. Brad and I stood in the driveway, staring at it.
"He called us parents," I said unnecessarily.
"Both of us. Together. Parents plural."
"That doesn't scare you?"
Brad looked at me, vulnerability naked in his eyes. "Everything about this scares me. But not having it? That scares me more."