Chapter 26 Eleanor
ELEANOR
My breath was still coming in uneven little bursts when the phone buzzed on the coffee table.
The sound was impossibly loud in the quiet room.
I froze. Alex froze on top of me.
For one suspended moment, all I felt was the heavy, warm thrum of what we’d just done. The heat in my cheeks. The lingering tremble in my thighs. The press of his forehead against mine as we tried to catch our breath.
Then reality crashed back in.
The vibration continued.
And the spell shattered.
I reached for my phone with a hand that wasn’t entirely steady.
Ava: Mom, can you come get me? I’m tired.
A cold ripple went through me, washing away the last lingering sparks of pleasure. Not regret, never that, but something sobering.
A reminder of who I was first.
Always first.
I sat back, pulling in a breath, trying not to let the sudden drop show on my face. Alex pushed himself upright too, hair mussed, cheeks flushed, eyes still soft and full of concern.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
No.
Yes.
God, I didn’t know.
I swallowed. “I have to go pick up Ava.”
“Of course.” His voice was gentle, steady, but I saw the change in his eyes. The recognition. The pulling back.
Not rejection.
Just . . . understanding.
I stood, smoothing my shirt like it mattered, trying to silence the chaotic swirl in my chest. I had fun. More fun than I’d allowed myself to hope for. I didn’t regret a second of it.
But the second the real world intruded, everything inside me twisted. Desire tangled with guilt, excitement muddled with fear, Ethan’s face flickering uninvited in the back of my mind.
What did this make me? Who was I allowed to be now? What if I was moving too fast? What if I wasn’t?
Alex rose too, not crowding me, not touching me, giving me space like he sensed every emotion crackling through me.
“Let's go,” he said softly.
I nodded, throat tight.
We moved toward the front door together, not touching this time, the air between us still warm but fragile now like glass we hadn’t figured out how to hold yet.
On the porch, the night air hit my flushed skin, cooling it too quickly, as we made our way to our cars.
Alex paused beside me, hands in his pockets, searching my face with an expression that made my chest ache.
“Tonight was . . . ” He shook his head, a small smile tugging at his lips. “It was really, really good.”
The words tugged something loose in me.
“It was,” I whispered. “It really was.”
We stood there, not quite knowing what the moment was supposed to be now.
Then he stepped back, giving me the tiniest bow of space.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked.
There was hope in his voice. Hope and patience. Hope and something I wasn’t sure I deserved.
I nodded. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”
I slid behind the wheel, and my hands trembled just enough to make me grip the steering wheel tight.
I wanted him. I liked him.
Tonight changed something inside me.
And that terrified me. Because I was a mom first. Because grief didn’t follow rules. Because love, or whatever this could become, wasn’t simple anymore.
As I backed out of the driveway, I looked up once.
Alex stood beside his Prius, watching me go.
And god help me . . .
I already missed him.
Alex and I pulled out of my driveway, his headlights trailing me all the way to the duplex. Every mile, every stop sign, every turn made the air inside my car feel tighter. My body still hummed with everything that had happened, but my chest felt . . . knotted.
A little guilty.
A lot overwhelmed.
When I parked in front of Becca and Mel’s place, Alex gave me a gentle little wave, a soft smile, no pressure, no questions, before heading toward his side of the duplex.
I swallowed hard and walked up the steps.
Before I could knock, the door flew open, and Mel appeared, in pajama shorts, oversized T-shirt, and a satin sleep bonnet that shimmered under the porch light.
“Hey, girl!” she chirped, waving me in. “Good timing. We were just winding down.”
I stepped inside and smiled despite the swirling in my stomach.
Their living room was a chaos carnival in the best way possible, the remains of a blanket fort collapsed in the corner, pillows everywhere, popcorn on the rug, and a movie still paused on the TV.
Leo was fast asleep on the couch, curled under a rainbow fleece blanket, mouth slightly open. Ava sat beside him, headphones on, completely absorbed in her tablet. The tip of her tongue stuck out in concentration.
My heart softened automatically.
Becca came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel. “Hey! They had such a great night,” she said with a warm smile. “They’re already planning the second one.”
Right on cue, Ava registered my presence. She glanced up, pushing her headphones off one ear.
“Hi, baby,” I said softly.
“Let’s go,” she replied simply, sliding off the couch without ceremony. Classic Ava. But she turned to her and said with that rare earnest clarity, “Thank you. I had a good time.”
Mel’s face lit up like a lantern. “Anytime, kiddo.”
“Drive safe,” Becca said to me, her voice soft in the dim light. “Text me if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” I murmured. “For everything.”
“You’re family now,” Mel called from the doorway. “You can’t escape us!”
I managed a laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Ava slipped her hand into mine, her grounding pressure, small and firm, and we walked to the car together.
The minute the doors shut, silence wrapped around us.
A gentle, heavy, complicated silence.
Ava leaned her head against the window, already sliding into whatever thought-world she lived in at night.
And I . . . I just drove.
The streetlights passed through the windshield in slow, golden streaks, soft and blurred, and my chest felt too full with everything unspoken.
The taste of Alex’s kiss, the warmth of his touch, the guilt and longing battling in my ribs, all of it dulled by one thing, the sharp ache of missing Ethan.
The quiet, startling realization that I wanted more with Alex, even though it scared me.
Ava didn’t notice any of it.
She simply said, “Leo has cool pajamas.”
And somehow, that small, innocent sentence made my throat tighten.
“Yeah,” I said, voice soft. “He does.”
The rest of the drive was quiet.
But it wasn’t empty.
It was full.
Full of everything that had happened . . . everything I couldn’t name yet . . .
and everything I wasn’t sure how to feel.
I had just slipped into my pajamas, wiping away mascara smudges in the bathroom mirror, when I heard it. There was soft, hesitant knock on my bedroom door.
My heart stuttered. “Come in, sweet girl.”
Ava stepped inside, shoulders tucked up, eyes wide with something I couldn’t yet read. Not meltdown-wide or anxious-wide. Just . . . processing. My mother's instinct kicked in immediately.
“Everything okay?” I asked gently.
She nodded, though the way she hovered near the door told me she wasn’t quite telling the whole truth. Slowly, she walked toward my vanity. Her eyes landed on the photo tucked into the mirror of me and Ethan at nineteen, my hair a shocking electric blue.
She leaned in so close that her breath fogged the glass.
“Mom,” she said, voice a whisper of disbelief, “you had blue hair.”
A laugh bubbled out of me, soft but real. “I was cool once.”
She huffed in that classic Ava way, somewhere between amusement and annoyance, then kept staring at the picture. I saw it, the tightening of her jaw, the way her fingers fidgeted in the hem of her shirt.
She was working up to something.
I didn’t rush her.
Finally, she said it.
“Leo said you were on a date with his dad.”
The air knocked right out of my lungs. I froze. Not ready. Not now. Not when my emotions were already a tangle from the night, from Ethan, from everything Alex made me feel. But I wasn’t going to lie to her.
I sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded in my lap. “I was,” I said. “Are you . . . okay with that?”
Ava’s brows pinched hard, and she looked back at Ethan’s picture. She studied it with an intensity that made my heart ache.
“He’s not going to be my dad,” she said quietly.
“Oh, baby,” I breathed, standing and crossing the room to her. My throat tightened. “No. He isn’t. He will never be your dad.”
I reached out slowly, carefully, and she let me touch her shoulders, her cheek.
“Right now,” I continued softly, “Alex and I are just getting to know each other. That’s all. And even if . . . even if something does happen, even if we decide to be together someday, he will never take your dad’s place.”
Her lip trembled.
A single tear slid down her cheek.
A tear. From my Ava. So rare it nearly broke me in half.
“I miss him,” she whispered.
“So do I,” I said, pulling her into my arms before the emotion could swallow her. I hugged her tightly, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo, steadying myself as much as I steadied her. “I miss him all the time.”
She held on for a long moment, then let out a heavy breath against my shoulder. I guided her toward the bed, and she climbed in without a word, curling into my side like she did when she was small.
I grabbed her tablet from the nightstand and opened the folder of family videos. Ethan holding baby Ava, spinning her around the living room, both of them laughing in the sunlit kitchen of our old apartment.
We watched them on repeat, wrapped around each other.
The softness of the moment loosened something inside her, and without looking at me, eyes still on the glowing screen, Ava said, in the smallest voice, “If you want to date Alex . . . it’s okay with me.”
I pressed my lips to the top of her head, my chest tight and aching. “Thank you, sweet girl.”
We fell asleep like that. Just a mother and daughter, wrapped around grief and love and the first tiny step toward something new, while Ethan danced with baby Ava on the screen, looping endlessly in the warm glow of memory.