Chapter 25
Theo
We stayed up late last night after we got home from ice skating, making love twice, intense and consuming in a way that still has my blood humming. I’ve never been with anyone the way I am with Emma. Like we’re two halves of something that was always meant to be whole.
Early morning light filters through the curtains, soft and pink, painting everything in warm hues that make the bedroom feel like somewhere outside of time.
I roll over and look at her, still deep in sleep, and for a long moment I just lie here watching.
Her red hair is spread across my pillow like something from a painting, copper and amber threads catching the light.
Her face is peaceful, her breathing slow and even, one hand tucked under her cheek.
She looks so completely at home in my bed, so perfectly right in this space.
Looking at her now, soft and sleep-warm in my sheets, I don’t just see this morning. I see every morning.
I slip out of bed carefully, not wanting to wake her. So I make my way downstairs to start coffee. I stand at the kitchen window watching the water while the coffee brews, the Sound flat and gray in the early light, a few boats already moving in the distance.
The morning stretches ahead of us with no obligations, no schedule, nothing demanding my attention except the woman upstairs in my bed. It’s a rare gift, this kind of unstructured time. I should savor it.
The coffee maker beeps, and I pour myself a cup, wrapping my hands around the warm ceramic.
But instead of heading back upstairs, I find myself walking outside and toward the garage door.
I’m not sure what draws me there—some pull I don’t fully understand, some itch in my hands that wants to create something.
But I go with it. Open the door, flip on the light, cross to the corner where the black walnut has been waiting for years.
I pull the tarp back and look at the wood.
The grain is still beautiful, those dark swirling patterns I fell in love with when I bought it all those years ago with grand plans about what it would become.
I run my hand over the surface, feeling the texture under my palm, the potential still humming in the grain.
Emma’s voice echoes in my head, that night we talked about it.
Life’s too short to let beautiful things sit in a garage collecting dust.
She was right. She’s right about a lot of things.
I pick up my tools, just to get a feel for them again, letting my hands remember what they know how to do.
The rasp of sandpaper against wood. The satisfying curl of a shaving peeling away under the plane.
The way the grain reveals itself as you work, like uncovering something that was always there, just waiting to be found.
The early morning quiet is perfect for this kind of work.
No distractions, no demands, just me and the wood and the slow, satisfying process of shaping something raw into something beautiful.
I lose track of time, which hasn’t happened in years.
I’m so absorbed in the work that I don’t hear her approach.
“Morning,” Emma says, and I look up to find her standing in the garage doorway.
She’s dressed in her jeans from last night and one of my flannel shirts, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She’s so beautiful it makes my chest ache. Every single time I look at her, it hits me fresh.
“I woke up and you were gone,” she says, her voice still husky with sleep. “I wondered if I might find you out here.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I tell her, setting down my tools and wiping sawdust from my hands onto my jeans. “Thought I’d finally make some progress on this thing.”
She smiles, but there’s something underneath I can’t quite read. A tension in her shoulders. A distance in her eyes that wasn’t there last night when she was gasping my name as I made her cum over and over again, when she was looking at me like I was everything she’d ever wanted.
“It’s looking good,” she says, stepping closer to examine the wood. “You’ve done a lot already.”
“It’s a start.” I cross the garage to her, pull her close, kiss her properly. Her lips are soft and she melts into me the way she always does, her body pressing against mine with desperation.Then she pulls back slightly, and I see something serious underneath the softness.
“Can we talk?” she asks.
My stomach drops. Nothing good ever follows those three words.
“Of course,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “Always.”
We go inside and the morning feels different now, charged with something heavy that I can’t name. Emma refills her coffee, I pour myself another cup, and we sit at the kitchen table across from each other, the wood grain between us like a barrier.
I watch her, patient on the outside, increasingly worried on the inside. She’s staring at her coffee like it holds answers, her fingers wrapped tight around the mug, her jaw set in that way she gets when she’s steeling herself for something difficult.
“Chloe’s been so happy lately,” Emma says finally, still not looking at me. “With Victoria around more. She talks about it constantly, how excited she is that her mom is in town, how much fun they’ve had together, all the things they’re going to do.”
“That’s true,” I say carefully, trying to follow where she’s going with this. “She has been happy.”
“And if Victoria really does move back, really does become more present and consistent, that would be good for Chloe. Right? That’s what you said last night.”
Dread seeps through me like cold water, slow and inevitable. I’m starting to see where this is heading, and I don’t like it.
“It could be,” I agree. “If she follows through. That’s a big if.”
Emma is quiet for a moment, her thumb tracing the rim of her mug.
When she speaks again, her voice is softer, more vulnerable.
“I told you about my parents’ divorce,” she says.
“But I don’t think I really explained how hard it was.
” She takes a breath. “When they split, I used to make up these elaborate fantasies where Dad would show up at the door with flowers and Mom would forgive him and everything would go back to the way it was before. I wished so hard for my family to be whole again. No split holidays, no packing a bag every other weekend and feeling like I was being torn in two directions.”
I reach across the table and take her hand, because I can picture it too easily. Young Emma with her red hair and her fierce heart, lying awake in the dark, wishing for something she couldn’t have.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “That sounds really hard.”
“It was.” She finally looks up at me, and there’s a look in her eyes that makes my stomach clench with real fear. “And I keep thinking about Chloe and what she must want, even if she doesn’t say it out loud. She’s been so happy having her mom around more.”
“Emma,” I say gently, “what’s really going on here? Talk to me.”
“Have you ever thought about trying again with Victoria?” she asks.
The question catches me completely off guard. Of all the things I expected her to say, this wasn’t even on the list. I stare at her for a long moment, trying to process, trying to understand how we got here.
“No,” I say, and my voice is quiet but absolutely certain. “I haven’t. Not once.”
“But—“
“Wait.” I hold up my hand gently. “Can I explain why? Before you go wherever you’re going with this?”
She nods, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
“Victoria and I were never right for each other,” I tell her, choosing my words carefully because I need her to understand this, really understand it.
“We were young. We thought we were in love, but looking back, I think we were just doing what we thought we were supposed to do. We never really connected on a deeper level.” I pause, gathering my thoughts.
“And she left. She chose someone else over Chloe and me.” I squeeze Emma’s hand, willing her to feel the truth of what I’m saying.
“What I have with you is nothing like what I had with her. Not even close. I’m in love with you, Emma.
Only you. That’s not something that’s going to change. ”
Emma nods slowly, but I can see she’s still working through something. Still building toward whatever is really on her mind. The tears haven’t fallen yet, but they’re close.
“I believe you,” she says carefully. “I do. But I can’t shake this worry.
” She pulls her hand back, wrapping both around her mug.
“I love Chloe so much and knowing how much she misses her mom...” She trails off, swallows hard.
“Then last night, hearing about Victoria being back, apologizing for everything, saying she regrets what happened. I think she wants you back, Theo.”
“Emma—“
“What if I’m the obstacle?” she presses on, like she needs to get it all out before she loses her nerve. “What if you two could work things out, could give Chloe her family back, and I’m the reason it’s not happening?”
I stare at her, struggling to find words for everything I’m feeling.
Frustration that she can’t see what’s so obvious to me.
Heartbreak that she’s carrying this weight of misplaced guilt.
Love so fierce it almost hurts, because she’s wrong about all of this, but she’s wrong for the most loving reasons.
How can I make her understand? How can I show her what I already know in my bones, that she’s not an obstacle, she’s not a complication, she’s not keeping me from anything except loneliness and the half-lived life I’d been leading for years before meeting her?
“Hey,” I say softly, reaching across the table to take her hand again. “Look at me.”
She does, and her eyes are swimming now, tears threatening to spill over.
“You’re not an obstacle,” I tell her firmly. “And I have absolutely no interest in getting back together with Victoria. None. That’s not something I’m questioning. Even if Victoria becomes the world’s best mother, that doesn’t mean I should be with her. “