Chapter 15 Selene
FIFTEEN
SELENE
I stared at the ceiling, still and silent, as the fan rotated in slow, hypnotic circles above me.
The early-morning light cut in through the blinds—angled and soft, warm against the sheets that had twisted around my legs sometime in the night.
I hadn’t really slept. At least, not in any way that counted.
My body hadn’t forgotten.
It still buzzed with the memory of him—his mouth against mine, the press of his body pinning me against the dryer, the way he’d groaned my name like he wanted to take whatever I was willing to give. I rolled to bury my face in the pillow.
What was I thinking?
I’d nearly let him fuck me in the laundry room. I would have if he hadn’t stopped. If he hadn’t stepped back with that wrecked expression like he wanted to stay but knew better.
And what does it say about me that I was disappointed he had?
I turned my head on the pillow, already hating myself for the way my heart squeezed, for the heat that stirred low and shamefully between my legs.
I shouldn’t be thinking about this—about him.
About how it felt to be touched and wanted like that.
It had been too easy to lose myself in him, to forget that there was a child upstairs and a life I was barely holding together most days.
I pressed my thighs together under the sheet, searching for relief I hadn’t earned.
My nipples ached beneath the thin cotton of my top, overly sensitive, the fabric rasping against them just enough to make me squirm.
I could still feel the ghost of his hands—broad, calloused, and confident.
I recalled the way they’d slid down my sides, not possessive or hurried, but like he’d known what he was doing.
Austin was patient, like he’d been waiting for me to catch up to the truth we’d both been circling for weeks.
I let my eyes fall closed and gave myself one single second to remember it. His voice—low, frayed, filthy.
You feel that? That’s what you’ve been doing to me.
I swallowed hard, my body responding with a throb that felt delicious and dirty all at once. I was too old for him. He was helping me take care of my daughter.
And yet I couldn’t stop remembering how his thick thigh had slotted between mine, how my hips had tilted up for more without thinking. I’d been soaked for him. Aching, open, and desperate. My pussy clenched at the thought, traitorous and slick just from the memory.
I’d been one look away from losing every boundary I’d spent years reinforcing.
And he—he had been the mature one.
He’d left when we heard Winnie upstairs.
That was the part that wrecked me the most.
It wasn’t just that he hadn’t pushed, but that he’d read the fear on my face and stepped back with enough restraint for both of us. He was level-headed while I had stood there, mouth swollen, pulse racing, knees weak, and ready to undo every rule I’d ever made.
I rubbed a hand over my face, willing the heat in my cheeks to fade. I wasn’t this woman. I wasn’t careless. I didn’t do reckless anymore.
Not since Winnie.
Not since everything fell apart and I was left to put it back together by myself.
It was just an attraction. Physical. Hormones and proximity and the fact that he looked like a goddamn thunderstorm made of muscle and slow smiles.
Surely that was all it was.
But even as I tried to rationalize it, I knew I was lying, because it wasn’t just lust that had tangled me up.
It was the way he’d tucked Winnie’s stuffed unicorn under her blanket when he thought no one was watching. The way he’d listened when she talked about her imaginary fairy kingdom like it was as important as any adult problem. It was how he noticed things without making a show of it—how he saw me.
Not just the mother. Not just the provider. Me.
That was what terrified me the most, because deep down I wanted that.
I wanted to be seen like that. Touched like that.
I wanted the press of his mouth against mine again, the rough scrape of his stubble across my throat, his cock inside me, filling me until I forgot every name that wasn’t his.
I wanted to arch for him. To come on his fingers, his tongue, his—
I groaned and turned over, burying my face into the pillow, this time allowing a scream to burn in my throat. My thighs were still pressed together, tightly enough to feel the wet heat that had gathered there.
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
Because the second I stopped thinking with my head and started thinking with my body, I risked losing everything I had worked for—our routine, our safety, the quiet, stable life I had built one brick at a time.
I didn’t get to have a flirty fling—at least not the way other women did.
Not the sex, not the heat, not the magnetic pull of a man who made me feel like a woman instead of a checklist.
Not the way he made me ache to be ruined.
So I swallowed it down, again, like I had a thousand other times since I became a mother. I pushed away the burn in my chest and the wetness between my thighs and reminded myself of all the reasons I couldn’t afford to want him.
And still, somewhere deep in the marrow of me, a voice whispered:
Maybe just this once you could want him . . . maybe you already do.
Saturday mornings used to be my favorite. No alarms. No school lunches to pack. Just me and Winnie and the loose, cozy rhythm of a day that didn’t demand too much, but this morning felt off-kilter.
The sun filtered in through the kitchen blinds, casting long golden bars across the counter like a watercolor painting that had lost its vibrancy.
I moved through the motions like I was underwater—filling the coffeepot, setting out two bowls, pouring cereal into one of them without even asking which kind she wanted.
Behind me, Winnie hummed under her breath, still in her pajama set with the faded mermaid print, perched cross-legged at the kitchen table, a spoon clutched in one hand and her unicorn stuffie in the other.
“Mama?” she asked, her mouth full of cereal. “How come Austin’s not here today?”
At the mention of his name, my hand froze on the coffee canister.
“He doesn’t usually come on Saturdays,” I said, careful not to sound as strange as I felt. “He has his own things to do. It’s his day off.”
Winnie made a small noise in the back of her throat, like she didn’t agree with that logic. “He’s still allowed to come over, though. Right?”
I turned slowly, clutching my mug like it could anchor me, and smiled. “I mean . . . I guess. But sometimes people need breaks.”
She blinked, spoon halfway to her mouth. “I don’t.”
That got a small laugh out of me. I came around the table and smoothed a hand over her head, my fingers catching in a tangle near the crown. Her hair smelled like kid shampoo and the faint scent of lavender body spray she liked to overuse.
“You definitely don’t,” I murmured. “But grown-ups get tired sometimes.”
She squinted at me, her spoon paused midair. “You look funny today.”
I blinked. “Funny how?”
She tilted her head, studying me with that tiny furrow between her brows like she was solving a puzzle. “Like . . . your face is doing a secret.”
That startled a laugh out of me. “My face is doing a secret?”
Winnie nodded seriously. “Uh-huh. Like when you smile, but you’re not saying why you’re smiling.”
I pressed my fingers to the corners of my mouth, trying—and failing—to smooth it away. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Her eyes lit up. “Do you have a present for me?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Sorry, kid. No surprises today.”
Winnie pouted but went back to her cereal, completely unbothered. “Maybe you’re thinking about something that makes you happy. Your face did that when we saw Mr. O’Brien and you said his cat was cute.”
I snorted into my coffee. Mr. O’Brien was a sweet old man who walked his cat downtown on a leash. “His cat is really cute.”
She gave me a knowing look, five going on forty. “Your voice got soft like a marshmallow. I think it means we should get a cat.”
Winnie’s logic was impressive. Avoiding the topic of getting a pet cat, I retreated back to the counter, heart thudding like I’d been caught doing something criminal. I tried to examine my reflection in the toaster, but it was no use.
Winnie had always been perceptive—more than most kids her age. She saw things, felt them, and the truth was, I probably did look different.
Because I felt different.
Austin had gotten under my skin, and I didn’t know how to dig him out.
As I reached for the coffee again, Winnie rambled on about cats and I found myself thinking about marginalia.
Those quiet notes readers left in the margins of books—half thoughts, underlines, delicate nothings that felt like secrets.
I loved to collect those moments, both in a literal sense, but also in the way I’d press my thumb to the page and wonder who else had felt that line deeply enough to mark it.
I’d always loved that—evidence of someone who’d come before me.
A life brushing up against mine in the smallest, most intimate way.
And now I couldn’t stop wondering: What was I leaving behind?
What kind of marginalia was I writing into my daughter’s life?
Was it all tired routines and microwaved dinners and reminders to wear socks with her boots?
Did she see me as a whole person? Or just the scaffolding that held everything up?
I glanced over at her—pink cheeks, wild brown hair, a cereal drip making its way down the front of her pajama shirt—and I felt the ache of it in my bones. I loved her more than I had ever loved anything in my life, but I was starting to wonder what else I was supposed to be.
If I was supposed to be just this.
If I was teaching her that mothers didn’t get to want anything outside of their children. That being responsible meant locking your desires in a drawer and throwing away the key.
I wanted more.
Not instead of being her mother, but because I was. I wanted to teach her to live fearlessly.
I wanted to show her that women could be complicated. That they could want stability and still burn with hunger. That they could make mistakes and survive them. That they could crave comfort and risk, sometimes in the same breath.
And Austin? Something about him made me feel like I could be that kind of woman again.
Capable of ruin. Capable of joy.
I finished my coffee in silence and rinsed the mug in the sink, placing it upside down just like Austin did.
Winnie had wandered over to the back door by then, dragging a blanket behind her and talking to her unicorn about whether they should plant flowers or a vegetable patch in the garden Austin was building.
The house was quiet. Too quiet.
I miss him.
It scared me how much I missed him, but more than anything I was terrified of the voice in my head whispering that my moment for happiness had passed me by a long time ago.