18. The perfect fit #2
“She used to hate coming here,” he says after a moment.
I glance at him. “Really?”
“Mm.” His gaze stays on the water. “When she was really little, she thought it was boring.” The corner of his mouth twitches faintly. “Couldn’t sit still for more than thirty seconds.”
“I’m shocked.”
A quiet laugh rumbles out of him.
“But after Stacey left…” His voice shifts slightly, roughening around the edges. “Everything felt shit for a while, and she’d get overwhelmed pretty easily.”
Something in my chest tightens softly at the thought of a tinier version of Elle so upset and unsettled.
“So I started bringing her here after dinner sometimes, and on weekends. Before she started school, we had more time together.” He shrugs. “I thought maybe the quiet of the lake would help.”
“And did it?”
His eyes drift out over the lake again.
“Yeah.” A pause. “Eventually.”
The breeze shifts across the water, rippling it slightly, cooling against my skin.
“What would you do when you came here?” I ask.
He stretches his legs out further, shoulder brushing mine lightly. “Nothing, mostly. Just sit here.” He nods toward the shoreline. “Sometimes we’d close our eyes and just listen for a minute.”
“To what?”
“The water lapping and the trees swaying.” His voice lowers slightly. “Gus snoring.” Another faint smile. “Whatever was quieter than our own heads.”
The words settle over me, and he glances sideways at me.
“C’mere.”
I blink. “Why am I mildly concerned?”
“Because you think too much.”
“Rude.”
His mouth twitches again as he shifts, straightening slightly and widening his legs, patting at the space between them on the blanket.
“Sit.”
I narrow my eyes suspiciously but move anyway, sitting in between his thighs and feeling the warmth of them on either side of my own.
“Cross your legs,” he instructs, a warm palm sliding over my thigh to guide them. “And sit up straight.”
I follow his instructions, feeling the heat of his breath against the side of my neck.
“Now what?”
“Close your eyes,” he murmurs.
“This feels culty.”
“Pen.”
I laugh softly under my breath but close my eyes anyway, feeling his own legs bend slightly and his arms come around my waist to rest on top of my own hands.
At first, all I hear is movement. Elle yelling something incomprehensible down the shoreline, and the wind through the trees. Gus splashing somewhere he probably shouldn’t be.
Then gradually, underneath it all, the softer sounds start surfacing. The rhythmic lap of water against the shore and the dry whisper of last year's reeds. The breeze moving through branches just beginning to bud.
Evan’s slow inhale and exhale behind me.
My shoulders loosen before I even realize they were tense, and without meaning to, my breathing starts matching his.
“See?” he murmurs.
I open my eyes slowly and let them fall to the fractures of sunlight rippling across the lake. With a nod, I turn my head to look at him, and the expression on his face catches me off guard.
This version of him—the quieter one beneath all the teasing and gruffness—is something he doesn’t show many people. It’s precious and rare and delicate as glass.
“So this is how you reset,” I say softly.
His gaze holds mine for a second. “Yeah.”
“Daddy?”
We both glance toward the shoreline to see Elle standing there with a pebble in one hand, staring at us suspiciously.
“Why’s Penny sitting in your lap?”
Heat creeps instantly up my neck.
“I’m not sitting in his lap,” I protest weakly.
Evan’s chest moves behind me in what feels suspiciously like a laugh, and his arms tighten slightly where they rest over mine. “She’s doing lake breaths.”
Elle considers that for a second, then points at his arms loosely wrapped around me.
“You don’t usually cuddle for lake breaths.”
I choke on a laugh while Evan finally lets his out properly against the back of my shoulder.
“No,” he says, voice still calm. “I don’t.”
Elle looks between us, her little brows pulling together. “Why are you now?”
Evan doesn’t move away. He doesn’t drop his arms as though we’ve been caught doing something wrong. His thumb simply strokes once over the back of my hand, steadier than ever.
“Because I like having Penny close,” he says. “She's special to me.”
It’s honest without being too much. And somehow, that makes it hit harder, because he hasn't reached for a convenient label we haven't discussed yet.
She thinks about that, then looks at me. “Is he special to you, too?”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “He is.”
“And you'll still make pancakes?”
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it. “Of course.”
“If she wants to,” Evan adds.
Elle looks immediately offended by the uncertainty. “She wants to.”
I nod in agreement. “I do.”
Evan’s arm tightens around me just a little. “But nothing changes for you, bug. I’m still Dad. Penny’s still Penny. And you can ask me anything you want, okay?”
“Okay.” She considers that, then looks back at the lake. “Can she still skip stones with us?”
“That's the plan.” His mouth brushes faintly against my hair before he eases out from behind me. “Come do skips, bug.”
Elle turns back to consider us for a moment longer, but then she skips off, waving a pebble in the air.
“Okay, but Penny needs a good pebble to skip, too!”