Chapter Two
The Past Changes Nothing ... Or Does It?
Zora
The second his eyes meet mine, it is like the years fold in on themselves.
Six years of silence. Six years of building walls brick by brick. Six years of convincing myself I am stronger without him. And all it takes is one look across the shop floor for the cracks to show.
I walk past him like he is a stranger. Like my pulse isn’t hammering so hard I can barely breathe.
Like my body hadn’t betrayed me with that familiar ache, the one I thought I’d buried long ago.
My feet carried me toward the door with a steadiness I didn’t feel, and the second the hot Louisiana air hits my skin, I suck in a shaky breath.
Maverick fucking Hall is back.
I lean against my car, pressing my palms flat against the sun-warmed metal.
My chest feels tight, my stomach twisted.
Of all the places he could’ve landed, of all the shops in the damn country, why here?
Why Franklinton? Why House of Ink, the one place I thought I could breathe without ghosts pressing in?
I close my eyes, forcing myself to focus.
This doesn’t change anything. I’m not that girl anymore.
The one who would’ve dropped everything just to follow the sound of his laugh.
The one who mistook chaos for love. No, I’m Zora now—single mother, business owner, woman who survived heartbreak and came out the other side tougher.
I have Ivy. I have a life. And I have Ethan.
Ethan, with his easy smile and steady hands, who never once made me feel like I was standing on shifting ground.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Speak of the devil.
Ethan: Made it into town earlier than I thought. Dinner tonight?
I stare at the screen for a long moment. My heart still hasn’t slowed from seeing Maverick, and here is Ethan—timely, safe, and offering me exactly what I should want. Normalcy. Stability.
My thumbs move before I can overthink it.
Me: Sure. Seven?
Ethan: Perfect. Can’t wait.
I shove the phone back in my pocket and climb into the car, telling myself the tremor in my hands has nothing to do with the man I’d just seen.
By the time I pull into the driveway of my little house on the edge of town, the tightness in my chest has dulled into a heavy throb.
The white shutters need a fresh coat of paint, the flower beds are overrun with weeds, and Ivy’s bike lie abandoned in the grass.
But it is home. Ours. Built with sweat and stubbornness and the kind of fierce love that keeps me moving even when the nights are long and the money is short.
Ivy’s laughter meets me before I even reach the porch. High, bright, and bubbling like the clearest stream. It’s impossible not to smile, no matter how burdened I feel or how bad my day was.
“Mommy!” she squeals the second I open the door. She barrels toward me, curls bouncing, crayons still clutched in her fist. “Look what I drew!”
She thrusts the paper into my hands with all the seriousness of a gallery presentation. A house with a big sun overhead, a stick-figure version of her with wild hair, and me beside her with what I assumed are arms but look suspiciously like octopus tentacles.
“It’s beautiful, baby,” I say, crouching down to kiss the top of her head. She smells like fruit snacks and washable markers. My entire world condensed into this tiny person with gray eyes too much like his.
“Mrs. Carter said I’m really good at coloring inside the lines,” she announces proudly, bouncing on her toes.
“You are,” I agree. Better than me at staying inside the lines, I think grimly.
She grins, then frowns at the phone in my hand. “Is Ethan coming to dinner tonight?”
The casual way she asks nearly knocks the wind out of me. Kids notice more than you think. “Yes, sweetheart. He is coming to dinner.”
Her little nose wrinkles. “He’s nice.”
That’s Ivy’s polite way of saying boring.
She likes Ethan well enough, he builds Lego castles with her, let’s her climb all over him like he’s a damn jungle gym, and always remembers her favorite ice cream flavor.
But even at five, she already knows the difference between someone who makes the air feel alive and someone who just . .. fills space.
I smooth her curls back and smile anyway. “Nice is good.”
“Yeah,” she says with a sigh that makes her sound far older than her years. “But he doesn’t make you laugh like Uncle Luke does.”
I bark out a laugh despite myself. Trust Ivy to cut through every pretense. “You’re too smart for your own good.”
She giggles and skips back to her crayons.
I watch her, my chest aching in that familiar way it always does when I catch flashes of him in her—the storm-gray eyes, the stubborn tilt of her chin, the way she lights up a room just by being in it.
She is Maverick’s daughter through and through, even if he doesn’t know it. Even if he never will.
I turn away before the thought hollows me out further.
****
Dinner is easy as the way life with Ethan always is.
He takes us to a family restaurant in the next town over, where everyone knows his name and the waitress already has his drink order memorized.
Ivy chatters about her day, her hands flying as she described every detail of her art project, and Ethan listens with that patient smile of his, nodding at all the right places.
He holds my hand across the table, his thumb brushing over my knuckles, warm and steady.
“Are you okay?” he asks softly, when Ivy is distracted by her fries.
I blink at him. “Of course. Why?”
“You seem distracted.”
I force a smile. “Just work.”
It isn’t entirely a lie. House of Ink has become a bigger part of my life than I ever expected. Photographing their art, running shoots for Skye’s social media campaigns, helping capture the energy that made the shop what it was, and I love it. It is creative, messy, and alive.
But now, it is dangerous. Because Maverick is there.
I tighten my grip on Ethan’s hand. Safe. Stable. Normal. That’s what I need to remember. But even as I smile and nod, even as I let him walk me and Ivy to the door, even as I let him kiss my cheek in a way that is sweet and respectful and everything a man should be, my mind betrays me.
All I could see was Maverick. The way his eyes locked on mine, like no time had passed. The way my pulse had betrayed me, hammering out the truth I didn’t want to face.
And when Ivy curls against me later in bed, her sleepy voice whispering, “Mommy, do I have a daddy somewhere?” My heart splits clean in two.
I smooth her hair, kiss her forehead, and whisper, “You have me. That’s all you need.”
But the lie tastes bitter on my tongue. Because the man with her eyes, the man who doesn’t even know she exists, is back in Franklinton. Back in my life whether I want him there or not.
Fate is just getting started.