Chapter Seventeen #4
We ate together. Awkwardly at first, then less so.
Helena filled every silence she thought had lasted too long with questions, stories, or firm declarations about how Christmas was supposed to work.
Snowy needed a plate at dinner. Reindeer might prefer music.
Santa probably liked biscuits better than cookies because biscuits sounded “more fancy.” I answered every question with the seriousness it deserved.
Her world demanded that kind of respect, and every second she gave me felt too precious to waste.
Later, when Helena grew sleepy, Edwina carried her part of the way down the hallway. Helena yawned, then reached one tired hand back toward me.
“Uncle Hayden?” she said.
“Yes, little star?”
“You come tomorrow too.”
She said it with the absolute certainty of a child who had already decided how things should be.
Something thick moved through my chest.
“I will,” I said.
Satisfied, she let her head fall against Edwina’s shoulder, Snowy clutched tight in one arm. Within minutes, she was asleep.
When Edwina came back into the living room, the apartment felt different. Helena’s voice was gone, and without it, everything we had avoided all day came back to life between us. The tree still glowed. The toys were still scattered across the carpet. Snowy’s empty gift bag sat near the chair.
Edwina stood there looking at me as if she knew the soft part of the night was over. I looked back at her, my jaw tight, my chest full of things I still did not know how to carry.
“She told me to come tomorrow,” I said.
“I heard.”
“I’m coming.”
“I know.”
Edwina stopped near the sofa and looked at me. I looked back, and for a moment neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “You were good with her.”
The praise sat badly on me because I wanted it too much.
“I was trying not to scare her,” I said. The words came out rougher than I meant them to. “I want her to like me.” My jaw tightened. “Fuck, I want her to love me, and I don’t even know if I have the right to want that yet.”
A faint softness touched Edwina’s mouth. “You didn’t scare her.”
The room went quiet again, the tree glowing behind us, Helena’s toys still scattered across the carpet. Without Helena’s voice filling the space, everything we had avoided all day came back and stood between us.
“I’m still angry with you,” I said.
“I know.”
I looked at the tree instead of her. “I don’t know when that goes away.”
Her answer took a second. “Maybe some of it doesn’t.”
That pulled my gaze back to hers. She did not look away.
“And you?” I asked.
Her throat moved. “Some of mine won’t either.”
There it was. The truth, ugly and clean, kinder than any lie would have been.
I let out a breath and dragged a hand over my jaw. “Good.”
One of her brows lifted. “Good?”
“Yes.” My voice came out rough. “Because if you told me you’d forgiven everything, I’d think you were lying or out of your fucking mind.”
That got a small laugh out of her, tired and real.
For a second, I let myself look at her the way I had wanted to all day and had not dared.
Desire was the easy part with Edwina. It always had been.
The harder thing was seeing everything else at once, the history, the damage, the mother of my daughter, the woman I had loved, ruined, lost, and still wanted standing in front of me.
“We hurt each other,” I said.
“Yes.”
“We’re still doing it.”
Her eyes held mine. “Probably.”
Something close to a smile touched my mouth. “Good night to us, then.”
I moved toward the door at last, and Edwina followed. In the hallway, we stood facing each other, the living room glowing behind her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.
I looked at her for a long second.
“Yes,” I said. “You will.”
Her gaze dropped to my mouth and rose again so quickly another man might have missed it.
I didn’t. That look went straight through me. I stepped closer, close enough for her breath to catch.
“Good night, Edwina,” I murmured.
Her voice came quieter. “Good night, Hayden.”
I should have left it there. I didn’t. I caught her face with one hand and kissed her.
Not hard. Not this time. I kissed her slowly, giving her every chance to pull back, and when she didn’t, when her fingers curled into my coat and her body softened against mine, something dark and hungry in me nearly snapped loose.
She melted into it.
Fuck.
That almost ruined me.
Her mouth opened under mine with a soft, broken breath, and for one dangerous second, I forgot the door, the cold outside, the reasons I was supposed to stop. I forgot everything except the taste of her and the way she leaned into me as if some part of her had been waiting all day for this too.
I pulled back before wanting more turned into taking more than the moment could survive.
Her eyes opened slowly. Mine stayed on her mouth.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
She swallowed. “Tomorrow.”
I stepped back and opened the door before I could change my mind.
As I walked into the cold, I carried three things with me, the memory of Helena placing a toy cup in my hand, the sound of Edwina laughing under the Christmas lights, and the hard knowledge that forgiveness was still far away.
But tomorrow, for the first time in five years, I would not be standing outside their lives wondering whether I had the right to knock.
Tomorrow, I would simply come back.