Chapter 7
LIFE IS BETTER NOW
Audrey has penne in her fist and she’s waving it like a sword.
“Eat it, monster. Don’t fight it.”
She shoves the whole piece in her mouth, chews twice with her six teeth, and grins at me with pasta mush oozing between her lips. Then she grabs another piece off her plate—an actual plate now, not the tray—and mashes it flat against the table with her palm.
Kellee is across from me, her fork halfway to her mouth, watching Audrey destroy a noodle with the focus of a demolitions expert.
“She’s got a system.”
“She’s got a mess.”
“Same thing at that age.”
Audrey is eleven months old. She eats what I eat—pasta, shredded chicken, soft vegetables cut into pieces so small my fingers cramp from the knife work.
No more purees. No more sweet potato smeared across her face like war paint.
She picks up food and puts it in her own mouth and sometimes she chews it and sometimes she spits it across the table and every meal is a negotiation I’m losing, but she’s eating.
She’s growing. Her legs are getting longer and her babbling is starting to sound like it means something and last week she pulled herself up on the coffee table and stood there, wobbling, with the most stunned expression—like she’d invented standing and couldn’t believe nobody had tried it before.
Two months since the party. Two months since I walked into Luma Rooftop with a folder in my bag and walked out with my grandmother’s ring in my coat pocket.
The shaking lasted three days. I couldn’t hold a coffee mug.
Couldn’t sign my name on the forms Valerie Mueller put in front of me without my hand jerking sideways.
But I signed them. Three days after the party, Valerie filed.
Drew’s attorney called within the week. Carter’s documentation landed on David Renner’s desk and blew a hole through every narrative Drew had built: the siphoned funds, the hidden account at Pacific Coast, the retainer predating Audrey’s birth, the custody log he’d been keeping on his phone.
Renner told Drew to settle. Drew settled.
Supervised visitation. Financial disclosure order.
The house stays mine until the divorce finalizes.
Drew picked up his clothes on a Tuesday while I was at Kellee’s with Audrey. He left his key on the kitchen counter next to a sticky note that said I’m sorry. Two words. No signature. I threw the note away and changed the locks.
The kitchen is warm. Steam from the pasta pot still fogs the window over the sink.
Kellee’s plate is almost empty and there’s a bottle of wine between us that we’ve barely touched because neither of us needed it tonight.
The house is quiet in a way it hasn’t been in months—not the tense quiet of waiting for Drew’s key in the lock, not the hollow quiet of being alone.
Just quiet. The dishwasher humming. Audrey babbling. Kellee’s fork scraping the plate.
Audrey drops her penne sword on the floor and lunges for my wine glass. I move it out of range and hand her a piece of chicken instead. She shoves it in her mouth and kicks her feet against the chair and makes that humming sound that means she’s content.
“So.” Kellee sets down her fork. “The ring.”
My left hand is on the table. Bare. No groove anymore—the skin filled in weeks ago, smooth and even, like the indent was never there.
“Francis took it apart. Separated the stones from the setting—same tools his father used to build it. I watched.”
“And?”
“My grandmother’s diamond is in a velvet pouch in a safe deposit box downtown.
I’ll do something with it eventually. Maybe reset it for Audrey when she’s old enough to hear the story and if she wants it.
” My thumb runs across my bare ring finger.
“Drew’s grandmother’s sapphire—I mailed it to his sister. With a note.”
Kellee’s eyebrows lift. “You sent it back?”
“That stone belonged to his grandmother. His sister should have it. I wrote: This belonged to your grandmother. It should stay in your family.”
“And the gold? The setting?”
“Sold it. Both grandmothers’ wedding bands were melted into that gold—mine and his, all mixed together. I couldn’t keep it without keeping his family’s claim on mine.” I push a penne around my plate. “I put the money into a college fund for Audrey. This way something good will come from it.”
Kellee holds her wine glass without drinking. She’s watching me the way she does when she’s deciding whether to push.
“Do you miss it?” she asks. “The ring?”
Audrey smashes another noodle flat on the table. I watch her work—the concentration on her face, the curl of her fingers, the pure satisfaction of destruction.
“I miss being married.” The words come out quieter than I expected. “I miss thinking I’d found the person I loved and was building a life with. The ring was part of that. But not the whole thing.”
Kellee holds my gaze for a long second. Something shifts behind her eyes—not pity. Recognition. She nods once and picks up her wine and this time she drinks.
We clear the table. Kellee rinses plates while I wrestle Audrey out of the chair and wipe pasta sauce off her hands and her chin and the inside of her ear, which I cannot explain.
She grabs my hair and yanks and I peel her fingers loose and she does it again immediately because she’s relentless and she gets it from me.
“So.” Kellee shuts off the faucet. Dries her hands on the dish towel. Turns around and leans against the counter with her arms crossed and that look on her face—the one that means she’s about to ask something she’s been sitting on all night. “Are you seeing anyone?”
My stomach flips. “What?”
“Dating. Are you dating? Are you going to?”
“Not—really.”
“‘Not really’ is not a no.”
My face is hot. I press Audrey against my shoulder and busy myself adjusting her shirt so I don’t have to meet Kellee’s eyes, which I can feel boring into the side of my head.
“I might have a date coming up.”
Kellee’s hand slaps the counter. “Sloane.”
“It’s just—”
“Who? When? What are you wearing?”
“Kellee.”
“These are reasonable questions.”
“Saturday.” I press my face into Audrey’s hair. Warm bread and lavender. “He asked if I was free Saturday night.”
Kellee is quiet for exactly one second. Then: “I’ll take Audrey.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’ll take Audrey. Saturday. The whole night.” She picks up the dish towel and snaps it against the counter. “Go on your date, Sloane.”
The laugh building in my chest feels foreign and bright and I’m not ready to let it out in front of Kellee or I’ll never hear the end of it.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine. Saturday.”
Kellee smiles. The real one—wide, crooked, the one she saves for when she’s won something and wants me to know it.
“You’re staring at me,” I say.
“I’m looking at you. There’s a difference.”
Carter’s glass is on the bar between us, bourbon, mostly gone.
The overhead light catches the amber and throws a warm stripe across his knuckles.
Behind him the bar is dim and loud—a jukebox playing something with bass, two guys arguing about football near the pool table, a bartender wiping down the far end with a rag over his shoulder.
I’m on my second glass of wine and my knee keeps bouncing under the bar and I can’t stop it because Carter Graves is sitting eighteen inches away from me in a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms and every time he lifts his glass I watch the tendons in his wrist move and my mouth goes dry.
“You look different,” he says.
“Different how?”
“Lighter.” He turns his glass in a slow circle on the bar top. “Last time I saw you, you had a folder in your hand and murder in your eyes.”
“I delivered the folder.”
“I heard.” The corner of his mouth pulls. Not quite a smile. “How’s your daughter?”
“Eleven months. She’s trying to stand. She fell into the coffee table yesterday and didn’t cry—just looked offended.”
The almost-smile becomes a real one. Brief, warm, gone. He lifts his glass and finishes the bourbon and sets it down and his eyes come back to mine and the look in them is steady and dark and very, very direct.
“Why are you here, Sloane?”
My heart is slamming. I can feel it in my wrists, in the hollow of my throat. The noise of the bar fades to a low hum and all I can hear is his voice and my own breathing.
“Because you asked.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.”
The space between us shrinks. I don’t remember moving. His knee touches mine under the bar and the contact sends a jolt up my thigh and into the base of my spine.
“I spent ten months performing,” I say. “Being watched. Being documented. Measuring every word, every expression, every time I cried or didn’t cry or looked too tired or didn’t look tired enough.
” My fingers are wrapped around the stem of my wine glass and I can feel my pulse in the pads of my fingertips. “I don’t want to perform tonight.”
“Then don’t.”
He puts cash on the bar. Stands up. Holds out his hand.
I take it.
His apartment is a five-minute drive. Neither of us talks. His hand is on the gear shift and mine is in my lap and the air between us is charged—dense, electric, the kind of quiet that isn’t empty.
The door closes behind us and I hear the latch click and then his mouth is on mine.
The kiss is hard. Urgent. His hand grips the back of my neck and his fingers slide into my hair and tighten and my breath catches and I grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer.
He tastes like bourbon and something warm underneath it and my body responds before my brain catches up—hips pressing forward, back arching, a sound rising in my throat that comes out against his mouth.
He lifts me. My legs wrap around his waist and his hands grip my thighs and my shoulders hit the wall and the impact knocks the air out of me but I don’t care because his mouth is on my neck, my collarbone, the hollow of my throat, and every press of his lips sends heat straight down between my legs.
“Bedroom,” I say against his ear.
He carries me. My fingers dig into his shoulders and his hands grip the backs of my thighs so hard I’ll have marks and I want them. I want proof that this happened.
He lowers me onto the bed and pulls back. His chest is heaving. His mouth is wet. His eyes are black in the low light.
“You’re sure.”
“Carter. Now.”
His shirt comes off. Lean muscle, a scar along his ribs I want to ask about and don’t. My dress goes next—he finds the zipper at the side and draws it down and the fabric peels away and the cool air hits my bare skin and I arch up off the mattress into him.
His mouth moves down my body. Stomach. Hip. His fingers hook into my underwear and drag them down my legs and his breath is hot against my inner thigh and every nerve ending I own is pulling toward him.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” he says against my skin, “since you walked into my office.”
His tongue finds me. Flat, then precise—circling, pressing, a rhythm that makes my hips jerk off the bed.
My hand fists in his hair and I pull and he groans against me and the vibration sends a bolt of heat up my spine.
My thighs are shaking. My heels dig into the mattress and I’m grinding against his mouth and the sounds coming out of me are desperate and loud and nothing like the woman who sat across his desk with shaking hands and tear-streaked cheeks.
The orgasm builds fast. A tight coil low in my belly that winds tighter with every stroke until it snaps. My back bows. My hand twists in his hair and my whole body locks and then releases in a wave that leaves me gasping, pulse roaring.
He doesn’t stop. His mouth keeps moving—softer, slower—and my body is still shuddering when he rises up and braces himself over me. His cock presses against my thigh, hard and hot.
“Condom,” I manage.
He reaches for the nightstand. Rips the packet. I watch his hand roll it on and my breath comes in short, sharp pulls and I wrap my fingers around him and squeeze and his forehead drops to my shoulder and the sound he makes is raw and low.
He pushes in slow. One long stroke that fills me completely. My head tips back and my mouth falls open and a moan rolls through my chest. He stays there—deep, his hips flush against mine, his arms braced on either side of my head and his breath ragged against my neck.
“Move,” I say. “Please—move.”
He does. Hard. The bed creaks and my nails drag down his back and he hisses and thrusts harder. My legs wrap around his waist and the angle shifts and he hits something that whites out the edges of my vision.
“There.” I gasp it against his jaw. “Right there.”
His hand grips my hip. Fingers pressing into my skin.
He drives into me with a rhythm that’s relentless and precise and I’m meeting it—lifting, pulling, taking everything.
Sweat slicks the space between us. My nails rake his shoulders.
His teeth graze my neck. Every thrust pushes a sound out of me I couldn’t hold back if I tried.
The second orgasm crests without warning.
A wave that rolls up from my thighs and I clench around him and cry out and his rhythm breaks—hips stuttering, jaw tight, a low groan that vibrates against my throat.
He buries himself deep and his whole body shudders and I hold on.
Arms around his back. Legs locked. Face pressed against his shoulder while the aftershocks pulse through both of us.
Stillness. His weight settles against me—heavy, warm, real. His breath is hot against my collarbone. My fingers find the scar along his ribs and trace it without thinking.
“You okay?” he asks.
A laugh comes out of me—quiet, surprised. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
He rolls onto his side. Pulls me with him. My head lands on his chest and his arm wraps around my back and his heartbeat is decelerating under my ear. Steadying.
No ring on my finger. No phantom weight where it used to sit. No folder. No plan.
Carter’s thumb traces a slow circle on my shoulder. Absent. Easy. Like he’s touching me just because I’m here and he wants to.
I close my eyes.
This is enough.
Thank you for reading!