14. Athena
ATHENA
I shut the door as softly as I can and keep my palm on the wood for a second like the pressure will steady me. The hallway is quiet again, yet my body feels loud, as if every nerve is still reacting to the shape of his hands and the heat of his mouth.
I walk to Ivy’s room on automatic then push the door open a few inches and look in. She’s on her side with the blanket bunched at her chin, her breathing slow, her curls spilled over the pillow like she never met fear in her life.
After a moment, I pull the door nearly closed and whisper, “I’m here,” to a child who can’t hear it. My voice comes out thin anyway, but I need to say the words out loud, partly to her, mostly to myself.
Back in the kitchen, I pour a glass of water and drink half of it without tasting it. My hand shakes, so I set the glass down carefully, bracing my fingertips against the counter until the tremor stops.
Fury sits under my skin like a pulse, hot and constant, and it keeps replaying the same question with new wording every time it loops. Who does he think he is, showing up now, after all this time, after everything I carried alone?
Still, rage isn’t the only thing in the room with me.
There’s guilt too, irritating and persistent, the kind that slips in through small cracks and makes itself at home.
I didn’t tell him. I didn’t give him the choice.
I didn’t let him try, even when I wanted to, even when my hands were on a test and my life was on fire and I was searching his face for proof he could be safe.
I walk to the living room and sit on the couch, then I stare at the dim screen of the television without turning it on. My apartment feels smaller at night, and it feels even smaller with his presence still clinging to the air in the hallway.
Ivy’s father. The phrase has lived in my head for years like a locked room I kept walking past, and it just opened in my face. Nathan saw her eyes and he knew, and I watched him go rigid in my doorway, like recognition and anger arrived together and neither one was polite.
Convenient for him.
That’s the line my mind keeps throwing at me, sharp and defensive.
He got to live his life. He got to have quiet mornings and clean sheets and the kind of career that comes with people applauding your competence.
I got fevers at three a.m. and daycare waitlists and splitting my attention so finely I forgot what my own body needed.
I carried the whole thing.
I carried Ivy’s first steps, Ivy’s first tantrum, Ivy’s first ear infection, Ivy’s first day of school. I carried her questions about fathers with a smile that never felt steady, then I carried my own loneliness when the lights went out and the apartment went quiet.
Then Nathan shows up in my doorway and asks permission to calm her down, and he waits for my answer like it’s important he secures it. I hate that detail the most.
He didn’t push past me, and he didn’t step into my home, and he didn’t speak to Ivy until I let him. That’s a man who can do restraint, and it’s the same restraint he used to show in the hospital, the kind that made nurses trust him with chaos.
I press the heel of my hand to my forehead and let myself remember him the way I tried not to.
Nathan in the hallway at Hawthorne, sleeves rolled to his forearms, tablet under one arm, eyes tracking what needed attention.
Nathan at the nurses’ station, asking for details with a calm tone that made panic settle.
Nathan walking past a frightened parent and stopping long enough to say, “We’re not leaving her alone,” then backing it up with action.
Nathan with me, the version I tried not to want.
The man who brought me food without making it a performance, the man who remembered I hated cold coffee and fixed it without asking, the man who could be rough in private and careful in public and who never treated my job like a cute hobby.
He respected what I did, and he respected the fact that I mattered to kids who were scared.
Even tonight, he asked before he spoke to her.
Even tonight, he stopped himself when he could’ve taken more.
My eyes burn with the kind of emotion I hate. I’ve adored him for years, and now, even with all this anger and the sudden realization that someone wants to share Ivy with me, I can’t stop.
I sit up straighter and stare at the glass of water on the coffee table. My hand reaches for it, then I set it down again without drinking, and the movement feels ridiculous. I’m a grown woman. I’ve been a mother for six years. I’ve faced emergencies that would crack other people in half.
Yet my body is still reacting like I’m nineteen and reckless and one kiss away from making a decision I can’t undo.
I let myself say the truth in my head, just once, without shame. I want him, and not as a fantasy, revenge plot, or a convenient placeholder.
I want Nathan Clarke. The next truth is less flattering and more urgent.
I’m lonely and exhausted and aroused in a way that feels almost cruel, like my body picked this moment to remind me I’m still a woman with needs, not only a mother with responsibilities.
And the worst part is that I know what his hands feel like, and I know what his mouth does when he wants to prove a point, and I know how quickly my composure dissolves around him.
I stare toward the hallway, toward Ivy’s closed door, then I check the clock on my phone. It’s late. It’s not responsible. It’s also real.
Nathan said I still know his number.
He didn’t say it like a game. He said it like a door he’d leave unlocked, then he walked away before I could decide whether to step through it.
My phone is on the couch beside me.
I pick it up and unlock it, then I hover over his contact like it’s going to bite.
A surge of irritation returns, steading me just enough to think straight. He doesn’t get to stroll back into my life, say one careful line to my child, kiss me like he’s starving, then expect me to chase him.
Then my body supplies its own opinion, loud and unhelpful.
Chase him.
For a second, I close my eyes then open them and choose a middle path that feels like mine. I’m not begging, apologizing, or pretending this solves anything. I unblock his contact and type.
Athena: You can’t kiss me like that and then walk away.
I hit send, toss the phone onto the cushion, then snatch it back because I’m not that chill and we both know it. The typing indicator appears instantly. He’s been waiting. Nathan doesn’t sleep when there’s unfinished business, I should have remembered that.
Nathan: I didn’t walk away to punish you. Say the word, and I’ll come back.
I swallow, pull my knees to my chest, and glare at the silent television because I need something to focus on that isn’t the memory of his mouth.
Athena: I’m still mad at you.
Nathan: I don’t blame you. I’m mad at myself for everything I missed out on.
Decency drips off the words, infuriatingly gentle.
He’s better than he has any right to be after the mess we made.
Six years apart, six years of me raising our daughter alone because he once swore he’d never be a father, and now he wants back in?
I shake my head angrily. This isn’t part of the plan right now. All I want is sex.
Athena: I didn’t ask you to be decent.
Nathan: I know what you need, Athena. And you don’t always need to tell me. I missed it one time, that’s on me. But I’m not repeating that same mistake.
Heat flushes down my spine because he’s right. My silence has always been a weapon and a shield. I walked out of his life pregnant because I thought sparing him the choice was merciful.
I stare at Ivy’s closed door, at the crayon drawings taped beside it. I stare at my hand and the way it curls protectively over my chest. He left because he’s trying to do better. It makes forgiveness harder, not easier, because anger needs villains and he refuses to play his part.
Athena: This solves nothing between us. I’m still angry, and I’m still not ready to hand you my life.
Now that I’m on a roll, I really can’t stop.
Athena: I want you here. I want you to come home and fuck me until I forget my own name.
My thumb hovers above send for a beat, then I tap, and the message whooshes into the ether.
His reply hits ten seconds later.
Nathan: Say it again.
There’s a sentence that unravels six years of self-control.
My breath skitters. I picture him, shirt open at the throat, tie loose, hair mussed, staring at his phone with that feral focus he wore when he used to watch me undress.
I sink deeper into the couch, thigh muscles clenching, the hem of my hoodie brushing bare skin. God help me, I’m still his.
Athena: Come home. Fuck me mindless.
Nathan: Where are you right now?
The question is surgical, designed to anchor me in detail. I glance around the living room: the lamp casting golden light, the blanket thrown over the armrest, the remnants of Ivy’s Lego empire under the coffee table. This is the home I built without him. He’s at my door again anyway.
Sighing, I head to the bedroom and shut the door behind me before dropping down on a little couch by a window.
Athena: Couch in my bedroom. Hoodie. No panties.
He replies with two words that slice through the remaining distance.
Nathan: Good girl.
Heat floods me, fast and wild, because his praise always felt like a brand. I drag the phone closer, breath catching.
Nathan: Hands above the waist. Wait for me.
My laugh is sharp.
Athena: You don’t get to order me around from twelve miles away.
Nathan: You asked me to come home. That means you’re mine again. Don’t touch what belongs to me unless I tell you.
The possessive undertone of his text makes me blush.
Athena: Make me.
Nathan: If I were there, you’d already be on your knees with your mouth open. Don’t test me.
My body liquefies at the image. I curl my fingers against my cunt, biting my lip to stifle the moan.
Athena: I told you not to be decent.
Nathan: I can’t be anything else with you. That doesn’t mean I’ll be gentle. Now remove the hoodie and send me a picture.