17. Thea
SEVENTEEN
THEA
The penthouse didn't look like it used to.
A burp cloth was draped over the arm of the couch. Two of Lena's teething rings sat on the coffee table next to a stack of case files I was reviewing last night. The bouncer was in the kitchen, wedged between the island and the window.
My laptop was open on the counter beside a mug with a cold tea bag still in it and a romance novel I'd set face down to hold my page.
The place looked like people lived here. Like a family lived here.
Lena was in the bouncer, working through a piece of banana I'd mashed onto the tray. She picked up a chunk, examined it, squeezed it through her fingers, and then offered the remains to the empty air beside her with a generous, open-palmed gesture.
"Thank you, sweetheart. Very kind of you."
She shoved the next piece into her mouth and kicked her feet.
Mrs. Parrish was at the counter, wiping it down with the lemon solution. She moved around the bouncer, my laptop, and the mug without comment.
Declan walked in. I heard him before I saw him. He was in a charcoal suit, a pale blue shirt, and no tie yet. His hair was still slightly damp, the lock at the front already falling.
He went to the coffee machine and pressed the buttons without asking. He poured two cups and set mine on the counter beside my elbow.
I picked it up and took a sip. It was perfect. "Thank you."
"Mmm…" He leaned against the counter with his own mug and watched me over the rim.
I was also making toast, or I was trying to make toast. The bread was in the toaster. The toast popped. I pulled it out. Both slices were dark brown, edging toward black. Declan looked at the toast. His mouth twitched.
"Please don’t laugh at me," I said.
He pressed his lips together. His shoulders shook lightly.
"I'm handling it." I put the toast on a plate. It was still slightly smoking. I buttered it anyway. I set the plate in front of him. He picked up a slice, took a bite, and chewed.
"Good?"
"Mmhmm."
I placed a hand on my hip and frowned. "You're lying."
He let out a sharp breath. "I would never."
He took another bite. I watched his jaw work through what was essentially flavored charcoal, and I reached across the counter and took the plate back.
"I'll get you something edible when you get home."
"I appreciate that." He set the slice down with visible relief.
Lena shrieked from the bouncer. I wiped my hands on the dish towel and went to her. "Your daughter," I said to Declan, lifting Lena out of the bouncer, "has opinions about breakfast."
He grinned. "She gets that from me."
I settled Lena on my hip. She grabbed my collar. I spooned another piece of banana toward her mouth, and she took it and smeared half of it across my shirt.
Declan was leaning against the counter, watching. His coffee in his hand. His eyes on us, on me, on Lena. "I want to take you out tonight. Just us."
I looked up. Lena grabbed the spoon from my hand and waved it.
"A date," he said. "I want to take you on a date. The night nurse is coming early. Mrs. Parrish will stay late to overlap until she arrives. Lena's covered."
"Where are we going?"
"It's a surprise."
"I don't like surprises."
He smiled. "You'll like this one."
I looked at Lena. She banged the spoon on my shoulder. A night out should be nice. "Fine."
Dominique arrived at five. I met her at the elevator with Lena on my hip and the usual rundown already forming.
"She had her last bottle at four. There's a fresh one prepped in the fridge — second shelf, labeled. The monitor is on, volume up. If her temperature goes above — "
"Above 100.4, call Dr. Kaplan and then you." Dominique took Lena from my arms with the practiced ease of a woman who'd heard this speech before. "I've got it, Ms. Calloway."
"And the — "
"Onesies in the second drawer. Diapers in the cabinet. Chamomile wash in the basket by the tub." She settled Lena on her shoulder.
I stood there. My arms were empty. Lena was looking at me over Dominique's shoulder, her blue eyes wide, her fist reaching toward me.
"One more minute." I took her back, held her against my chest, and kissed her forehead. "Be good, sweetheart. I'll be back before you know it."
She grabbed my collar. I uncurled her fingers gently, kissed each one, and handed her back.
Declan appeared in the nursery doorway. He crossed to Dominique and leaned down to Lena. He kissed the top of her head. "Be good for them." He straightened. His gaze shifted for a moment when he saw the red silk dress I wore. He shook his head and smiled. "Ready?"
"Yes."
Declan drove. The city scrolled past my window. He turned away from Midtown, away from the gleaming towers and the restaurants with unlisted numbers.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
He pulled up in front of a bookstore. It was small. The lights were on. A cat sat on a stack of books in the window, watching us with professional indifference.
I looked at him.
He said nothing. He got out, came around, and opened my door.
I stepped onto the sidewalk. The bookstore's front window glowed warm against the dark street. Through the glass, I could see crooked shelves, stacked tables, and a reading nook in the back with a worn armchair.
“Declan, why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve come in my best sweats.”
He leaned in to kiss my temple. “What can I say? I love it when you dress up.”
I pushed the door open. A bell chimed. The smell of old paper and wood polish hit me first. The shelves were packed and disorganized. The cat from the window had moved to a stool near the register and was licking its paw.
I was already moving past the front table, past the nonfiction wall, and into the fiction section where the romance shelves were.
I ran my finger along the spines and pulled one off the shelf.
I read the back cover, put it in my other hand, and pulled another.
Then a third — a slow burn with a single dad on the cover, which was either ironic or perfect, and I wasn't going to think about which.
Declan was behind me, leaning against the end of the shelf with his arms crossed.
"You're staring," I said, without looking up from the back cover.
"You're glowing." He pushed off the shelf, walked to the register, and pulled out his wallet. I looked up.
“Add it to my tab." He set his card on the counter.
The woman at the register — gray-haired, bifocals, the look of someone who had opinions about hardcovers versus paperbacks — glanced between us with a small smile.
I put six books on the counter. She rang them up. He signed. I carried the bag. We walked.
The street was quiet, string lights overhead, our footsteps the only sound. He reached for the bag. I pulled it away.
"I'm carrying my own books."
He laughed. "So independent, Calloway. I was reaching for your hand."
I looked at him. He raised his eyebrows. I shifted the bag to my other hand and gave him the free one. His fingers laced through mine.
"I want to tell you something," I said.
He squeezed my hand.
"The reason I was adopting." My voice was steady.
The words were not easy. "My body can't…
I have endometriosis. They caught it late.
The damage was too extensive. I can't have children.
" I looked at the sidewalk — a crack in the concrete and a weed growing through it.
"I spent years feeling like my body betrayed me.
Like it wouldn't do the one thing it was built to do.
Three rounds of IVF. None of them worked.
And every time, I felt more broken than the time before. "
The string lights above us swayed in a breeze. His hand tightened around mine.
"Your body didn't fail you." His voice was quiet. "It just made sure Lena found you instead."
I stopped walking. I looked at him. The streetlight caught his face — the strong jaw, the cleft chin, and the pale-blue eyes that were looking at me without pity.
"Thank you," I said quietly.
He brought my hand to his mouth, kissed my knuckles, and held it there.
"I want to tell you something too," he said against my skin.
"Kira. The way it ended." He lowered my hand but didn't let go.
"I told myself she left on my terms. That I was fine with it.
That I saw it coming and managed the exit the way I manage everything.
" He was looking at the street, not at me.
"That was a lie. She left me. I don’t know why. I never got closure, but she left."
He turned to me. "Now I'm standing on a sidewalk with a woman who terrifies me, and I don't want to manage the exit." He paused. "I've never said that before. To anyone."
I kissed him. His free hand came up to my jaw. I leaned into him, and the kiss was slow and warm. He sighed against my lips.
“I just love doing that, Ms. Calloway.”
My eyes met his from underneath my lashes. I grinned. “Me too, Mr. Hale.”
He led me to the car and drove for five minutes. I had no idea where we were going until he parked in front of a tiny building. “Let’s go.”
He opened the door for me and held my hand as we walked into a small kitchen above a wine shop, with copper pots hanging from a rack and a wooden table dusted with flour.
A woman in a white chef's coat and hat smiled at us from behind the table.
"Welcome. I’m Rosa, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. We’ll be making tagliatelle." She set a mound of flour on the wooden board and cracked an egg into the center. "From scratch."
Declan rolled his sleeves. I tied an apron. Rosa demonstrated the well in the flour, the eggs folded in, the slow incorporation with a fork, and then the hands. The dough came together under her fingers in thirty seconds. She made it look effortless.
My dough did not come together in thirty seconds. My dough stuck to my fingers, to the board, to the front of my apron. I added more and more flour, and the dough went dry and cracked.
"Less flour," Rosa said gently. "Feel it. It should be like the skin on the inside of your arm." She touched my forearm. "Soft. Smooth. Not stiff."
Declan's dough was worse. He was seasoning it before it was formed, adding salt and pepper to raw flour, as if he were preparing a salad.
"That's not…you don't season the dough," I said.
"Why not? Everything needs seasoning."
Rosa looked at his dough, then at him. "Maybe less of that." She gestured at the monstrosity he was working on.
I laughed. He looked at me, and his eyes crinkled, and a smear of flour was on his jaw.
We rolled the pasta. Our elbows bumped at the narrow board.
I nudged him left. He nudged me back. My sheet was uneven — thick on one end, translucent on the other.
His was rectangular, which Rosa said was not possible with a round rolling pin, and yet.
"Your pasta is a trapezoid," I said.
"It's avant-garde."
He reached for the garlic. I intercepted. "I'm handling the garlic."
"Ha! So you can burn it? I think not."
"I'm not going to burn it."
I grabbed a clove and a knife. He watched. I minced it carefully. I swept them into the pan. Olive oil. Low heat. I stood over the stove and watched. Thirty seconds. Forty-five. The garlic turned golden and fragrant, and I pulled the pan off the heat.
"There." I turned to him. "Not burned."
He slow-clapped. I threw a pinch of flour at him. It hit his shirt, leaving a white mark on the charcoal fabric.
He looked down at his shirt, then at me.
"You didn't."
"I did."
He reached into the flour bowl. I stepped back. "Declan, don't you — "
His finger swept across my cheekbone, leaving a stripe of white. I gasped. I reached up to wipe the flour from my cheek. He caught my hand, pulled me toward him, and kissed me right there in the small kitchen.
After the impromptu cooking lesson ended and the kitchen had been set back in order — flour brushed away, the quiet returning — we slipped out into the night.
The car was warm. The bag of books sat in my lap, the spines pressing against my thighs through the paper. The city moved past the windows — darker now, quieter, the late-night version that ran on streetlights, taxi headlights, and the glow from apartment windows.
My hand was on his thigh. I'd put it there without thinking. His eyes stayed on the road. But his right hand dropped from the wheel and covered mine, and his thumb moved once across my knuckle.
We pulled up to the building. The doorman held the glass. Dominique was in the hallway. She had her jacket on, her bag over her shoulder.
"Quiet night," she said. "One feeding at ten. She went down easily. No fever."
"Thank you, Dominique," Declan said.
"Thank you," I said.
She nodded and stepped into the elevator. The doors closed.
The penthouse was quiet. The lights were low. Declan turned to me in the hallway. His hand found my waist. He pulled me toward him, and I went. His mouth found mine, and the kiss was slow and deep and tasted like red wine and flour.
His hands moved down my hips. I pressed against him. He pulled back, his forehead against mine.
"I'm going to take a quick shower." His thumb traced my hip bone through the fabric of my dress. "But we're finishing this."
He kissed my forehead, turned, and walked down the hall. I heard the bedroom door, then the water running.
I went to the nursery.
Lena was asleep. I reached in and picked her up. She stirred, and then she settled. Her fist found my collar. Her cheek rested against my collarbone.
I stood in the nursery and held her. I was happy. Genuinely, terrifyingly happy. I knew what it cost. I'd paid it before. But standing here, holding this baby with the sound of his shower running down the hall, I let myself have it. Just for tonight. I let myself believe this was real.
I kissed Lena's forehead. "I love you," I whispered. "Whatever happens, I love you."
The intercom buzzed.
I turned my head. The small screen on the wall by the front door glowed. The concierge's voice, tinny through the speaker, "A woman to see Mr. Hale."
Dominique? She probably forgot something.
I shifted Lena to one arm, walked to the intercom, and pressed the button. "Send her up."
I walked to the front door and waited.
The elevator dinged. Footsteps in the hallway. I opened the door.
She was in her late twenties. Blonde hair pulled back from her face. She looked at me. Her gaze moved from my face to the baby in my arms, and her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened. Her hands clenched at her sides.
"Who are you? And why are you holding my baby?"