Chapter 3 #2
He eats too, politely, even though I can tell he’s tired. His gaze keeps drifting around the house. Not in judgment. In quiet observation.
As if he’s trying to learn the shape of my life.
I hate how much I want him to like what he sees.
After dinner, Daisy hops down and announces she’s going to brush her teeth. Leaving the two of us alone in the kitchen with the clink of plates and the hum of the refrigerator.
Brendon stands and starts clearing dishes before I can stop him.
“You don’t have to,” I say, but it comes out less firm than I intend.
“I know,” he replies, stacking plates carefully. “I want to.”
He carries them to the sink. I move beside him, turning on the water, letting it run hot. I roll up my sleeves, because if my hands are busy, maybe my thoughts won’t be.
We fall into a rhythm: he rinses, I wash, I pass, he dries. His forearms flex as he dries. There’s a faint scar near his wrist I don’t remember. He’s lived a whole life I don’t know anything about.
My heart hitches again.
“You own the café,” he says, like he’s confirming something he wasn’t sure he had the right to know.
“Yeah,” I answer, forcing casual. “I bought it three years ago.”
“That…” He exhales, almost a laugh. “That suits you.”
“What does that mean?”
“That you did it,” he says, voice low. “You always said you wanted something that was yours.”
I swallow hard. I did say that. Back when we were kids and our dreams felt like things we could just reach out and grab.
Back when my mom was still alive. Back when I didn’t know what it felt like to build a life out of ashes.
“You kept tabs on me,” I say before I can stop myself.
He stills, dish towel in hand. “I did.”
“How?” My voice is sharper than I intend.
He looks at me, steady. “My mom still lives here. She talks. The town talks. Social media exists.”
“So you knew,” I say, and the words come out brittle. “You knew I had Daisy.”
His jaw tightens. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t think you’d ever come back,” I say quietly.
The words surprise both of us.
Brendon stills, dish towel hanging loose in his hands. “I wasn’t sure if I ever should.”
I turn to face him fully now, my back against the counter, the sink running forgotten. “Why?”
He studies the floor for a moment, jaw tight. “Because you were building something. And I didn’t want to get in the way.”
A sharp, bitter laugh escapes me. “That’s giving yourself a lot of credit.”
He flinches, just slightly.
“I’m not asking for credit,” he says. “I’m just telling you what I told myself.”
“And what was that?” I ask.
“That you were better off,” he says quietly. “That whatever you needed, it wasn’t me.”
The words land harder than I expect.
“You didn’t fight,” I say, my voice shaking despite my best efforts. “You just accepted it.”
His gaze lifts to mine, and there’s something raw there now. “I didn’t know what I was fighting for. You never told me what I’d done.”
My breath catches. “I didn’t know how.”
The truth of that sits heavy between us.
I stare at my hands. At the faint scar on my knuckle from when Daisy slammed a door too hard as a toddler. Evidence of a life lived in aftermath.
“I was eighteen,” I whisper. “I was dumb.”
He exhales slowly. “So was I.”
Silence stretches, thick with all the words we didn’t say back then. All the chances that slipped through our fingers because we were too young to know how fragile things were.
That’s when it hits me. Not as a thought, but as a memory.
Brendon leaning against my locker, sunlight catching in his hair, smiling like the world was kind. His hand slipping into mine, confident and warm.
The night before he left. His truck parked by the river, the water dark and endless behind us. His hands shaking when he cupped my face, promised he’d come back. Me refusing to cry because I didn’t want to be the girl he remembered as weak.
I blink hard, dragging myself back into the kitchen.
Brendon is watching me like he knows I’ve gone somewhere far away. The air between us shifts.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe it’s him stepping closer. Maybe it’s me not stepping back.
All I know is that one second there is space, and the next there isn’t.
His hand lifts, slow, like he’s asking permission without words. His knuckles brush my cheek, barely there. The touch is so gentle it makes my throat ache.
“Abby,” he murmurs, and my name sounds like a confession.
I should stop this.
I should think of Daisy and boundaries and the fact that I have survived by not wanting things I can’t control.
But his hand is warm against my skin, and the truth is, I have wanted him for ten years. I have just trained myself not to look at the wanting too closely.
His thumb strokes my cheek once, light. “Tell me to stop,” he says quietly.
My breath catches. I don’t tell him to stop.
His mouth meets mine.
Not rushed. Not desperate. Slow enough that my body has time to recognize it. To remember.
His lips move against mine with a careful patience that feels unbearable, like he’s tasting something he thought he’d never get back.
My hands lift without permission, gripping the front of his shirt to steady myself, because the kiss is pulling something open inside me that I have kept shut for a long time.
His breath is warm. He smells like soap and cold air and something faintly smoky from the call, but the real heat is him, solid and present, here.
I make a small sound I don’t recognize, and his hand slides from my cheek to the back of my neck, fingers threading gently into my hair. He deepens the kiss slowly, giving me the choice in every inch of it.
When I part my lips, he exhales like he’s been holding his breath for a decade.
The kiss turns hungry, not frantic but intense, like the restraint has snapped. His mouth moves with purpose now, his hand firm at my neck, anchoring me. My knees go weak, and I grip him harder, needing the contact, needing proof this is real.
For a moment, I am not a single mother or a woman who learned how to survive loss.
I am just a woman kissing the boy she once loved. Except he isn’t a kid anymore, and neither am I.
His other hand braces on the counter beside me, boxing me in without trapping me. He kisses me like he’s trying to memorize the shape of my mouth again, like he’s afraid it will vanish if he doesn’t.
My pulse pounds everywhere. My lips are swollen. My skin feels too tight.
And then a soft sound echoes down the hallway.
Daisy’s footsteps.
Reality snaps back. I jerk away, breathless, my hand flying to my mouth as if I can cover what just happened.
Brendon stills instantly, stepping back, his chest rising and falling hard. His eyes are dark, his jaw clenched, but he doesn’t look angry. He looks wrecked.
Daisy appears in the doorway, toothbrush in hand, hair messy. She squints at us suspiciously. “Why do you look weird?”
“We don’t,” I say too quickly.
Brendon clears his throat. “We were… talking.”
Daisy narrows her eyes. “Talking makes you out of breath?”
“Sometimes,” Brendon says, and there’s a flicker of humor in his voice that makes my stomach flip again.
She looks up at him. “Can you come to my school and talk about fire safety?”
Brendon blinks. “Me?”
“Yes,” Daisy says, like it’s obvious. “Because you’re my hero.”
I glance at Brendon, panic blooming, because the request is sweet and innocent and also a door swinging open wider than I’m ready for.
Brendon’s gaze meets mine, and I see him weighing it. The choice. The implications.
Then he looks back at Daisy, and his voice is gentle. “If your mom says it’s okay.”
Daisy’s head snaps toward me. “Mom?”
Every instinct in me screams to say no. To draw a line. To protect the fragile equilibrium of our life.
But I look at Daisy’s face, so open and hopeful, and I think of how she sat on an ambulance bumper today and told the world that heroes show up.
I think of Brendon carrying her out of smoke.
I think of my own heart, still beating too fast, still refusing to be done with him.
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” I say carefully, choosing the only safe answer. “Right now, it’s bedtime.”
Daisy sighs dramatically but stands, folder clutched to her chest. “Fine. But you have to promise you’ll think about it.”
“I promise,” I whisper.
She hugs Brendon on her way out, wrapping her arms around him like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Brendon freezes for half a second, like he’s not used to being held like that.
Then his arms fold gently around her, careful and steady.
When she disappears down the hall, the house goes quiet again.
Brendon looks at me, his expression unreadable now, and the air between us is thick with everything we haven’t said.
“I should go,” he says quietly.
Relief and disappointment crash together in my chest.
“Yeah,” I manage. “It’s been… a day.”
He nods, grabbing his coat. At the door, he hesitates, hand on the knob.
“I’m glad she’s okay,” he says. “And Abby…” His voice drops. “I meant what I said. I never stopped caring.”
My throat tightens. I can’t trust my voice, so I just nod.
He leaves.
I check on Daisy twice, smoothing her hair back, making sure her chest rises and falls steadily. She sleeps hard, worn out from fear and adrenaline and hero stories.
Back in the kitchen, I stand alone, staring at the spot where his mouth was on mine, where my hands gripped his shirt like I was afraid he’d vanish.
I haven’t kissed anyone in years.
Celibacy wasn’t loneliness. It was armor. It was the simplest way to make sure Daisy never had to watch someone come into our life and then leave.
And now the one man who ever mattered is back, and the armor feels thinner than paper.
I press my fingertips to my mouth, my skin still tingling.