Not many. Porch light. Kitchen. Living room. Warm squares against the dark. A strange sight after the Fire Pit’s bourbon glow and the clubhouse’s outlaw noise. Derby’s house looks less empty now. Someone has hung curtains in the front window. Badly, but still. There is a paper bag from the groceries on the porch, a pair of August’s little shoes near the door, and something taped crookedly to the window.
A dinosaur coloring page.
My throat closes.
Derby slows beside the porch and cuts Widowmaker’s engine.
The sudden silence feels intimate.
Too intimate.
I let go of him quickly and nearly overbalance getting off. His hand comes up, not grabbing me, just there if I need it.
I do.
I hate that I do.
My fingers touch his palm for half a second before my boots hit gravel.
“Thanks,” I say, too fast.
“Yep.”
He takes the helmet from me. Our fingers brush. Both of us notice. Both of us pretend not to, which is somehow worse than acknowledging it.
The front door flies open.
“Mama!”
August barrels out like the house has launched him. His socks slide on the porch, and my heart jumps into my mouth.
“Careful,” I call, already moving.
He hits me full force at the bottom of the steps, arms around my waist, cheek pressed into my stomach. I fold over him on instinct, holding him hard enough that he wriggles.
“I made a fort,” he says into my shirt.
“You did?”
“With Sophie and Lottie and Brittany and Oaks, but Oaks said his knees are too old for floor work.”
Derby mutters, “Accurate.”
August turns his head. “I saved you a spot.”
The words hit me straight in the chest.
I have spent the last two hours trying to remember I’m still a woman.
One sentence from my child makes me mother again so completely it hurts.
The alley vanishes.
Derby’s almost-kiss vanishes.
The heat in my body turns into guilt before I can stop it.
I was dancing while my son made a fort in a strange house.