The way he’d softened with Olive earlier, she’d called himUncle Sethlike it was the most natural thing in the world. I hadn’t missed the way he froze at the name, or how his shoulders relaxed when she looked at him with those big brown eyes. Olive had already decided he was safe. And maybe that was what scared me the most.
I’d built walls around our little life, just she and I, because it was safer that way. Safer than letting someone in who might not stick around and break Olive’s heart. Seth might be Blair’s brother, but he wasn’t part of my inner circle. He wasn’t supposed to matter.
Except now he did.
I let out a shaky breath and rubbed my hands over my face. The truth was, I didn’t know how to do this. I didn’t know how to live next door to him, day in and day out, without feeling all the old irritation. Something new was beginning underneath it. Something I didn’t want to put a name to.
The silence of the house brings me back. Not to Wisteria Creek, not to Olive’s laughter echoing through this new life I’m trying to build, but to a different porch, a smaller one, where the air was heavy with silence.
I was eight the first time I realized my parents’ lives didn’t have room for me.
My father’s world revolved around clients, numbers, and golf games that seemed to matter more than birthdays. My mother floated through our house like a guest, perfume and polished smiles, always on her way somewhere else. I remember sitting at the kitchen table, a plate of untouched food in front of me, while they argued behind closed doors about who was ‘on duty’ that weekend. It was never really either of them, and I was always forgotten.
They weren’t cruel. Just absent and not meant to be parents. Which, in some ways, hurts worse. You can grow numb to anger, but not to being unseen.
Blair’s house was the opposite. Loud. Messy. Always something baking in the oven, even if it came out half-burnt. Her parents didn’t have money to throw around, but they had time, laughter, and warmth that settled in your bones. I still remember the first time I stayed over. Blair had dragged me into her room, showed me her mismatched pillowcases, her older brother’s posters on the wall, and said, “See? It’s not perfect, but it’s home.”
I didn’t understand it then, but I do now.
I spent most of my childhood on that porch. I used to watch Seth come home from football practice, grass stains on his jeans, dirt on his hands, always quiet, always steady. He never said much, just nodded at us as he walked past, but even then, I noticed how the air around him felt different. Solid.
Blair’s family taught me what it felt like to belong, and Seth was there to tease me most days. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I’m so desperate to give Olive the childhood I didn’t have. One filled with late-night giggles, burnt cookies, and the kind of love that doesn’t ask to be earned. I want her to know that evenwhen the world feels unpredictable, she is safe and can always depend on me.
I stared out the window now, the trees swaying in the light breeze, and it hit me. I’ve been chasing that feeling my entire life. Not wealth, not success. Just warmth. Just belonging, a true home.
And somehow, against all odds, I’ve found myself back where that began, in the guest house of my best friend's brother.
A knock startled me out of my thoughts.
I stood, heart pounding, and opened the door to find Seth on the porch. He was holding a toolbox in one hand, his expression unreadable.
“Figured I’d check the locks, make sure everything’s working properly,” he said simply, stepping past me into the guesthouse.
I crossed my arms, trying to mask how off-balance he made me. “We’re fine.”
His eyes flicked toward the hall, toward where Olive was sleeping. “I know. But better safe than sorry.”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him to take his calm, capable tone and shove it. But instead, I found myself watching the way he moved through the space, methodical and sure, like he could rebuild anything, houses, towns, maybe even people, if he just had the right tools.
And that was the problem.
Because for the first time in a long time, I wondered if my walls were as unshakable as I thought.
Chapter 13
Seth
The storm had come and gone, but the town was still broken.
Somewhere down on Main Street, a generator coughed to life; further off, a nail gun popped in tired, irregular bursts. I’d been home for exactly twenty-two minutes and finished three phone calls when I set the clipboard down, grabbed my toolbox, and told myself I was only crossing the lawn to check the locks on the guesthouse.
Not to see if Madison needed anything.
And definitely not because a four-year-old had called meUncle Sethand knocked something loose inside my ribs.
The grass was still damp, spring-soft under my boots. The porch light on the guesthouse threw a warm triangle over the steps. Through the front window, I saw her, knees tucked up, hair piled on her head with a pencil speared through it, the picture of exhaustion wearing a legging and baggy t-shirt. I knocked on the door and waited.
She jumped a little, then smoothed her expression into something neutral before opening the door. “It’s late.”
