Piotr exhales slowly, nodding. “Kas… is there more?”
My shoulders sink. “Maybe? Honestly, I don’t know. Right now? We’re friends.” I finish softly. “We talk, I like him as a person. Very much.”
Piotr gives me that brotherly look, but lets it go.
“But no,” I add quickly. “We’venevercrossed a line, I promise. Which is more than I can say forDominik and Lena. Guess I’m single now, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
He snorts. “Fucked himself,rookie. He hasn’t learned to let you rant, then just nod and say you’re right. Works every time.”
I smack his arm. He flinches dramatically, and Kacper squeals with laughter.
“Maybe you’ll be getting your own baby sister soon,” Piotr says to Kacper, tickling his belly. “Then your life can be this same hell.”
Kacper squeals louder, grabbing at his father’s nose.
I roll my eyes. “He’ll be lucky if hissiostra’s half as patient as I was with mybrat.”
Piotr grins. “Just speaking the truth.”
“When will you know?” I ask, smiling at the two of them.
“Soon,” he says. “She’s twelve weeks. Only a few more and baby will let us see, we hope.”
I nod, watching him sway Kacper gently, the baby’s fingers curled around his shirt.
He sobers a little, “Look… just don’t do anything stupid.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he raises a brow and I shut it again.
“I know you won’t,” he says. “But still. Don’t do things you can’t undo. See how you feel when you come back. Dominik's a decent guy, and I know he loves you, even if his brain and dick are both made of cinder block.”
That gets a laugh out of me, soft and genuine. I nod. He leans Kacper toward me and I press a kiss to his soft cheeks, then the top of his head, inhaling that warm, sweet smell only babies have.
“I know he loves me... in his way,” I say.
Piotr nods with understanding.
“I won’t do anything stupid, Ipromise,” I say. “Give Aga my love, okay?” I kiss Piotr’s cheek.
“I will.” He stands, rocking Kacper. “Just remember, if your lost puppy starts gets drunk and starts peeing on my carpet, singing old Polish love songs, I’m making you come get him.”
I burst out laughing. “Deal.”
Chapter 28
Souvenir
Rafe
At some point, I must have fallen asleep, though it doesn’t feel like sleep. More like slipping under the surface of a place I already know. She’s here, not across from me in an exam chair or on the other end of a line, but close. Real. The air moves between us, warm, alive. Her hand finds me first, tentative and sure all at once. Her skin is cool, then my heat seeps into her, light touches that ask for more. She exhales my name like it’s a confession. I touch her cheek, trace the edges of her, and the world seems to bend around it.
I lean in, and she shudders, that broken breath that lives somewhere between anticipation and want. I kiss the curve of her hip, unhurried, tender. She arches into my hands, and the sound that leaves her, that small surrender, feels like music I wasborn to hear.
Her fingers slide into my hair, anchoring me, and I realize this isn’t a dream at all, it's a memory from some other life. The way her pulse races under my lips. The way her body speaks back in silence. No rush here, just the slow unveiling ofher. The unbearableperfectionof how she feels.
When I wake, dawn is bleeding through the blinds. My heart’s hammering. Sheets tangled, skin damp. For a moment I can still feelher, the weight of her, the heat, the small tremor in her breath when I whispered her name against her skin.
I drag a hand down my face, try to breathe it out. But it clings, the scent of her hair, the tremble of her laughter, the phantom taste of her sigh. It’s like my body didn’t get the memo that it was only a dream. It brought up everything I've been pressing down, right to the surface, and now I can’t forget what I found there. For a long minute I just lie there, trying to remember how to breathe.
