Page 124 of Mommy

Maybe I should hold on to my anger for longer. Maybe I should make Derek grovel at least a little bit before I allow him back in. I bet if Abigail had a say, she’d not let him back into my space ever again.

But I’m not Abigail.

I don’t do well on my own.

And I’ve been lonely. I missed Posie. And the puppies. And the house. And the food. And Derek.

Just standing here next to him, breathing in his cologne and seeing Posie stretch out on the floor between us soothes my nervous system.

And it’s not like I could’ve avoided him for the rest of my life.

When he opens his arms for me, everything goes like clockwork. My feet carry me over, and my chest leans into his embrace. My head falls into the crook beneath his chin, allowing him to rest his head on top of mine. And my heartbeat evens out into what it should be. There’s no more stumbling and no more racing and stopping, just a reassuring beat against my ribs.

“Are you ready to go home, Mommy?”

The nickname only makes me hug him tighter, and I nod against the fabric of his shirt.

Shelly doesn’t mind when I ask her to take the day off. In fact, she said she already had called Liam, and he’s on his way now. When I asked her why, one of her eyebrows lifted and she gave me a small shake of the head, as if I was asking a stupid question.

The familiarity of Derek’s car in front of the shelter and the way he holds the door for me? It’s doing a lot more for me than I expected. It’s taking me straight back to last week when everything was still rosy. It’s as if we didn’t even have our little fall out.

Should we still talk about that? Probably. But I’m refusing to be the one to bring it up. Not when, for the first time in days I feel like I don’t have to be on guard.

“Did you eat lunch, Honey?”

Folding my lips between my teeth, I hide my smile and shake my head.

“Breakfast this morning?”

Nope. I tried but my stomach didn’t agree with my intentions.

“Dinner last night?”

He sighs deeply before I even get to shaking my head again.

I already know that I’m about to eat that answer before we pull into the parking lot, and I get to read the sign in one of the windows.

“All you can eat buffett?” I ask, both eyebrows raised to the top of my head. “Seriously?”

Throwing me a sideways glance, Derek shrugs.

“We have a few meals to catch up on. So— I’m going to make you stuff your face.”

“With junk food?”

The wrinkle on his forehead looks offended by the word and his mouth pulls into a frown.

Okay. Maybe that actually was a stupid question. The odds of Derek offering me anything to eat that he doesn’t deem beneficial for my body and my mental health are zero.

I’m figuring as much as we make our way into the restaurant and I get a glimpse of the food they serve.

It’s all tiny portions—obviously—but it all looks fancy and delicious.

As if on clue, my stomach decides that we are actually hungry. Where my body failed to notice its needs for the past few days and I had to force down every meal, it now acts like this was all my fault. As if I consciously decided that I was going to feel sick every time I ate.

I sure am hungry enough for two right now. And I literally eat everything there is. Sweet, savoury, salty. Nothing is safe from me, and even Derek looks a little intimidated by the amount of food I manage to get down my throat.

We fall into a rhythm of eating and drinking and talking. I tell him about how I went to the gym all by myself and burst out laughing when he admits that he let Posie up on the couch with him.