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I glance at my watch. Twelve-fifteen.

“I have to go. I’m meeting people for lunch.”

“Ooh, so fun!” Natalie clutches my arm. “Wait, can I add you? Instagram. So we’re real friends and not just Sunday friends.”

I give her my handle. She finds me in about four seconds and sends a request. Her feed is a wall of brightness. Her and her mom, cheek to cheek, a dozen times over. Sunsets. Friends. Coffee.

“Follow me back,” she says. “I post a lot. I know it’s a problem.”

I follow her back.

“Yay.” She hugs me. “Okay, go, don’t be late. See you next Sunday!”

I step out into the lobby, where somewhere Dottie is gathering Bo and driving to a Tex-Mex place to hold a seat for me.

I did the thing.

I walked in alone. I let a room full of strangers see me. And the worst that happened is a girl named Natalie decided I’m hers now.

Last time, I lost ten years to a room like that.

This time I got a lunch date and a follow request.

I’ll take it.

Chapter 12

Luke

Sundays at the station go one of two ways. Either the whole city falls off a ladder at once, or it’s so quiet you start doing math on the ceiling tiles.

Today it’s ceiling tiles.

We ran one call at six, an alarm that turned out to be burnt toast, and since then it’s been coffee and a cooking show. I did my checks. I cleaned a truck that was already clean. And at nine-thirty I did the thing I only do when nobody’s looking, which is pull up the church livestream on my phone and prop it against the napkin holder.

I tell myself it’s for the sermon.

It’s not for the sermon.

It’s because Olivia said she’d be there, and some part of me wanted to watch the room she was in even if the camera never once pointed at it.

The guest speaker was good. I caught about half of it. The other half I spent wondering if Bo went to class, and whether Olivia wished I was there next to her.

I keep coming back to the dinner table last night.

Not the food. The way she talked to Bo.

Most people pick one of two settings around my kid. They talk over his head or they talk down to it. She did neither. She just talked to him.

I sat there and watched my son be open with a near stranger.

Bo doesn’t do that. Not with just anyone. He warms up slow and trusts slower.

She walked in one afternoon and Bo just... made room.

I don’t know what to do with how much that means to me. I’ve spent his whole life being the only safe pair of hands, the only one who reliably gets it right, and last night I watched somebody else be gentle with him without anyone teaching her how. Like she came already knowing which parts of him to be careful with.

I also keep thinking about the driveway. My hand on her face, and the very stupid, very correct decision not to do the thing every part of me wanted to do.