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The tip of his nose rubs against mine. I feel like I’m in a dream. My heart begins to dance to an erratic beat as I nod and swallow.
“What do you think of that?” he asks.
I drop my gaze to his full lips. “I think I feel the same.”
Cupping my cheek, he brings my mouth back to his. The kiss is soft, tentative, careful, searching. I can taste the fear and longing on our lips.
“I have to know something,” he asks shakily when we part.
“Okay…”
His eyes search mine. “Did you come back for me?”
My heart quivers in my chest like a butterfly slowly opening its wings. A warm shiver sweeps down my spine when I hear that soft, familiar voice emerging from the shadows of my mind again.
“Yes,” the voice whispers from my lips.
Always. Again.
Chapter 44
PENNY
For the first time in a long time, I’ve woken up every day this week completely calm and rested. Not with a jolt, clutching the blankets with my heart pounding with anxiety, and not with an ache of homesickness weighing on my soul.
To my right, Lint is also content in the cage Lily set up on top of the dresser days before my arrival. She’s perched on a tiny log, nibbling on a pumpkin seed. We don’t run in frantic endless circles nearly as much as we used to.
Lily offered me her old bedroom, but I insisted on staying in the room I lived in years ago. I wasn’t surprised to see all my things exactly as they were the last day I was here. That’s what Alex does; he creates time capsules. A safe place for memories to live—undisturbed, preserved. A silent, open invitation that whispers, come back…everything is here as if you’ve never left…waiting, just like me…
And it worked. Here I am.
Home.
I’m still trying to figure out exactly what that entails. Lily and I slid right back into our sisterly friendship as if no time had passed. She planned out the entire week for us and took me to her favorite stores, cafés, and restaurants, all in an effort to convince me these would become our new go-to places if I moved back here. Almost every night we’ve stayed up late watching movies like we used to. I’ve always loved gloomy Lily, but this happy, enthusiastic version of Lily is magnetic. I never would have imagined that motherhood could change her so much. Or maybe it’s also because she now has an awesome relationship with her dad, and a loving partner in her boyfriend, Marcus.
Yesterday, at Lily’s prompting, I visited the veterinarian’s office where I used to work. My old boss pulled me aside and offered me my old job back with the option to work full or part time.
The fragmented pieces of my life are slowly falling back into place.
And then there’s Alex.
I’ve been spending so much time with Lily that I’ve hardly seen Alex much at all, other than when we all eat dinner together or pass each other in the hall upstairs. The physical and emotional chemistry between us lit up like a flame in the wind my first night here, but now we’re not quite sure what to do next. How do we get through the “How and when do we tell Lily” dilemma without hurting her?
I’m met with a scene in the kitchen that’s both chaotic and heartwarming. It’s Saturday morning, and Alex is at the stove flipping pancakes like he was born with a nonstick frying pan in his hand. Lily is holding Brian against her hip while trying to set the table, and he’s giggling wildly, pointing at Shadow, who’s up on his back legs, front paws on the table, sniffing at a bottle of maple syrup. As soon as Brian sees me, he breaks out into a comical smile and holds his arms out to me.
“Can I take him?” I ask.
Lily smiles. “Of course.”
Brian immediately wraps his little arms around my neck and lets me kiss his adorable, chubby cheeks. Earlier in the week, when we met in person for the first time, I knelt on the floor, and he ran to me, shrieking, “Aunt Penny!” He literally threw himself into my arms and didn’t let me go for a solid five minutes. At bedtime every night since, he’s begged Lily to let me read to him, and I’ve been more than happy to do so. For an hour, he snuggles next to me against a mountain of pillows, pointing to the pictures on the book pages, babbling about all his favorite parts.
Spending time with a child is totally new territory for me, but I loved him instantly.
“You can put him at the table. He sits by the wall in his booster chair, so he can’t feed Shadow,” Lily says as she hands a large serving plate to her father. He takes it and stacks the pancakes, adding a thin pat of butter between each. I’m not sure when seeing a man cook became attractive to me, but here we are, me with quivering thighs in the middle of the kitchen.
