“Uh, I’ll have a coffee, please.” Raymond glanced up at the waitress as she approached. “Black. And strong.”

She smiled and nodded, jotting down his order on her pad, and wandered off again. Raymond bounced his daughter in his arms, and she let out a little snuffle and a squeak.

“Tired?” I asked, and Raymond nodded and yawned.

“I didn’t even realize it was possible to be this damn tired,” he replied. “I feel like I’ve been up for three months straight.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t go away for a while,” I told him, and he shook his head and glanced down at his daughter.

“You couldn’t lie to me and tell me it’s going to get better tomorrow?” He jibed.

“Okay. Yeah, I promise.” I nodded to him seriously. “It all gets easier in precisely an hour’s time, and then it’s a cakewalk from there until college.”

“Oh, don’t make me think about sending her off to college,” He made an anxious face. “I can barely handle being out of the room without her these days.”

“Trust me, it does get easier as they get older,” I promised him, hand on heart. “I know it seems impossible, but when they start striking out on their own, you’ll want them to. You’ll encourage it.”

“Okay, I’ll believe it when I feel it.” Raymond grinned as the waitress returned with his coffee and placed it down in front of him. His daughter had dozed off in his arms, and Raymond lowered his voice so as not to wake her.

“What about you? How are you doing?” He gestured to me as he carefully replaced his coffee cup in the china saucer so it wouldn’t make a clink and wake up the baby. I nodded.

“Yeah, I think I’m doing really well at the moment,” I replied.

“Think?”

“I know,” I corrected myself. “Sorry, I’m not used to feeling this good about things. I’m still getting used to it.”

“I feel you on that,” he agreed. “What are you up to these days? Made any decisions about hiring someone to come work for you?”

“Well, I’ve been giving that a lot of thought,” I replied. “Lots. But for the time being, I’ve decided to shift away from all my client projects and work on this idea Autumn had for a program. Well, an idea she gave me, at least.”

“All of your clients?” He raised his eyebrows. “Is that a good idea?”

“It’s not as scary as it sounds.” I waved my hand. “I’m up-to-date with all my projects for the time being, and I let them know I’m not taking on new work in the next couple of weeks. I don’t think any of them are going to jump ship when there’s nothing they need to be done in the first place.”

“I guess you’re right,” he conceded. “What’s this thing you’re working on with Autumn?”

“Well, she was talking about what it’s like teaching, right?” I leaned forward, pleased to have someone to talk to about it. “And she mentioned to me that one of the things they all hate the most is putting together those grade curves. As in, they have to input all the data by hand and come up with grade curves to mark all the students based on the results from the years before.”

“All right, so that’s just begging to be updated,” Raymond conceded. “How long have you been putting that together?”

“A week or so,” I replied. “I think it’s going pretty well, though. I’ve been talking to Autumn a lot to get an idea of the kind of programs they already use down there, so I’m not putting together something that’s too out there for most of the staff.”

“And she knows about this?”

“She’s excited about it.” I grinned. “And so am I. I think it’s a big gap in the market, and the worst they can say is they don’t want it, right?”

“Bit of a change from website designing,” Raymond pointed out. “You sure that’s what you want to be doing?”

“I know it’s unorthodox, but the program—”

“No, I meant, are you sure website designing is still what you want to be doing?” he corrected himself. I fell silent and leaned back in my seat. If I was being honest, I hadn’t considered anything else in my adult life. Sure, occasionally I got frustrated with a project or a client and thought about what it would be like to work a different job, but this was what I was good at. This was how I could build a life for my son, and I was hardly going to double back on that just because I was working on something different.

“I…” I wasn’t sure how to answer him. Raymond had this habit of seeing right through me, an annoying little trick he’d picked up since we worked together. If I lied to him and told him I was still dead set on the web designing business, he would see it for the lie it was.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I like working on this program, especially with Autumn. Maybe I should take a step away from the business for a while. After that client left…”

I stared into the last few sips of my coffee, as though I could divine the answer to my question in there. Though I was pretty sure that was meant to be tea leaves.

“Or maybe you’re enjoying spending time with Autumn,” he suggested. “Maybe that’s what it is. Do you think you’d be as committed to this project if it weren’t for her?”

“I honestly have no idea,” I admitted. “I like being around her so damn much, Raymond.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” he teased, kicking me under the table. “The way you talk about her, I think it’s pretty obvious to everyone in this place.

“Yeah, well, I haven’t had a date in nearly ten years. Allow me to actually enjoy one when it comes along,” I shot back, finishing up my coffee and gesturing to the waitress for another.

“Hey, I’m not holding it against you,” Raymond assured me. “I think it’s cute that you’ve found someone after all this time. And I’m a little smug that it was Olivia who set the two of you up.”

“I don’t even know if I could count that first time as a date.” I shook my head.

“Hey, don’t try and take all the credit here,” Raymond shot back. “It was totally Olivia’s doing.”

“All right, I concede.” I held my hands up. “Your wife gets the credit.”

“Damn straight.” He leaned back in his seat triumphantly, but the sudden movement jolted the baby, and she snuffled and woke up. She stretched slightly, pushing her little fists away from her body, and I couldn’t help but smile. I could still remember my son at that age when he’d been so tiny, I’d been terrified at the thought of letting him out into the world at large because he seemed too vulnerable and delicate.

“So things are going well between you and Autumn,” Raymond finished up, and I nodded.

“Sure are,” I agreed and reached over to touch his daughter’s little hand. “Though I can’t take my eyes off this little lady at the moment.”

Raymond watched as she shuffled and sniffed again in his arms at my touch, and I leaned back before I woke her up entirely. He returned his gaze to me and cocked an eyebrow.

“You ever think about having any more kids?” he asked. “With Autumn, maybe?”

“Hey, hey.” I held my hands up. “We’ve only been hanging out a few weeks. Let’s put the brakes on the wife and two kids for now, all right?”

He grinned. “All right. But it must have crossed your mind. I mean, she’s so good with kids, being a teacher and all, and it seems like Hunter loves her.”

I eyed him for a moment and shrugged. If I was being honest with myself, I had allowed my mind to stray a little bit toward what a future with Autumn might look like. How would it feel to be working from home and hear her come through the door, toss her shoes off, and throw her coat onto the rack and then find me for a kiss? How nice it would be to take her out to Hunter’s favorite spot and play games together all evening as a family—and yeah, sure, maybe even having another kid when the time was right if she was open to it. But we hadn’t so much as talked about what a future would look like between the two of us, and I would freak her all the way out if I was to suddenly start talking marriage and kids. When you had a child, it felt as though all dating automatically clicked up to the next level of seriousness whether you liked it or not. Autumn had to know that, but that didn’t mean I had to slide straight into “but where is this going?” mode when we hadn’t even had our second official date yet.

“Yeah, sure, but things are still so fresh,” I pointed out. “I think it would scare her off if I was to start trying to pin her down to a commitment in the next few dates, don’t you?”

“I don’t know, man.” Raymond shrugged. “I mean, when I met Olivia, things got serious pretty quickly. I knew she was the one, and that was it for me.”

“Yeah, but I bet you weren’t talking about getting her pregnant on the second date,” I pointed out, and he chuckled.

“Okay, point taken.” He raised his eyebrows. “I was wondering if you thought about it yet.”

“You’ve got babies on the brain, that’s the problem,” I remarked. He glanced down at his daughter, who had slipped back to sleep in his arms.

“I mean, can you blame me, when she’s the introduction I’ve had?” he replied. I knew exactly what he meant. No matter how hard it was, no matter how little sleep you got, no matter how crazy you felt as you were trying to keep yourself together sometimes, parenthood was addictive, thrilling, and impossibly fulfilling. I would have done it all again if I had gotten the chance, if the right person had come along at the right time and had wanted the same things I did. Maybe that was Autumn. Or maybe I needed to get to know her a little better before I started jumping to those conclusions.

“Yeah, I get it,” I agreed, and both of us fell silent for a moment, reflecting on the place fatherhood had in our lives. It was so strange to see Raymond at the start of his journey when I felt as though I was a veteran of mine, but I was proud of him. He was going to be an amazing dad to that little girl. I could see it in the way he looked at her as though he couldn’t believe his luck. Besides, he’d basically been a second father to Hunter his entire life, so it wasn’t like he was coming to this totally fresh.

“Hey, speaking of Autumn,” I began, and he glanced up at me as though he had forgotten I was even there.

“Yeah?”

“I was planning to take her out again this weekend.” I grinned. “Think there’s a chance you could watch Hunter?”

“You know we’re always happy to,” he replied. “Olivia loves having him around.”

“Excellent, thanks.” I smiled at him. “You know, if I didn’t have you around, my dating life would be a hell of a lot harder.”

“So what’s your excuse for the last ten years, huh?” he teased. “We’ve been around all this time, and you’ve barely made it out of the house.”

“All right, point taken.” I shook my head at him, laughing. “Isn’t it enough that I’m getting out there now?”

“Sure is.” Raymond nodded. “And I have a good feeling about you and Autumn. I think you’re going to go all the way. Really.”

I shrugged and took a sip of my fresh coffee. I didn’t want to admit it for fear of jinxing what I already had, but deep down in my gut, I felt that way too.