As I stood outside the house, scanning the street and waiting for the car to arrive, I couldn’t help feeling a little jolt of sadness in my chest. I mean, I knew I shouldn’t have been sad. I should have been happy my son was finally growing up, spending his first night away from home out of choice to sleep over at his friend’s house, but still, it was going to be weird saying goodbye to him and knowing I wouldn’t see him until I picked him up the next morning.

I’d spent an hour on the phone with Jason’s parents the night before and texted Autumn to check in on what she thought of them. I was nearly satisfied at the thought of leaving my kid with them for a night. Just a single night, but still, it was more than I could have managed a few weeks before. But Hunter and I were both making progress. Besides, a whole night where someone else had offered to take care of him, no questions asked? That meant I got to spend an evening with Autumn on short notice, which felt like the kind of gorgeous luxury I had to indulge in while I could.

An expensive-looking car pulled up the driveway, and I smiled when I saw the kid, Jason, waiting in the front seat. He was a goofy-looking little thing with big glasses, slightly messy hair, and long, gangly arms on a short torso, as though bits of him were growing out of sorts with one another. He hopped out of the car and waited for his father to join him, and the two of them made their way to the house.

“You must be Jason.” I smiled at my son’s friend. “Hunter’s upstairs, I think, if you want to go find him.”

“Thanks!” Jason replied, and he darted inside the house, leaving me and his dad standing out there in the cool evening together.

“You must be Logan.” I extended my hand to the father, who shook it.

“Holden, right?” He nodded.

“That’s me,” I replied. “I’d hoped my first time meeting other parents from the school wasn’t going to be after our sons mutually defaced some property, but I guess I can’t win them all, right?”

Logan chuckled.

“You know, I have to admit, I don’t see it as that big of a deal,” he confessed. “I mean, I know they shouldn’t have done it and all that—and we told Jason off for it—but it seems like boys being boys, you know?”

“I have to agree with you.” I nodded. “It’s hard to be mad when you can remember doing a bunch of stuff like that yourself when you were a kid, right?”

“Agreed.” He nodded, rubbing his hands together to ward off the cold. “Is this the first time you’ve let Hunter sleep away from home?”

“Yeah, at least it is with one of his friends,” I confessed. “Is it that obvious?”

“No, I just remember how I was when Jason first went somewhere else, and I recognized it when you were talking to us last night,” he replied with a kind smile. “I know how hard it can be, but we’ll take good care of him. And I know Jason will too.”

“Thanks.” I smiled back, glad to have someone around who seemed to get where my nerves arose from.

Hunter and Jason burst out the front door of the house, both of them laughing loudly. Hunter had a bag slung over his shoulder, one I’d helped him pack earlier in the day.

“I’ll see you later, buddy.” I ruffled his hair as he sprinted past to get into the car. As soon as he was situated in the back seat, he waved to me and rolled down the window.

“See you later, Dad!” he called back, and with a flurry of activity, all three of them were gone, leaving me alone at the house once more.

I turned back inside and wandered around for a while, not quite sure what I was supposed to do with myself. Autumn was going to be getting here soon, but until then, this place was just… empty. Sure, he had stayed over with Raymond and Olivia before this, but that was different. I knew them inside out, and they had known Hunter his entire life, pretty much acting like his extended family. I had never handed him off to someone I’d never met before and let them whisk him away for the evening. It felt weirdly wrong, but I had to let him go if I wanted him to grow into the kind of kid he needed to be.

I settled in on the couch and stared off into space, trying to enjoy the quiet and struggling to find a way to get my head around it. Parents were meant to crave this kind of peace and quiet, but there was almost nowhere I’d rather be in the world that sitting opposite Hunter, listening to him tell me all about some new obsession that had him lost down a rabbit hole.

I heard a car pulling up outside, and a tiny part of me hoped it would be Hunter coming back to spend the rest of the evening with me. I knew it was ridiculous, but I wanted nothing more than to kick back with him and remind myself exactly what a great kid he could be. But when I got to the window, I found Autumn climbing out of her car and heading toward the door, and I grinned. I supposed that was just as good.

I opened the door, and she pushed two bottles of wine into my chest, brushing past me and hanging her coat up.

“I wasn’t sure whether I wanted red or white, so I got both,” she explained, and I looked down at the bottles and grinned.

“Either works for me,” I told her, heading through to the kitchen to pour us each a glass. She followed me through and paused in the doorway, looking at me.

“Fuck, it’s good to see you,” she murmured. Then she wrapped her arms around me and pressed her head into my shoulder from behind. My heart swelled with the happiness of having her there. Maybe this night could be just as good without Hunter here.

“It’s good to see you too,” I agreed, and I turned to kiss her, to properly kiss her—not those stolen little pecks we got when people weren’t looking at us, but a real kiss, our tongues finding one another, my body against hers and hers leaning into mine. When I pulled back, her cheeks were flushed, and she brushed her nose against my jaw.

“Okay, I really missed you,” she murmured pointedly, and I knew exactly what was going through her mind. But I wanted to tease her a little, to watch her squirm for me, and besides, I was hungry and needed something to eat before she drained my energy for the rest of the night.

“You want some dinner?” I asked.

“What were you thinking?” she replied. “Because I’m pretty sure my fingers are way too clumsy for the stuff you made last time I was around.”

“Some pasta,” I replied. “Nothing too difficult, I promise.”

“Well, nothing that’s so difficult, I can’t take it on after a glass of wine, okay?” she warned me, and I pulled out the chopping board and handed her a pan.

“Can you put that on the heat?” I asked her, pointing to the stove, and she fiddled around with it for a minute before she found the right switch and turned it on.

“Perfect.” I grinned, and she snuggled up next to me as I began to chop vegetables for a simple Bolognese.

“Yeah, it is,” she told me, planting a kiss on my cheek. And at that moment, I felt such utter contentment that I could almost feel the words swelling up and out of me, the words I knew it was far too soon for, the words I’d been doing my best to hide from for a long time. The words I knew I couldn’t dump on her lap in front of her while the two of us were cooking dinner.

It was too soon for “I love you.” I knew that much. I might have been out of the dating scene for a long while, but throwing that at her when we had only been together a few weeks would have been way premature.

I hadn’t said those words to anyone but Hunter’s mother in the last ten years—well, said them in a romantic sense, of course. And they held so much power, even I could see that. They contained multitudes, not least the indication that this relationship was deadly serious. As I watched her put some olive oil into the pan and swish it around to coat the bottom, humming quietly as she worked, I knew it was true, but I didn’t want to come out and hit her with it yet. I wanted both of us to be totally sure so I could know she was going to say it back to me when the time came.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked, and I shook my head and went to grab a few cloves from the head of garlic that was sitting out on the counter.

“Nothing much,” I lied, as I took a sip of my wine in the hopes I could distract myself from the thoughts running around my head. Though there was a chance the alcohol would make me more likely to blurt out what was in my brain.

“So what are we cooking tonight?” she asked, bumping her hip against mine and lifting her glass to her lips. I glanced over at her, at those big eyes shining at me over the top of her wine, and I couldn’t help smiling. I had never been so sure of anyone in my life before. For as long as I could remember, as an adult, I’d pushed away the people close to me, determined to keep safe from the same kind of heartbreak I’d been through with Hunter’s mother. But with Autumn, it was different—so different. She never looked at me and saw a man who would let her down, a man who would never live up to his potential. I knew she looked at me and saw hope, a future, a grounding that she had been craving for a long time. I would work my hardest to prove she was right to see all those things in me.

“Something awesome,” I promised her, and I reached over to kiss her wine-stained lips before I continued. I couldn’t get enough of her tonight, and I had a feeling it was going to be hard to get this meal on the table with all the trouble I was having keeping my hands to myself.