“I’m going to steal this little guy and get him fed.” She looks at me after lifting Rowen out of the ball pit. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

“I’m good, but thanks, Willow.”

“Are you sure? I made plenty.”

“Yeah.”

“All right.” She looks up at Clay when he wraps his arm around her waist.

“I might be a few, baby. Just eat without me.”

“Okay,” she whispers, leaning up to meet him halfway when he drops his head to kiss her. When he pulls back, she gives him a soft look before smiling at me and carrying Rowen out of the room, closing the door.

I follow him over to the bar and take a seat on one of the stools, while he goes behind it and gets down a bottle of whiskey, pouring us each a glass, then sliding one over to me.

“Now, tell me about this woman,” he says, and I down what’s in the glass in one gulp, then tell him about Francisca—or what little I know about her.

CHAPTER 6

Francisca

Hearing someone knock on my door inside the building—not the one that leads out onto the street—I glance over my shoulder as PJ runs across the room to hide in his kennel.

“Coming!” I call out, resting my paintbrush on the table where I keep my supplies before making my way across the room. It hasn’t happened often, but occasionally, someone in the building will receive my mail in their box, or I’ll end up with theirs, and we’ll drop it off to each other in person because there’s no way to put it in the right mail slot without a key.

Without checking the peephole, I swing the door open and feel my heart squeeze tight at the sight that greets me. After our conversation earlier, I convinced myself that I would never see Dayton again, and it wasn’t a far-fetched assumption. I never bumped into him the months prior to the first time we met the night of my parents' party, and I hadn’t seen him since until I sought him out this afternoon. And with me planning on moving in a few months, putting even more distance between us, I was sure that would be the case going forward.

“Dayton, what are you doing here?” I ask softly, taking him in. Since talking to him earlier, he’s lost his tie and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and judging by the messy wave of his hair, he’s ran his fingers through it a few dozen times.

“Can I come in?”

“I….” I know I should say no, especially when I catch a whiff of the alcohol he’s been drinking, but there’s a little voice in the back of my head telling me not to turn him away. “Yeah, okay.” I step back to let him in.