Page 113 of Sparks Fly

“Take me to bed,” she said.

I didn’t need to be asked twice.

* * *

34

Addison

The first thing that changed was my mornings.

Not in any dramatic overhaul-my-life way. Just small shifts that slipped into place without asking permission. I started waking up a few minutes before my alarm, my brain checking in somewhere else before it remembered work.

My phone stayed on the nightstand, face down, but my hand reached for it anyway. I flipped it over without thinking, looking for a message.

Sometimes Sawyer had already texted. Half-awake thoughts, a photo of her coffee, a song she had queued up on a shared playlist. Sometimes there was nothing yet. Either way, I smiled. The waiting itself became part of the routine, folded easily into brushing my teeth and tying my hair back.

The days stayed busy. They always did. Contracts, showings, and calls stacked tight enough that my voice lived permanently in professional calm. But Sawyer threaded herself through all of it in quiet ways. A text during my lunch break asking if I had eaten. A voice note from the shop with metal clanging faintly in the background, promising she would be up late waiting for me and make it worth it.

Without trying, I learned the cadence of her days. When she disappeared into work, when she resurfaced, when a call might come and when it wouldn’t.

One night she cooked at my place. It wasn’t planned. She had stopped by after work, grease still faint on her hands, her jacket tossed over a chair like it belonged there. I answered emails at the counter with my laptop open while I watched her move through my kitchen with easy confidence.

She didn’t ask where anything was. She opened drawers, found what she needed, and leaned her hip against the counter while something sizzled on the stove.

Every so often she glanced over at me like she was checking in, like she liked the sight of me standing there barefoot and half focused. Domestic in a way I had never really let myself be before. When I finally closed my laptop and turned toward her, she smiled like she had been waiting for that moment.

“Done?” she asked while stirring something in the pan.

“Done,” I said, meaning more than the emails.

She stayed over on a Tuesday night the following week. It wasn’t a night built around sex. We ate dinner together, put on a show neither of us really watched, and settled into the couch with her arm draped over my waist like it was the most natural thing in the world. Eventually we drifted to bed and fell asleep tangled together, her breath warm against my shoulder and my hand resting lightly on her chest.

Sometime before dawn I woke to the sound of quiet movement.

Sawyer was sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on her boots, moving carefully like she was trying not to wake me. I watched through half-closed eyes as she laced them up near the door, her hair still mussed from sleep and her movements slow and deliberate.

She caught me looking.

“Go back to sleep,” she murmured softly.

I didn’t. Instead I listened to the door click shut a minute later and realized the ache that followed wasn’t sharp or panicked. It was warm. Expectant. The kind of missing that assumed return.

We settled into small rituals without naming them. Coffee runs that always ended with Sawyer stealing mine for a sip, insisting it tasted better that way. Shared playlists that grew longer and more specific until I could tell what kind of day she had just by the song she sent. Random evenings when she showed up at my door without warning, kissed me hello, and asked what was for dinner like she hadn’t spent years living on takeout.

Sex happened, of course. But it wasn’t the center of everything anymore. It had softened into something else. Falling asleep with her leg thrown over mine. Waking to her thumb tracing absent patterns against my wrist. Hands finding each other automatically in the dark like muscle memory had already decided where they belonged.

Somewhere in the middle of the second week of this new normal, I noticed something else: I wasn’t anxious around her anymore.

That realization landed quietly one morning while I stood in my kitchen holding a mug of coffee, while Sawyer showered. I noticed how comfortable I was. How much I like her in my space, how having her around made me feel more like myself. I realized maybe this was what something real felt like. Growing in the in-between moments, quiet enough that I almost hadn’t noticed it happening. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And the repetition showed up in other places too.

Dinner with my parents kept happening, spaced just far enough apart that my mother could pretend she wasn’t keeping score. The script for these dinners were exactly the same as always. She asked if I had met anyone new, her tone light but watchful. She commented on how busy I seemed lately. She mentioned men casually. Sons of friends, coworkers’ nephews, someone she had run into at the club who was recently divorced and very successful.

I deflected every time. I smiled, changed the subject, and gave answers vague enough to keep things moving. Each time it cost me a little more energy. I hated that I couldn’t just find the courage to tell her, ‘Yes mom I met someone, and she’s fucking amazing. Treats me better than anyone ever has, and I’m so happy.’ But for some reason, I couldn’t. Ever time I’d convinced myself I was going to, I’d lose my nerve as soon as I walked in the door.

The performance itself was exhausting. The careful neutrality. The way everything with my mother needed managing before it turned sharp. By the time dessert would appear, I always felt wrung out. I noticed it more and more.