✧ ❈ ✧Dinner Permission✧ ❈ ✧

❈ ❈ Alessia Pov ❈ ❈

I called Jeffrey from the bedroom while Edward was at work.

"I need to leave," I said without preamble. "Today. Now."

"I'm on my way."

He was there in twenty minutes. I was still in my pajamas, the baby asleep in the bassinet beside the bed, everything I owned scattered around like I'd exploded.

"Where do you want to start?" Jeffrey asked, and he didn't waste time—didn't ask questions or hesitate. Just started grabbing empty boxes from the garage and began filling them with my life.

We worked in silence. My clothes went into boxes. My books. The paintings I'd picked out before I married Edward. The photo albums from before him. Everything that was mine and not ours.

The baby woke up crying around noon, and Jeffrey took him so I could pack the nursery—the crib, the bedding, the tiny clothes that still smelled new. My hands moved fast, efficient, like they were trying to complete a mission before I fell apart.

By three o'clock, the truck was loaded.

I stood at the front door of the house I'd helped decorate, looked back at the foyer where Edward had first brought me as his bride, and something inside me broke.

"Alessia—"

I didn't let him finish. I just started crying. Ugly crying where my shoulders shook and my breath came in gasps. Jeffrey set the last box down and pulled me into him, my back against his chest, his arms around me like he was trying to hold me together.

"Come on," he whispered. "Let's go."

The drive to his place felt like crossing into another world. His apartment was small—nothing like the sprawling house Edward and I had lived in—but it was warm. It had personality. Books on shelves. Art on the walls that someone actually cared about. A kitchen that looked like it got used.

When we finished carrying everything in, I sat on his couch and started crying again.

"Thank you," I said between sobs. "Thank you so much, Jeffrey. I don't know what I would have done without you. I promise I won't bother you. I'll figure things out. I just need a few days to—"

Jeffrey sat down next to me and took my hand.

"Feel free," he said simply. "This is your home now. Rest. Take time. Let me take care of you."

He smiled, and it was so gentle that I wanted to cry harder.

༺✿༻ ༺✿༻

The next day, I woke up to the smell of food.

Not just food. Everything. I could smell eggs and bacon and fresh bread and something that smelled like cinnamon. I got out of bed carefully, my C-section incision still tender, and made my way to the kitchen.

Jeffrey was there in sweatpants and a t-shirt, moving between three different pans like he'd choreographed it. The counter was full of dishes—fried rice, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, fresh fruit, even waffles with whipped cream.

"Good morning," he said when he saw me, like this was normal. Like he didn't just cook enough food for a small army.

I sat down at the little kitchen table, and he brought me a plate piled high with everything. The baby was in a bassinet near me, and we settled into this rhythm—me eating while feeding him, Jeffrey moving around the kitchen cleaning up.

"This is insane," I said, laughing around a mouthful of waffle. "You cooked all of this?"

"Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd make breakfast." He poured me orange juice. "You need to eat. You're breastfeeding."

"When did you become a mother?" I teased.

He laughed. That easy laugh that made something in my chest loosen a little.

We ate like that, making jokes. Jeffrey did this thing where he pretended the bacon was a sword and he was fighting off invisible enemies, and I laughed so hard my incision hurt. The baby watched us with those wide eyes, and for the first time since the café, since the hospital, since walking out on my marriage, I felt something that wasn't despair.

Then Jeffrey set his fork down.

"Alessia," he said quietly. "I need to ask you something. And I know the timing is insane, and you're dealing with a lot, but I need to say it."

I set my fork down too. The baby made a little noise and I adjusted him.

"Let me be in your life," Jeffrey said. "In your son's life. I know I disappeared before. I know that hurts. And I'm sorry for that every single day. But let me do this right. Let me love you both. Let me be here."

I stopped chewing. Stopped breathing, maybe.

"Jeffrey—"

"I haven't found anyone like you since I left," he continued. "I've looked. I've tried. And there's no one. You're it for me. You were always it. Let me prove that to you."

I stood up without saying anything, held the baby to my chest, and walked to the bedroom. I closed the door quietly and sat on the bed, my heart hammering like it was trying to escape my ribs.

The baby was hungry, so I unbuttoned my shirt and let him latch on. I sat there in the quiet of the room, feeling his mouth on me, feeling the pull of his need, and I tried to think and process what Jeffrey had just asked.

But my brain was too tired. So I just fed my son and went back to sleep.

❈ ❈Jeffery Pov ❈ ❈

I watched her leave the kitchen and I wanted to follow her. I wanted to say more, explain that I hadn't meant to disappear—that I'd gotten a scholarship to a program that left no room for anything except work and study, that I'd been twenty-two years old and stupid and didn't know how to tell her I was leaving.

But I couldn't follow her.

I just cleaned up the kitchen and tried not to think about how she'd looked at me when I asked. Not angry. Just... shocked. Like the idea that I could want her, could love her, could choose to be in her life had never occurred to her.

That was Edward's fault. That was what he'd done to her.

I'd been watching her from a distance for the last few days—not stalking, just... appearing when I needed to. At the hospital when her water broke. In her room when Edward was threatening her. At the house when she was packing up her life.

Every time I saw her, every time I caught the scent of her, every time she looked at me with those eyes, I knew.

I'd made a mistake seven years ago when I left her for a scholarship. I'd made a mistake every single day since when I didn't call, didn't message, didn't do anything to fix what I'd broken.

But now I had a chance to make it right.

She was divorcing Edward. She was vulnerable and scared and didn't have anyone. And maybe that was selfish of me to want her now, in this state. But it was also the first honest thing that had happened in either of our lives.

I wasn't going to disappear again.

I was going to stay. I was going to prove to her that love didn't have to be complicated. That I could be the person she needed.

Even if she kept pushing me away.

That evening, she came out and we watched movies together without talking about what I'd asked. Our hands brushed on the couch. Once, her head almost rested on my shoulder, and I held my breath waiting for her to lean into me.

She didn't. But she didn't move away either.

That was enough. For now, that was enough.