บททั้งหมดของ The Single Dad Next Door Loves Me: บทที่ 101 - บทที่ 110

“Nora! Nora!” I yelled into the speaker.Nora’s voice cracked the longer she spoke. “Can… you…hear… she… Mia… scared?*Mia was scared?Confusion spiraled inside me even more. “Nora! Can you hear me?!”“Nora!”“Ethan… can you…she said… missing…”Tension strung tightly in my shoulder, heat rose inside me despite the ice cold surrounding us. When Nora’s voice turned static, my anger grew so much I hung up.“I'm heading home.” I said.“I'll come with you.” Lucas offered. I shook my head. “There's no need for that. You stay here and search, whatever you come up with, tell me and whatever she says, I'll let you know. I have a feeling it's something bad.”“Be careful, Ethan. If you drive too fast on slippery ice, you could get into an accident.”His words filtered through my ear into the other one. My keys jiggled in my back pocket, without another second to spare, I rushed towards my truck.The engine roared to life seconds later, tires screeched against solid eyes that formed a grip at the

Morning did not arrive with peace, nor did it bring the comfort people often associated with a new day, because the moment my eyes opened, I was already aware of the weight sitting heavily in my chest, like something had followed me out of the night and settled into my bones without permission.For a while, I remained still beneath the covers, my gaze fixed on the ceiling as I tried to separate what I had heard from what I wished I hadn’t, replaying the faint sound over and over again in my head until it no longer felt like imagination but something far more real, something that refused to be dismissed no matter how badly I wanted it to be nothing.Slowly, I turned my head to the side.Ben was not beside me.The space he had occupied during the night was already cold, the sheets slightly creased as though he had been gone for a while, and for reasons I could not fully explain, that unsettled me more than waking up next to him ever could.I pushed myself up carefully, my movements deli

The door did not swing open all at once, and somehow, that made everything worse, because the slow, deliberate creak of the hinges dragged the moment out longer than I could bear, I stretched the space between what I already feared and what I was about to see into something almost unbearable, while my body remained rooted in place, unable to step forward or back, caught in that fragile in between where instinct screamed at me to run but something far stronger held me there.Ben did not rush it. Of course he didn't. His hand remained steady on the handle, his movements controlled, as though this was not a reveal but an invitation, something he had been waiting to offer at the exact right time, and when the door finally opened wide enough for the darkness inside to begin taking shape, I realized with a sinking certainty that this moment had never been accidental.It had always been coming. The first thing that reached was the smell. It wasn't strong enough to choke or overwhelm me but i

I still didn't understand him.What did he mean by that?“I already told you,” he continued, his thumb brushing lightly against the back of my hand in a gesture that would have felt gentle if it had not been layered with everything else, “you’re different from her.”My gaze flickered briefly toward the girl before I could stop myself, and this time I let it linger just enough to acknowledge her presence without making it obvious that my attention was drawn to her in a way that mattered, because I could feel him watching even in that moment, measuring the length of my glance, the shift in my focus, the meaning behind it.She was still watching me.Always watching me.And there was something in her eyes now that hadn’t been there before, something beyond fear and desperation, something sharper, more urgent, like she had placed all her hope into a single, fragile possibility and that possibility was me.I forced my attention back to him.“In what way?” I asked, my voice steady, controlle

There was something about the room that refused to let me breathe properly, not because the air itself was lacking but because everything within it felt deliberate.Like it was arranged in a way that had intention and made it impossible to ignore the prulspe behind it.From the position of the bed, to the faint lingering scent in the corners, something medicinal wouldn't stop ooIng from there corners.The more I sat on that bed, the more I noticed how unsettling everything seemed, I tried to understand, but I couldn't. I couldn't understand how anyone could have found comfort in such a place without puking.Ben stood close enough that I could feel the presence of him without needing to look directly, and even though his hand had left mine, the memory of his grip lingered against my skin in a way that made it difficult to forget how easily he could close that distance again, how quickly control could shift back into his hands if I gave him even the smallest reason to take it.“You’re q