Semua Bab Mummy, Please Marry Uncle Biker Daddy: Bab 1 - Bab 10

I didn’t know my marriage was officially dead until I saw the balloons. Pink and gold. Cheap foil. Tied to the mailbox like they belonged there. They looked wrong against the house. Too bright. Too cheerful. Like someone had tried to decorate over a crack in the wall instead of fixing it. Lily was already unbuckling herself in the back seat, humming under her breath. Five years old and excited in a way that made my chest ache. She had on the dress she picked herself. Too much tulle. Glitter that would end up everywhere. She’d insisted on wearing the crown too. “Mommy,” she said, leaning forward between the seats. “Daddy said he’d be here early.” My hands tightened on the steering wheel. “He did?” I asked, keeping my voice even. She nodded. “He said he had a surprise.” Of course he did. I forced a smile and got out of the car, smoothing my shirt like that would smooth anything else. The house looked the same as it always had. Small. Modest. A little tired. I’d cleaned it top t

Mara The next morning didn’t feel like a new day. It felt like a continuation of the same one, stretched thin and unforgiving. I woke before my alarm, my body already tense, my mind already busy cataloging what needed to be done. Lily’s door was closed, the soft glow of her nightlight visible beneath it. I stood in the hallway for a moment, listening. Her breathing was steady. That mattered. I showered quickly, letting the water run hotter than usual, trying to burn off the tightness clinging to my shoulders. When I looked at myself in the mirror afterward, my face seemed flatter, drained of something essential. I didn’t linger. There was no point in studying damage I already knew was there. Breakfast was quieter than the day before. Lily ate her cereal and asked if she could wear her favorite sneakers again. I said yes even though they didn’t match. Some battles weren’t worth fighting. On the drive to school, she talked about nothing important. A cartoon she liked. A

Mara Lily was six, which meant she noticed everything and pretended she didn’t. She knew which days I counted pennies at the counter before paying. She knew when my smile was for her and when it was borrowed. She knew the difference between being late because of traffic and being late because you sat in the car and tried to breathe through something that felt too tight in your chest. That afternoon, she buckled herself in without being asked and asked if we could stop for snacks on the way home. “Just one thing,” she said. “I promise.” I said yes because she’d already had enough no’s in her short life. The gas station sat on the corner of a road I didn’t usually take. I pulled in because the fuel light was on and because changing routines felt dangerous lately. Predictability was safer. Familiar. But the pump closest to the entrance was open, and I took it without thinking. The air smelled like gasoline and hot pavement. Lily leaned forward in her seat, pressing

Mara I told myself the reason my hands were shaking had nothing to do with him. It was the bills folded inside my purse. The daycare reminder. Evan’s name lighting up my phone twice that afternoon and me letting it ring both times. It was exhaustion layered over fear layered over the kind of loneliness that crept in when the apartment went quiet and stayed that way. That was all. It had nothing to do with the biker. So when I saw his bike outside The Iron Halo again, parked at the curb like it had always belonged there, my chest tightening was purely coincidence. Purely. I almost kept walking. I should have. Lily was asleep at a friend’s place down the block, sprawled across her couch with a cartoon still playing to an empty room. My friend had offered dinner and a sleepover, and I had said yes too quickly, relief making me careless. Careless enough to walk back toward the bar instead of away from it. The door swung open before I could c

Cole I woke before she did. Habit. The room was still dark,and quiet that my body refused to sleep.My body knew exactly where I was before my mind caught up, every muscle aware of her presence beside me, the warmth she’d left pressed into the sheets like an imprint I wasn’t supposed to study too closely. I didn’t touch her. That was the rule I set for myself the second everything had slowed down. Mara lay on her side, hair loose across the pillow, one hand tucked under her chin like she was guarding something even in sleep. Her breathing was even now, calmer than it had been when we came in here, calmer than it probably had been in weeks. That did something to me I didn’t want to name. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, pulling on my jeans quietly. The mirror across the room caught my reflection and I didn’t like what I saw there. Not guilt. Responsibility. That was worse. I went into the kitchen and poured coffee I didn’t need, leaning again