The urgent care waiting room was a study in fluorescent purgatory.
Hard chairs.
Old magazines.
A TV on low in the corner playing a cooking show no one was watching.
Charlotte burst through the sliding doors, Dominic at her heels.
Her eyes tracked automatically, searching.
There.
Mila sat in a plastic chair, Milo sprawled across her lap, holding an ice pack to his forehead.
He was eating a lollipop.
Of course.
He looked up as Charlotte approached, relief spreading across his face.
“Mommy!” he cried, reaching for her.
She scooped him up, heart slamming against her ribs.
“Hey, bug,” she murmured into his hair. “What happened?”
“I falled,” he said solemnly. “Off the wall. Bonked my head.”
She pulled back enough to see.
The bump was…impressive.
Purplish, swelling, just above his right eyebrow.
Her stomach lurched.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm.
“A little,” he admitted. “They gave me ice. And candy.”
He presented the half-sucked lollipop as evidence.
Dominic hovered a step away, face tight, eyes on the bruise.
“Is he okay?” he asked Mila, voice low.
She nodded quickly.
“They checked him,” she said. “Lights in eyes. Questions. He answered all of them. He cried at first. Then he…stopped. The doctor says no signs of…bad things. Just…watch him. Wake him up one time tonight. Call if he throws up. No more walls today.”
Charlotte exhaled shakily.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
“Is that Dom?” Milo asked, peering over her shoulder.
“Yes,” she said, voice catching. “It is.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Hey, buddy,” he said softly. “Heard you had an adventure.”
“I fell,” Milo repeated, apparently committed to the narrative. “But I’m bwave.”
“You are,” Dominic said, something thick in his voice. “Very brave.”
He reached out, hand hovering near the bump.
“Can I…?” he asked.
Milo nodded.
Dominic’s fingers were gentle as he brushed the edge of the swelling, careful not to press.
“Good color,” he said, attempting lightness. “Very…T-Rex.”
Milo giggled weakly.
“Like Rocky,” he said.
“Exactly,” Dominic said.
Charlotte watched them, something in her chest twisting painfully.
“Mrs. Reid?” a nurse called from the doorway to the back.
“Ms.,” Charlotte corrected automatically. “Yes?”
“Doctor wants to go over discharge instructions,” the nurse said. “You too,” she added to Mila. “Since you’re on the forms as caregiver.”
Dominic took a step back.
“I’ll wait here,” he said.
“You can come,” Milo said, surprising all of them. “Dom can come. He’s…family.”
The word landed in the space like a small explosion.
Charlotte swallowed hard.
The nurse hesitated.
“It’s…technically one parent, one caregiver in the room,” she said apologetically. “Policy.”
“I’ll wait,” Dominic said quickly.
He smiled at Milo.
“I’ll be right here, okay?” he said. “Guarding the…stickers.”
“There are stickers?” Milo gasped.
“Probably,” Dominic said. “Places like this always have stickers. It’s a rule.”
Milo looked torn between fear and the lure of adhesive rewards.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Don’t take my stickers.”
“I would never,” Dominic said solemnly.
Charlotte followed the nurse with Milo in her arms, Mila right behind.
The exam room was small, bright, walls decorated with cartoon animals.
The doctor went over everything again.
Concussion signs.
Wake-up schedule.
No screens.
No roughhousing.
Milo listened with wide eyes, fingers twisting in Charlotte’s sweater.
“Am I sick?” he asked.
“You’re…bumped,” the doctor said kindly. “We just want to make sure your brain is happy.”
“Is my brain happy?” Milo asked Charlotte later, as she buckled him into his booster in the back of a cab.
“Yes,” she said. “Very. It just needs rest.”
“Will you stay?” he asked. “Tonight?”
A familiar ache.
“Always,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Can Dom come?” he asked sleepily.
She paused with her hand on the door.
“We’ll see,” she said softly.
***
Back in the waiting room, Dominic sat alone.
The nurse had given him a sheet of dinosaur stickers.
He stared at them blankly.
His phone buzzed.
Gillian.
> *Heard. Is he okay?*
He typed with stiff fingers.
> *Yes. Bump. Urgent care. No concussion. Just…terror.*
> *You okay?*
> *No. But…functioning.*
> *Aspen call can wait till tomorrow. Don’t log on tonight.*
He almost laughed.
> *Tell that to my brain.*
> *Sedate it with cartoons. Not his. Yours.*
He pocketed the phone.
Stared at the fluorescent light buzzing overhead.
Years ago, he’d sat in another waiting room.
Harder chairs.
Different posters on the wall.
His grandmother had been the one in the exam room then.
He’d been sixteen, pacing grooves into the linoleum, fury and fear raging unchecked.
*If she dies,* he’d thought, *I have nothing.*
He’d come close to that nothing more times than he liked to admit.
Now, looking at the closed door that led to his son, he realized the equation had changed.
If anything happened to Milo, there would still be money.
Hotels.
Towers.
But his life would be…empty.
In a way no asset could fill.
The door opened.
Charlotte stepped out, Milo on her hip, Mila behind them with a small paper bag of pediatric contraband.
Dominic stood.
“All clear,” she said, voice softer now, edges frayed.
Relief crashed through him.
“Good,” he said.
Milo reached for him impulsively.
“Dom, look,” he said, pulling the ice pack away to show off the bump like a battle scar.
Dominic winced.
“Ouch,” he said. “That’s…impressive.”
“I got a sticker,” Milo said proudly, pointing at the dinosaur plastered to his shirt. “And a…lolipop.” He brandished the half-eaten evidence again.
“Very official,” Dominic said.
They stepped out into the cool night air.
For a second, they just stood there on the sidewalk, under the harsh glow of the urgent care sign, cars streaming past, the city oblivious.
“What now?” he asked.
“Home,” Charlotte said. “Bath. No hair washing. Story. No acrobatics.”
Her attempt at one of their normal routines made his chest ache.
“I can…come,” he said before he could stop himself. “Help. Sit. Whatever.”
She hesitated.
“I…” She glanced at Mila.
“I can manage,” Mila said quickly. “He will want you. If Dom comes, he will be…excited. Harder to calm. Maybe…another day.”
She was right.
Rationally, he knew that.
Emotionally, it felt like a door shutting in his face.
He tried not to let it show.
“Call me,” he said. “If…anything. Or if you just…need to hear someone else breathing.”
Her lips quirked, even as her eyes glimmered.
“I’m not calling you to listen to you snore,” she said.
“You snore too,” he reminded her. “I have…proof.”
“Lies,” she muttered, shifting Milo on her hip.
“Dom?” Milo said, already drooping against her shoulder.
“Yeah, buddy?” he asked.
“Will you…come to the park…’gain?” Milo mumbled, words slurred with exhaustion.
“Yes,” Dominic said, voice rough. “As many times as you want.”
“’Kay,” Milo sighed.
His eyes fluttered shut.
Dominic watched them get into a cab.
Watched the taillights disappear.
Then stood on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, and let the city wash around him.
He’d kissed her.
Finally.
Right before the universe had reminded them both of exactly what mattered most.
He didn’t regret it.
He also knew nothing about their path forward would be linear.
It would be more like that climbing structure in the park.
Steps. Slips. Jumps.
And the occasional, terrifying fall.
He just had to be there to catch what he could.
***
Later that night, Charlotte sat on the edge of Milo’s bed and watched his chest rise and fall.
The bump looked worse under the soft glow of the nightlight, purple and angry.
She reached out, ghosted her fingertips over the uninjured side of his forehead.
He stirred.
“Mommy?” he whispered.
“I’m here,” she said.
“Stay,” he murmured.
“I will,” she said.
She did.
She stayed until the alarm on her phone—the one she’d set for the middle-of-the-night wake-up check—buzzed gently against her thigh.
He woke enough to mutter “No more falled,” and she stroked his hair, heart twisting.
When he drifted back off, she crept into the hallway and leaned against the wall, phone in hand.
There was a message waiting.
> Dom: How is he?
> Sleeping. Bump is…dramatic. Doctor says he’s okay.
> And you?
She stared at the question.
> Shaken. Tired. > I kissed you. Then my kid almost concussed himself. I feel like the universe is…sending mixed signals.
His reply was slower this time.
> I kissed you. Then I watched you run to him. That didn’t feel mixed to me. > > It felt…right.
Her throat tightened.
> Right to you. Feels…terrifying to me.
> Terrifying and right aren’t opposites.
She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, knees drawn up.
> We can’t do this like normal people, she typed. > There’s no “date night, see how it goes.” > There’s…him. And press. And…everything.
> I know.
> So what are we doing?
A pause.
> Trying. > Failing gracefully when we do. > Getting up. > Trying again. > Like walking on ice.
> You’re terrible at metaphors.
> Occupational hazard.
She huffed a laugh that came out more like a sob.
> We have to go slow, she wrote. > Slower than your ego wants. > Slower than my fear wants. > For him.
> For him, he agreed. > > And for us.
She stared at that last part for a long time.
Then, impulsively, she typed:
> I liked it. The kiss.
> Good. I was worried my game had deteriorated since London.
> Don’t get cocky.
> Too late.
She smiled.
Put the phone down.
Laid her head back against the wall and closed her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them again, the faintest glow was creeping around the edges of the curtains.
Morning.
A new day.
Full of diapers and emails and gossip sites and lawyers and Lego and, somehow, impossibly, the possibility of something that looked like…love.
Not the fairy-tale kind she’d once thought lived in ballrooms and black cars.
This kind lived in urgent care waiting rooms and park benches and war rooms and messy kitchens.
It was inconvenient.
Impractical.
Terrifying.
And, for the first time in a long time, she wanted it anyway.
Slowly.
On her terms.
On his.
On *theirs*.
Fault lines and all.