I've started to hate Sundays. Each one drops another week off the calendar, and Paige and Joey's departure looms large. We haven't talked about it very much since Imogen turned up a few weeks ago, but the clock ticks in the back of my brain. Loud and annoying. I fucking hate it. Two months. The thought makes my chest feel like it's going to cave in.

I haven't made a plan or secured a place to go. My head has been firmly rooted in the sand. Paige and Joey aren't leaving, and life will continue on as it is. That's my sand, and I love every grain of it.

Except the sand is washing away, and I need to face that soon or I'll be in exactly the position I've been trying to avoid—homeless.

When I drive into Toby and Flora's driveway, Imogen is leaving the house. She hovers by the door of her car, and she seems to be waiting for me. We've chatted a bit over text, but it's been all logistics or things to do with Chloe. Any time she's tried to make it more personal, I haven't responded. Even if her reason for leaving might have been justified, I can't get past the way she did it. To leave like that, to take over a year to get in touch, to approach a reunion in the way she did—behind my back. All of it twists my gut.

"Need something?" I ask after I've climbed out of the driver's seat.

"Can we talk?"

"We're talking now." I shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans, and I hunch my shoulders against the chill in the early February air.

"I've been seeing Chloe supervised on Sundays like you wanted for a while now."

My jaw clenches because I don't even know exactly how long it's been or whether her parents had the sense to keep an eye on her before I discovered what they were doing.

"I was hoping you might consider lettin' me see her another day during the week? Maybe with you? I could cook dinner one night, and we could eat together at my flat. Spend the evening together."

Warning bells blare in my head. The logical thing would be to suggest Saturday afternoons instead, but those are sacred. Paige and I spend the whole day together from the minute we wake up until the minute our heads hit the pillows in her bedroom. Swimming, football, nap time shenanigans, take away. Predictable, maybe, but oh so good.

"I don't reckon that's a good idea." I squint at her and clench my hands in my pockets.

"She's leaving, Ash. Isn't she? Going back to America? Even if your dependence on her made any sense other than financial, you won't be with her forever." She steps closer to me.

I don't move, and I don't contradict her. She hasn't got a clue what I've got with Paige, and I'm not about to set her straight. I hate talking about Paige with any of them. Paige is nothing like Imogen, which means none of them understand why I'm with Paige.

She places her hand on my chest and stares up at me. It's a look that used to slay me. The 'take me to bed' gaze that I so rarely got from her. Instead of being enticed, the move coupled with her come hither expression feels staged, artificial, and desperate.

"I know what I had with you, Ash, and I won't make the same mistakes. The family unit that you want, I want it too."

Of all the things she could have said, that one is like an arrow to my heart. Better than anyone, she knows how much I've craved stability and security. With her, I had it for a long time. I might have been missing a lot of other things, but we never broke up.

"Immy, we're not the same people we were." My voice is rough.

"Which is good, isn't it? We won't make the same mistakes. I went to therapy to beat the pills. I've got tools in my toolbox now."

"I need to collect Chloe," I say, and I step around her. "Paige is waiting."

She doesn't try to stop me, and she doesn't follow me. Classic Imogen, in some ways. Plant the seed and wait to see if it takes. She might not be able to communicate effectively, but she usually understood how to get what she wanted, regardless.

Inside, I move around the front entrance shoving Chloe's things into the rucksack. When I get to the living room, Toby is there, but Flora and Chloe aren't.

"Where's Chloe?" My heart thrums in my chest. I might have let them back into her life, but my trust has eroded.

"After we fed her, she was a mess. Flora is just giving her a quick bath." Toby gestures to the settee across from him. "Did Imogen talk to you about loosening the strings? Having a few outings as a family?"

This makes me wonder whether the little production in the lane was Imogen's idea or Toby's.

"Chloe should have the chance to grow up in a loving home with two parents." Toby gives me an encouraging smile. "We all make mistakes. It's important we don't hold them over the heads of people we love."

Rich, coming from him.

"You've been quite cold with me up until now. Why is that?"

Toby seems taken aback, and he studies me for a beat. "You never saw it? The pills? A change in her? The minute she turned up on our doorstep, I could see something wasn't right."

"Never saw it." It's a conversation Paige and I have had—whether I should have seen it, could have seen it. She said she was a mess the first few months after she had Joey too. Sleep deprived. Not thinking straight. Really dependent on her parents for extra hands for her sanity. In a lot of ways, I suspect I let Imogen down. If she spoke to me, if she told me plainly she was struggling, it's not what I heard.

He scoffs.

"Imogen wasn't the only one running off a complete lack of sleep," I say. "Should I have seen it? Yeah. Of course. We'd been together ten years. I wish I'd seen it. But I didn't."

"The woman you've been with for ten years leaves you and her infant daughter, and you don't hunt her down?"

"Have you asked Imogen about this?" I set my elbows on my knees, and I bore into him with my gaze. He's not going to make me feel guilty. I made peace with my choice to let her be months ago. She didn't want me to follow her, or she wouldn't have planted the cheating story amongst all our mates. She wielded my anger as both a weapon and a shield.

"You can't honestly see yourself with your American employer forever."

Until this moment, I hadn't considered forever. Beyond right now, of course. I want her to stay. Wish I could pack me and Chloe in her bags and go too. I could see myself with her forever. I honestly could, but I haven't got a clue how Paige feels or whether it's even possible. We've been day to day, week to week, and month to month since the minute I turned up on her doorstep.

"You ride out this temporary thing, or you make a genuine effort to reconnect with your daughter's mother. Build something positive and long lasting for your daughter. You and Imogen were together for ten years with barely a blip."

I'd call her running out on me and Chloe more than a blip. But he does have a point that we were stable. Secure. An environment I felt confident bringing Chloe into when Imogen told me she was pregnant. There was no hesitation in me.

"You can't just flick a switch and have feelings return," I say, and I can hear Flora and Chloe upstairs.

"That's not what I'm saying, mate. No, no. 'Course it'll take some time. But give yourselves the time. That's all I'm suggesting. Open the door to the possibility."

Opening that door makes me feel queasy in the same way the thought of having it closed forever used to. I don't know what that means.

I love Paige. I love her in ways I didn't even know it was possible to love another person. No question. Not a single doubt.

Trying to recover what I once felt for Imogen doesn't feel possible or even probable, but with Paige leaving in two months, I don't know what the smart choice is. My emotions are all over the bloody place.

"I'll think about it," I say.

"Glad to hear it, mate," Toby says, and he claps me on the shoulder. "An open mind is an asset in life."

At least that part I can't disagree with. An open mind led me to Paige.

"I'll go see if I can hurry them along," he says, and he leaves the room.

I sit on the settee, and I stare at all the family pictures that scatter the wall. It's what I've envied most about Imogen from the start—her connected, tight knit, two-parent, family.

If I could give that to Chloe, it feels foolish not to.

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