These two chapters are a bonus to celebrate the new collection received , and I will stand by my word and release two extra chapters for each new collection received 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳
Bonus Chapter(1/2)
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The suitcases were unpacked. The laundry sorted. The cheerful chaos of the cabin trip already folded neatly into memory.
By Monday morning, the house had exhaled. So had they.
Eliza stood by the window in the kitchen, cradling a cup of coffee that had long since gone cold. Outside, the sky stretched gray and soft, the kind of weather that hinted at early autumn even though summer technically still clung to the calendar. She watched the wind tug at the last of the blooms in their garden, then smiled faintly when she caught sight of Lyra toddling after a toy just inside the living room.
Will sat cross-legged on the floor nearby, typing one-handed on his tablet while his daughter attempted to crawl into his lap with a victorious squeal. He let her, of course—tablet tilted at an angle, fingers adjusting without pause.
"I'm beginning to think she's your supervisor," Eliza said, stepping into the room.
"She's very strict," he said without missing a beat. "Demands snack breaks every fifteen minutes and keeps stealing my stylus."
"I would too, if I knew how to do half the things you manage with her draped across you like a starfish."
Will smirked, but his eyes were warm. "You'd do it better."
Eliza lowered herself onto the couch, slipping off her heels and tucking her legs under her. She let her gaze rest on them for a moment—her husband with his casual, sleep-creased shirt and their daughter tugging at his collar like he was her favorite toy.
"This feels… good," she said.
He looked up at her. "The silence?"
She nodded. "The rhythm of us. Home again. Normal, whatever that means now."
Lyra babbled something and Eliza laughed softly.
"Do you think she remembers the beach?"
"She remembers the feeling," Will said, reaching to adjust the little bow in her hair. "The space. The play. The way you held her when she ran toward the waves."
"I think I needed it more than I realized," Eliza admitted, her voice dipping. "To see us outside the usual. To know we can do both—rest and race forward. Be parents and still be us."
Will put the tablet aside. "You needed to remember how to be still."
"Maybe. Or maybe I just needed to remember I'm not carrying everything alone anymore."
He stood and crossed the room, then sank onto the couch beside her, shoulder to shoulder. Lyra crawled across the carpet with determination, now fixated on the basket of blocks in the corner.
"You haven't been alone in a long time," he said gently. "Even when you thought you were."
"I know." Eliza rested her head on his shoulder. "It just takes a while for some truths to land. The more we do this, the more it becomes… real. Not just something fragile I'm afraid to break."
"Then we're doing it right."
They sat there for a while in the golden quiet of late afternoon, the kind of moment that asked nothing from them except to exist.
Eventually, Lyra gave a delighted shriek as one of the blocks toppled over her foot, and Will stood again, scooping her up with practiced ease.
"She's going to need a nap," he murmured. "Or we're going to lose her to the sugar gremlins."
Eliza watched him carry their daughter away, then leaned back into the cushions, finally taking a sip of her reheated coffee.
For once, she didn't feel the need to chase the next thing.
She just let herself feel full.