Today is Chloe's birthday, and in a few hours our little house will be flooded with people from Ash's football club and friends from various job sites along with Tejinder, Diya, and Diya's newest boyfriend. But first, the cake smash.

After I showed him some photos, Ash built an outdoor playhouse for Chloe's photos, and he let me buy her a fancy party dress that I found online. His argument that the playhouse would keep the mess out of the main house, and it would also give the kids a place to play in the yard was hard to counter.

I've never lived with or spent time with a man who was good with tools, and Ash, it turns out, is very good with tools. Watching him work on it in the evenings has been a type of foreplay I didn't even know existed.

We agreed on a modest budget, and what he's done is incredible, almost unbelievable. He said he called in a few favors from his old boss on the building site for scraps. How scraps can turn out to be this beautiful is beyond me. Too pretty to let it be used by kids who'll likely paint and draw all over its yellow walls, which happens to be Chloe's favorite color right now. She gravitates to the cheery brightness like a magnet.

The inside has one wall done in chalkboard paint, and I crawled in there earlier and scrawled Happy 1st Birthday across it for the cake photos. There's even a little mock kitchen that Ash constructed, and a raised area with a crib mattress as a bed.

The photographer came out yesterday and confirmed she could shoot through the windows with no problem since the house is only big enough for children and adults on their hands and knees. The space is wide, but not overly high. 

If I'd been wavering about my decision to keep things strictly platonic before he finished the house, I'm in a full-on crisis now. Part of me thinks I'm a fool for letting any chance to be with him pass me by. Short lived, ill timed, doomed from the start—it's all mattering less and less. I'll never meet another man like him, and if heartbreak is a consequence of being this happy for a little while, maybe I can accept that.

The kids are napping, and the photographer arrives in an hour, and then two hours later everyone will be here for a barbeque and cake. I've just put the finishing touches on the playhouse decorations when I come into the kitchen to find Ash leaning against the counter drinking a beer which is unusual. He's not a day drinker.

Since my sister left, things have been fine between us. After I said I didn't want to pursue anything, he slipped back into nanny mode as though we'd never teetered close to anything else.

When I came home the night after Gwen left, he had soft tacos ready for dinner. Not complicated, but I told him once it was my comfort food, and any time he knows I'm having a tough week at work, tacos go on the meal schedule. After the kids were in bed, he flopped down on the other end of the couch in the living room and asked what documentary I was going to make him suffer through, and life resumed. He just refused to let any weirdness creep between us, even without Gwen as a buffer. 

The beer and his posture, along with how he's not teasing me about my over-the-top decorations for the playhouse are all good indicators something is wrong.

"Ash?" I ask as I slide the left-over decorations onto the counter. "You okay?"

"Yeah, fine." He gives me a tight smile when he glances up. "'Tis nothing."

"We've lived together for five months. I know what fine looks like. This ain't it."

"Fair enough," he says, and he shoots me a sideways glance while he chugs his beer. "Just thinkin' about the last year, that's all."

Right. God. I've only been focused on the celebration aspect of today, but for him, this is probably a lot more complicated. Chloe's birth was the beginning of the end for a ten-year relationship. He hasn't seen Imogen in almost a year. He doesn't know if Chloe will ever meet her mother.

"Were you happy last year when she was born? I've never even asked if she was planned."

"Not planned. Not not planned if you know what I mean. And yeah, I was absolutely buzzin' the day she was born. Chuffed beyond belief."

I'm not sure where to go from here. His reluctance to talk about Imogen makes it hard to ask questions, but something is bothering him.

"I guess I'm just..." He rolls the bottle of beer between his palms. "For her to leave only a few weeks later..." Our gazes meet, and all the pain he works so hard to conceal or forget is plain on his face.

"Oh, Ash," I whisper, and I rise on my toes to wrap my arms around his neck, and he hunches forward to clutch onto me, breathing me in. He sets his bottle on the counter, and then both his big hands are splayed across my lower back and shoulder blades, holding me close.

We've been so careful not to touch each other, and this hug is like stepping into a warm house after being stranded in freezing temperatures. Tension I didn't even realize I was holding, melts and runs out.

"I feel like I must have failed her," he murmurs against my ear.

When I draw back, he smooths my hair, and instead of moving away, I stay between his thighs with our legs still pressed together. I've craved this closeness, even if I was too afraid to admit it.

"You really have no idea why she left?"

"Not a clue." He presses his palms into the counter behind him and releases a deep sigh. "All her friends told me she ran off with some other bloke, but that wasn't Imogen. She wasn't like that. At the time, it was enough to keep me from going after her—the anger, you know? Now that my head has cleared a bit, I don't believe it."

"What do you believe?"

A thousand emotions play across his face, and he stares over my shoulder at the door to the kitchen, and I suspect he's thinking of Chloe. "That she decided she'd rather not be a mum. If it was just me, she'd have kept in touch with Chloe, wouldn't she? It's unforgiveable, isn't it? To abandon a child."

I suspect that's something he'll have to sort through if Imogen ever turns up, or if Chloe's much older, something she'll have to grapple with. 

"I've never met her, and I'm not you or Chloe, so it's impossible for me to answer. But what I do know is that it's okay to have complicated feelings about her or about today or even about being a single parent."

"Do you ever have complicated feelings about being a single parent?"

I let out a little laugh. "Depends on the day. Some days, a whole lot." I stare up at him, and my chest brims with so much tenderness. "A lot less since I met you."

He skims his thumb along my cheekbone, and then threads his fingers through my hair, and I think—I hope—he might kiss me, but instead he draws me into him for another embrace, far more PG than I'm craving. Everything in me is warm and alive and so desperate for more of him.

There's a knock on the front door, and I check the clock near the  doorway. Must be the photographer. She said she might arrive early to set up.

"Did I help at all?" I ask as I ease back.

He picks up his beer, and he drains the last of it before setting  it in the sink. I'm not sure he's going to answer when he says, "You always  help."

His voice is still tinged with sadness, so I'm not sure I believe  him, but I have to go show the photographer around.

"Do you need help getting Chloe into her dress?" I ask as I step  away to head to the front entrance.

"I reckon I can figure it out," he says with a small smile.

"I'll see you outside," I say with one hand on the doorway.

"Be there in a tick."

~ * ~

The cake is everywhere, and it turns out that Chloe has somehow absorbed  my personality, and she does not enjoy a mess. The smashing was more  handprints in the icing until my son woke up and discovered the party. He, on  the other hand, was in his glory, and once the photographer was done, loved  smashing the cake and smearing it everywhere. I've never seen Ash laugh so  hard, and I'm not sure if it was at my stunned expression or how quickly Joey  made a total mess of everything.

"Mate," Ash says while he takes Joey's hand and tries to scrape  cake off it. "Hold still."

Beside Joey, Chloe is staring at her dress and the chunks of cake  everywhere in bewilderment. She doesn't seem to know what to make of how  thoroughly demolished her pretty cake is. She shoves her fingers in her mouth,  and her eyebrows rise in surprise. Then she picks up a chunk from the skirt of  her dress and shoves it in her mouth.

"That cake is good, Chloe?" Ash grins at her.

"The cake is good, Ash," Joey confirms as he picks up a piece off  the floor and tries to eat it. Ash scoops it up and throws it across the lawn. 

When I laugh, Ash glances over his shoulder. "Are you actually  enjoying this?"

"I am," I say. "But I think we need to figure out how we're  dividing and conquering these two before everyone arrives." I check my watch.  We've got twenty minutes until people could be arriving in theory, but I have  no idea how punctual British people are.

"I can take the hosepipe to the playhouse, if you want to take  these two in and bath them?" Ash suggests as he wedges himself into the door  of the house to coax Chloe out.

Joey is covered from head to toe in cake bits and pink and purple  icing. I try to brush him off as best I can while Chloe toddles in my  direction, cake falling off her dress with each step. She looks adorable with  her headband, icing splattered face, and poofy dress.

I lead them both toward with house, one grasping each hand, and I  glance back at Ash. He's snapped out of his earlier mood, but I'm worried  about leaving him alone with too much time to think before everyone arrives. A  year ago when he held Chloe and pictured his future, it didn't look anything  like where he is now, of that I'm sure.

There are never any guarantees, and I haven't got a clue what next  September will be like back in America, far away from here. The only thing I'm  starting to realize with absolute clarity is that if I let this thing with Ash  pass me by, I'll always wonder what might have been.

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