When There Is Nothing Left But Love

“Okay.” I nodded obediently and continued speaking through puffed cheeks, “Get home as soon as you can.”

A faint voice spoke up from his end of the call. It was foreign and sounded like it belonged to a man. “Mr. Fuller, you may begin now.”

“Alright,” Ashton responded to the voice before turning back to me. “I have to deal with some stuff here, so you should go on to bed without me. I’ll text you when I get home.”

Then he hung up before I could manage a “goodbye” or even an “okay.”

Looking back at the call history, something didn’t quite sit right in my chest.

Am I mistaken or did Ashton sound a little nervous earlier? As I contemplated giving him another call after he was done with his work, my phone buzzed—it was a WhatsApp message from Ashton: Don’t worry, Honey. I’ll be extra careful so no one can cop a feel.

A soft smile broke out on my face, thinking that he must be fine if he can joke around like this.

Feeling relieved, I put away my phone and decided to check on the twins in their nursery. On my way there, I noticed a faint glow coming from Summer’s room. Seeing that her door wasn’t fully shut, I peeked into her room out of curiosity.

before her brightly lit computer with her

to Summer. I already transferred Stella to the Logistics Department and made

It turned out that Summer was practicing some fourth-grade math

took in the unexpected sight before me. Summer had just started school, yet she had somehow

She was so absorbed in solving equations that she hadn’t even

human being look so

side, making sure to not startle her before asking my question, “What are you

contents of her workbook. “Math equations are so fun, and Mr. Cress said I’m really good at solving them! He even assigned

“Is that so…?”

and flipping through its pages. Truthfully, there was nothing special about the contents since it mostly consisted of basic

lips

was a business owner, she would happily throw herself into the tediousness of bookkeeping. She loved it dearly; calculating, and tallying the sums like she was baking bread. When it came to this, Summer definitely took after

many ways, this was comforting to see. It was as if Summer was living

placed the workbook back down and petted the top of Summer’s head. A comforting smile stretched across my face as I encouraged, “That’s great, Summer!