Chapter 8 – Validation
1699 Words
Glenn
I can feel the reins slipping from my hands.
Not violently.
Not all at once.
They loosen the way silk does when you pull too gently to notice — strand by strand, frictionless, until you look down and realize you are no longer holding anything at all.
That realization is what terrifies me.
I have lived years convincing myself that I am not this woman. That something in me calcified after Langston — hardened into discipline, sharpened into pride. I built rules not to restrict myself, but to survive myself. I told myself I had evolved beyond wanting, beyond the humiliating ache of attraction that once made me compromise my dignity in the name of love.
I told myself I was finished.
Last night didn’t undo me.
It exposed me.
What unsettles me is not that I felt desire — desire is human, inevitable, dull in its predictability. What unsettles me is how quietly it arrived. How it didn’t need persuasion or romance or intention. How all it took was proximity, control, and a man who did not ask to be wanted.
I despise that.
Despise that after I stopped myself — after I pulled back from the edge with a discipline, I was proud of — the pull remained. Lingering. Unresolved. Alive.
That is the danger.
Still, I do what I have always done.
I rise.
I organize.
I choose function over feeling.
Morning arrives with its rituals. Coffee burns my tongue. Axton’s shoes are mismatched and his backpack is too full of toys he won’t need. The familiar tasks settle my hands even as my mind refuses to follow.
The doorbell rings.
I open the door without checking.
And the world shifts — subtly, catastrophically.
Jax stands there like an interruption that has learned how to wear skin. He leans against the doorframe, arm braced, body angled in a way that suggests he belongs here more than I do. Black vest. Dark sweatpants. Morning light cutting across his face, outlining everything I should not be noticing.
“Morning, Glenn.”
His morning voice deeper than usual. Heavy and lower than it was last night. Rougher. It moves through me not like sound, but like pressure — something that presses inward and leaves no room to brace.
“Morning,” I reply, my voice falsely light, a brittle sound I do not recognize.
“It seems I left my glove here yesterday.”
The word glove detonates softly inside me.
My body reacts before my mind can intervene — heat, awareness, memory colliding in a way that makes my throat tighten. The lie leaves me easily, smoothly.
“I didn’t see it.” my tongue refused to utter the word “Glove”.
His mouth curves — not fully, not kindly. The expression is knowing, restrained, and it unsettles me more than accusation would have.
“Can you check?” he asks. “Or I can if you are busy.”
No. No way.
A single glove disrupted the flow of my life like rain on still water. I could not fathom the consequences of his presence he’d leave inside my house.
The air thickens, fragile now, as though one wrong breath will collapse us into something irreversible.
“I’ll look,” I say, already turning away, already fleeing.
Inside, I stall. I move cushions that do not need moving. I delay like someone bargaining with time. My pulse is too loud, my skin too aware. I orchestrated an act of looking for the glove like I am not fully aware where it was.
He is watching from the doorway. I could feel him watching me skeptically.
When I return with the glove, my fingers tremble despite my effort.
“Here.”
He takes it from me. His fingers brush mine — not accidentally, not insistently. Just long enough to register heat, to remind my body that it is still capable of responding.
“Thanks,” he says.
Then he smiles.
It is not dramatic.
It is not charming.
It is unguarded.
And that is what undoes me.
That small curve at his mouth rearranges something in my chest I did not give permission to move. I notice it not because I want to — but because my mind cannot avoid interrogating it. Why now? Why for this? Why does it feel like something has been revealed instead of offered?
My eyes drop. I hate myself for it.
His lips.
The tension in his arm still braced against the frame.
The impossible solidity of him — too present, too undeniable.
He does not step away.
Instead, he palms the glove slowly, working the leather between his hands with deliberate care. Watching me watch him.
Then he lifts one empty finger of the glove to his mouth. Wipes his hands before wearing it. The action felt like an act. Like he was doing it purposefully, but I was too stunned or immersed in the way his lips held that glove, how his fingers slipped inside it to question it.
It is nothing.
It means nothing.
And yet my breath fractures.
The moment stretches — suspended, dangerous — and I know my face has betrayed me. I can feel it in the heat creeping up my neck, in the way my body leans before my pride yanks it back.
I didn’t realize I was staring at his lips until a small, very little, spread on his lips. They stretched ever slightly to say he was smiling if my eyes weren’t plastered on them. Like he doesn’t want to acknowledge I was staring but couldn’t escape the reaction from his mouth.
That brought me to present. But still hazy.
And then —
“Mommy.”
Axton’s voice tugs me back from the brink.
The world snaps into alignment again — violently, mercifully.
Before I can react, Jax lowers himself into a crouch, the movement smooth and intentional, dismantling the tension without shattering it.
“Hey, little buddy. We haven’t met,” he says gently. “I’m Jax.”
Axton looks at me first. Always checks with me.
I nod.
When Jax closes his hand around my son’s, it swallows it entirely. The sight does something to me I do not have language for — something protective, alarming, deeply unfair.
“Vroom,” Axton says, pointing toward the bike outside.
Jax turns slightly back on his toes and laughs.
Not politely.
Not carefully.
A real laugh. I never heard him laugh, not even saw any expression, for that matter. He was always rigid. Nonchalant. Like he has nothing to do with the world.
Something real breaks through.
And I realize, with cold clarity, that this is no longer about attraction.
This is about erosion.
Jax
I expected answers.
I didn’t expect an aftermath.
Watching her last night should have clarified something — desire, disgust, curiosity. Instead, it fractured the question entirely. Her restraint wasn’t performative. It was structural. Learned. Forged under pressure.
And yet she picked it up.
And yet she stopped.
Why pick it up?
Why throw it away?
That contradiction has been looping through my mind like unfinished business.
Was she disgusted?
Tempted?
Or simply disciplined enough to deny herself?
I watched her after that — longer than I should have. She didn’t sleep easily. Turned. Shifted. The faint light from her nightstand traced her face while the rest of the room stayed dark.
She didn’t know, she’s being watched. I had no intention of watching her all night. But I couldn’t just shut this stupid thing and forget about it.
If she was horny or craving s*x. She would have continued. I’ve seen so many women who were willing to have one-night stands though they were happily married.
Girls, who’d throw themselves at men for fun. For release.
But Glenn, the level of control she mastered startled me. It was concerning. I understood one thing last night. I’m a hundred percent sure she hasn’t touched another man after her ex.
It’s not just control that mattered to her, it’s the fact that how strong she stood. It’s her pride.
Am I the destructor? Did I disrupt her reality or simply exposed an unspoken truth, she refused to accept.
That she is just a woman. Her body demands needs. She is just neglecting them all along, confusing it with burying them.
That was the worst part.
I watched her go about her everyday routine like nothing happened.
Confused. I couldn’t just sit around. I had to test it. I need answers. I know she doesn’t owe me any. In fact, I should be the one seeking an apology for intruding on her privacy. Stalking her without her knowing.
But it’s too late for debates. I was already on my way to her home.
The glove was a convenient excuse. Watching her pretend she didn’t know exactly where it was confirmed everything I suspected.
The shift in her conduct. How her body locked and went taut at my presence.
At one point, she completely locked in. Forgot I was watching. I didn’t want to embarrass her by doing something that she regrets more later. So, I went along with it. I let her watch me.
She wasn’t indifferent.
She was at war with herself.
Then the kid tugged at her, grounding the moment before it collapsed inward on itself.
A perfect timing. Savior of mom. I took the moment and crouched without thinking. She collected herself and watched us. I acted like I didn’t notice. I don’t want to hurt her like that. Why does it matter to me?
To keep her dignity, her self-respect mattered to me.
“Vroom.” Axton pointed at my bike.
Tiny hand. Warm. Innocent.
I laughed — surprised by the sound of it.
I couldn’t continue the conversation with Axton as the words he spoke were foreign languages. Which I bet only his mother understands.
I stood, thanked her.
And left.
Because if I stayed, the air between us would have collapsed completely.
And neither of us would have survived what followed.
And something inside me shifted — something heavier than desire, more dangerous than impulse.
This wasn’t flirtation.
This was gravity.
- Writer
