He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 124

Chapter 124

Maya’s POV

Catherine had decided the outing was necessary.

Not as a demand…. but as warm momentum of a woman who understood that forward motion was better than stillness when a situation had too many variables in it. Come out. See the dress shops. Eat something that isn’t made in this kitchen. The house will still have all its problems when you get back.

I went

The morning started well.

The invitation shop was the first stop…. a small place on the harbour road that Catherine had used for significant family occasions for twenty years and spoke about with the specific affection of a long relationship. The owner knew her by name, brought tea without asking, and understood without being told that the appointment required both efficiency and warmth

I looked at paper samples and envelope styles and the specific, clean typography of invitations that communicated an occasion.

Olive had opinions about everything.

They were good opinions

I found myself, for thirty minutes, genuinely present in the conversation…. weighing textures, considering the weight of card stock, saying that one twice when something was right and meaning it.

The owner looked at me the way shopkeepers looked at people they were happy to serve.

I thought: this is what it could feel like.

The cake shop was second.

A tasting… small portions, seven varieties, the specific, gentle ceremony of someone else having thought carefully about something so you only had to respond to it.

I ate four of them….

Catherine watched me eat with the expression she wore when she was pleased about something and had decided not to say so because saying so would make me self-conscious.

Olive ranked them out loud.

I ranked them quietly

We agreed on two.

The dress shop was third.

I had not prepared for the dress shop in the way I had not prepared for the outing at all…. I had come because forward motion was better than stillness, and the dress shop was where forward motion had led.

The consultant was professional and warm and asked the right questions. Catherine settled into the chair that existed specifically for the mother-of-the-groom, which she occupied with the ease of someone who had been picturing this chair for a long time

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She looked at me

Then at the phone.

Then at me again.

“Olive,” I said, quietly

She crossed to me.

Turned the phone so I could see it.

The headline was four words and a question mark.

Maya Hargrove: Whose Baby?

Below it, the article. The blog…. not major press, the faster kind, the kind that moved first and let other people verify later.

Three paragraphs. The framing careful enough to avoid direct accusation and specific enough to communicate it regardless.

Sources close to the former Hargrove marriage have raised questions about the timing of Maya Hargrove’s pregnancy, noting that the rapid formalisation of her relationship with Alexander Voss following her divorce raises questions that have not been publicly addressed.

I read it twice.

Handed the phone back to Olive.

Stood in the florist

The arrangement in front of me was the structural one Catherine had been describing….. white and architectural, the kind that looked unconstructed and required more skill than the traditional.

My hand was at my side.

Not at my stomach

I kept it there.

The florist continued talking.

Catherine continued listening

The assistant at the front desk was looking at her own phone now with the specific attention of someone confirming what she had just seen.

My phone, in my bag, began.

Notification. Notification. Notification.

The rhythm of something moving fast through a network.

I did not take it out.

“That one,” I said to Catherine, pointing at the arrangement.

She looked at me

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Then at the arrangement.

The phone continued in my bag.

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