Their eye contact was nearly unbreakable.

The tenderness of her hands held Chris in a trance, and he stared into her eyes as she continued tracing over his lips with her thumbs. They stayed that way together in silent solitude until Stephanie realized they were down a family member. Penelope was still outside with Shane, dozing in the backseat of Chris's SUV, and Stephanie wanted her back inside. Penelope belonged in her cozy crib, not downgraded to the outdoors, so Stephanie excused herself, allowing her hands to float away from his face, gradually falling back to her sides.

Chris gulped audibly as their magical contact was broken, nodding silently when Stephanie scurried to the coat rack inches inside the front door. She tugged down a cardigan she had left there days ago, too lazy to bring it back up the stairs to her bedroom closet where it belonged. Pulling the navy outerwear over her shoulders, Stephanie stepped out onto the front porch, her teeth involuntarily clenching when that initial burst of cold air hit her. Folding her arms, she strolled out to the driveway and knocked on the car window to get Shane to let her in.

Shane hopped out of the front seat right away, shutting the door quietly behind him. He folded his arms and his mouth hung slightly ajar as he awaited an explanation. Either Stephanie would be pissed at him for sending Chris back inside to talk to her, or she would be thankful. He really didn't want to fight, so he was hoping things had gone well while they had been indoors. "Shane, what did you say to Chris?"

"What do you think?" he countered, raising his brows.

"He implied that you told him to fix the situation between him and me, but he didn't give me any details."

"Good. He wasn't supposed to. That was a private talk between him and me."

"But it involves me and my daughter, so I have a right to know," Stephanie argued. As much as she adored Shane, he couldn't come in and influence her life without giving even a slight clue of what his end goal was. Aside from that, Stephanie was the type of person who always had to be in the know.

"I told him to stop being stupid and to go back inside and talk to you. I'm not an idiot. I know you miss him and want him back, and if he was going to be the same as he was right before you broke up, I wouldn't want him for you, but because I can see that he's changed, I think it's important you guys work things out," Shane said. A fly buzzed near his face and he swatted it away with the back of his hand. "Penelope's too fragile to be traded off between you guys, and especially when she's this young. I know it's not really any of my business, but I want you and my niece to be happy."

"We don't have serious fights with each other anymore," she shared, rubbing up and down her arms. "When I used to try to get him to understand where I was coming from, he would argue with me, but lately, he's been listening to me and trying to see my point of view. When he does that instead of picking fights with me, it really does make me feel closer to him. I think maybe all hope isn't lost. Not yet, at least."

"Well then, you know what you have to do, huh?"

"I want Penelope with me all the time. Like, if I'm not at work, then I want her here. I guess maybe I want Chris here, too, but not if it's going to be as bad as it was before. If he keeps working with me like he has been, then I'd love to give things another try, but if this is going to turn into another colossal mess, it's probably best that we stay apart and honor the custody agreement."

"The custody agreement's bullshit, and I told him that," Shane rushed out. "It would be one thing if you guys absolutely hated each other and living together wasn't even remotely an option. If that were the case, I would tell you, yeah, stay away from each other and trade Penelope off. But it's not like that with you guys. You're not apart because you don't belong together. You're apart because you're both too stubborn to put this thing back together and be a family. You know that I'd love to bring you to stay at my house for the weekend, but I don't want to watch you sit around heartbroken the whole time because you don't have your family, and especially not when there's a simple solution to it all."

"I still love him," Stephanie admitted. "Despite all we've been through, I do, Shane."

"I guess I'll break my own rule then and let you in on a private little part of my conversation with Chris, only because I think you need to hear it. When he was out here just now, guess what he told me about you?"

"What?"

"He loves you."

"He said that?" she asked, eyes glimmering with hope. Her heart sang a little.

"As a matter of fact, he did."

Ducking her head down as a coat of heat rushed into her cheeks, Stephanie kicked absently at the ground, unable to hide the smile starting to peek through. Still staring at the driveway, she said, "I guess it's not too much of a surprise. He's tried to get back together with me tons of times since we broke up, so I figured he still loved me, but I just wanted proof that he had changed. I didn't want to get involved with him until he proved that he was finally growing the hell up."

"And has he proven it to your satisfaction?" Shane questioned.

Picking her head up, Stephanie hesitated and gnawed on the corner of her bottom lip before forming a response. "I think he has. When we went for mediation, the old Chris would have done whatever he wanted without a care in the world for me. He would have tried to pressure me into getting back together with him, and if I hadn't done that, he probably would have thrown his weight around in mediation. But he didn't do that. He saw that I was sad and gave up on everything he had wanted in order to give me what I needed. He was so good to me that day."

"Good. He should be good to you. You gave him a daughter and a bunch of good years of your life."

"I'd be willing to give him a chance, but if he screws up even one more time, I'm probably going to be done with him for good. I can't sit back and let myself be hurt anymore," she divulged. Shane nodded along and reached for her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "I would love to be with him. We have a history and he's my daughter's father. I feel like being back with him is the right thing, but I don't want him to take it for granted and go right back to the same old thing. I won't put up with it."

"And you shouldn't have to."

"What do you think about it?" she asked, crinkling her nose. "Like, what would you think if I got back together with him and tried to make it all work? Because I know trading Penelope off like this isn't best for her, and it's sure as hell not best for Chris and me. Plus, Chris misses me, and I miss him, too."

"The only thing I think is that you're my sister, and if anybody hurts you, they're going to have to deal with me. I laid into Chris when you guys broke up, and I'd do it again if he tried any funny business this time around. If you're asking me to weigh in, all I can really say is that I'm on your side no matter what. I like Chris and I think he has good intentions, even if he doesn't always do the right thing, but you're my blood, and you come before anyone. I'll fight for you, if it comes to that."

"Thanks, Shaner. I don't want it to come to that, though."

"Then the ball's in your court."

"Yeah, I guess it is," Stephanie sniffed, taking in her surroundings. She could feel Shane's gaze, and although she didn't look back over at him, she wondered what he was thinking about her. Breaking their silence, she added, "Maybe having a daughter has changed him. I would hope that he's built more compassion and respect since Penelope was born."

"You'll never know until you try, and I think you should be with him if that's what you want, but I wasn't really pushing for that. I just want you guys, at the very least, to be under the same roof so that you're not both left sad and alone whenever you have to trade Penelope off. There's no reason for that, and I told you before the mediation that you guys should have worked something else out."

"We were hard-headed as usual."

"Then take your heads outta your asses."

"All right, then. Chris and Penelope will spend the weekend here, and we'll have to play it by ear from there," Stephanie smirked, pursing her lips. "Thanks, Shane."

"Anytime," he grinned, pulling her in for a hug.

They embraced for a while, Shane sensing that Stephanie needed that hug a little more than he did. He kissed the top of her head and they pulled apart, Stephanie opening up the back door and pulling Penelope out of the car seat. She whined a little and wiggled around, but she managed to stay asleep as Stephanie carried her back inside, handing her off to Chris. While he busied himself with bringing Penelope up to her nursery, Stephanie opened the garage door and let Shane out.

Since Chris's vehicle was parked to one side of the wide driveway, Shane was able to squeeze out on the other side, and he waved, giving Stephanie a giant thumbs up before speeding out of view. When she stepped inside and finished locking up, Chris had come back down. He stopped near the bottom of the staircase and shoved his hands into his pockets, waiting for Stephanie to direct him. His key ring clanked as she placed it down on the coffee table.

"I locked your car for you."

"Thanks."

"No problem," she replied. As Stephanie lowered to the couch, her stomach growled and she raised up again. Now that Penelope was staying, her appetite had returned in full force, and for that, she was glad. She couldn't wait to binge on some good cooking. "Do you want something to eat?"

"Uh, I don't know," Chris shrugged. "Whatever you have, I guess."

"I'm probably just going to make something simple. Do you want some eggs and bacon?"

"That's fine," he said, even more detached than he had seemed before. Stephanie sighed and tipped her head as she studied him, knowing she couldn't leave the room without making some sort of amends.

Inching forward, Stephanie reached for his hands, covering them with her own as she stood before him. "I don't know what you need to hear from me right now, so I'll just start with the basics. Chris, I'm sorry for the role I played in this whole thing. I was hurt by you, but that didn't give me the right not to tell you about my pregnancy, and it definitely didn't give me the right to keep Penelope from you. You've been a good father to her, and it's clear as day that she loves you, and so I'm sorry. If I could take back my mistakes, I would."

Still clutching hands, Chris dragged his thumbs over her knuckles, pressing his eyes shut. He seemed to be taking the situation harder than Stephanie at that particular point in time, so she held his hands tighter. She chose not to rush him, instead, allowing Chris a chance to speak whenever he was ready. "I'm sorry, too. I keep thinking that if I would have spent more time with you, stayed at home more often, we could have still been a couple during your pregnancy. I would have been here to help you through it and to make you feel better when you were sick, but I didn't get to do any of that. Maybe that's my punishment for neglecting you."

"No, I don't think life works like that. You didn't deserve not to know about your own daughter."

"But I made you feel bad enough that you couldn't tell me. I don't think I understood before," Chris confided. "I kept thinking to myself, like, 'How could she not tell me about my baby?'. I was putting it all on you and getting pissed at you, but it wasn't until recently that I understood why you couldn't tell me about Penelope. It wasn't something you did in anger. It was because I had hurt you so badly and left you alone so many times that you literally didn't feel like I could handle the news. I failed you so horribly that you were convinced I'd do the same to Penelope. I...I don't know if I can ever forgive myself, so I have no idea why I'd expect you to."

"Don't say that."

"But it's true."

"But I forgive you. I do," Stephanie said, taking his cheeks in her hands once again and forcing him to look at her. "You've been so good to me lately, just super sweet and considerate. What I've seen in you is an amazing turnaround. Just look at how well you handled the mediation. If you had wanted to, you could have taken joint custody and ran with it, but you saw how upset I was and you settled for an arrangement that would give me more time with Penelope. That didn't go unnoticed."

"I didn't want to tear you guys apart. I just wanted to spend time with my daughter alone every once in a while, you know? I didn't want to steal her from you," he said, almost pleading with her to believe him. "My goal wasn't to hurt you, Steph, I swear. I was just so scared I wasn't going to see my kid grow up. You had full control of her, and I had to do something."

"Shh, hey, calm down," Stephanie said. She reached a hand up and rubbed his back from where she stood. "It's okay. I get why you were nervous and maybe even feeling a little edged out. We were both wrong. It's tough being parents to the same child when you're separated."

"If our custody arrangement is hurting you too badly, I don't want to do it anymore. I can't stand making you feel so alone that you have to go stay at Shane's during my weekends with Penelope. I've caused you enough pain. It's so hard, though, because I still want my time with Pen-Pen, but I don't see how this can work long term. This is the hardest thing I've ever gone through, and I don't know anymore what's right and what's wrong."

"We'll work it out."

"I'm so worried."

"Hug me," she blurted.

"What?" Chris asked, his gaze dripping with confusion.

Stephanie couldn't suppress her smile. "Remember back when we were still together and you would do something to make me mad? I'd be furious and in the middle of giving you an earful, and you would just pull me into a tight hug and not let me go. At first, I'd be pissed and would fight against you and try to get away, but after a minute or so, we would end up laughing together and you would just keep holding me in your arms until we were ready to talk it out."

Chris let a smile of his own appear. He even chuckled. "Yeah, I remember now."

"So hug me, then," she demanded, releasing his face. "Don't let me go until we're both ready to talk this out, because I'm scared if we don't do it today, it's never going to happen. We're running out of time, and this needs to be fixed already."

"And you think we can fix that with a hug?"

"Well, no, not only with a hug. But the conversation that follows the hug might be what makes or breaks us."

His most immediate urge was to argue Stephanie's point. He had a hard time believing a hug could conquer anything, but if he allowed his mind to wander a little deeper, he saw the same things Stephanie did. It wasn't about the hug, in the end. It was about sticking together until they could toss the residual anger far enough away to have a civil discussion. Only then would their lives improve for the better, which would ultimately work to better Penelope's life.

Taking a deep breath, Chris reached his arms out and pulled Stephanie flush to him, smiling when she giggled into his shirt collar. He held her there, and her head went straight to his shoulder, where she rested quietly as her eyes fell shut. Chris hid his face in the side of her neck and rubbed her back softly, missing everything about how it felt to hold her. Her body was as he remembered for the most part, with slight differences likely due to having given birth less than half a year prior. She still fit him like a glove.

In times past, when Chris used the hug as a tactic to quell her fury, they stayed silent, save for their light laughter. This time, however, there was plenty to be talked about, and it couldn't wait any longer. "A short while after Pen-Pen was born, when I was living with you guys, I went to get take-out food for you and when I tried to kiss you goodbye, you turned your head away. Remember?"

Sighing, Stephanie answered, "Yes. I remember."

"Why couldn't I kiss you?"

"Because I didn't want to be with you. I felt like you still didn't understand how badly you had hurt me, and I didn't want your kisses. As it stood, the delivery room kiss only happened because I was so emotional after having Penelope. On the day you're talking about, though, if you had approached me differently, sat in bed with me, and apologized for everything that had happened, we could have started rebuilding our relationship. Instead, you got mad at me, which only made me more mad at you."

"And on the day when we decided I had to move out of your place, I tried to ask you if we could be together again and you said no. I got mad at you that time, too. Is that why you turned me down? Because you still didn't want me back?" Chris quizzed. There was no malice or melancholy to his tone. His questions were coming straight from the heart. He simply had to know.

"I turned you down because I wanted you to understand me, and you didn't. It wasn't so much that you didn't understand as it was that you didn't even bother trying to smooth things over. Your reaction to me that day was almost worse than anything you had actually done up to that point," Stephanie explained, his shoulder muffling her words a bit. "When you asked me to be together and I said no, I was waiting for you to apologize. I kept thinking that you would grab my hand or hug me like you are right now and that you would say you were sorry and we would be back together. But you never did. You got mad at me, and when someone is angry with me, it fuels my anger. I was pissed at you because you were pissed at me."

"I'm sorry for not trying harder."

"It's okay. You're trying a lot harder right now."

"If I had calmed down and talked to you, would we already be back together again by now?"

Raising her head from his shoulder, Stephanie pulled only far enough out of their embrace that she could make out his face. Chris gave her his undivided attention as she composed a response. "I've been waiting for you to come get me back ever since the very second we broke up. That's the honest truth of it all."

"This whole time?"

"This whole time," she confirmed. Stephanie's hand came to rest on either of his shoulders as Chris maintained his hold around her waist. "You would come to me and ask if we could be together, and I said no because I didn't want that. I didn't want you to just ask for me back. I wanted you to earn me back. Each time I would turn you down, I kept waiting for you to fight and scratch and claw for me, but you never did. You would just argue and make me feel expendable. Sure, I could have told you I was waiting on you to fight for me, but I didn't think I should have to. You should have known that."

"I don't read minds, Stephanie," he said, rolling his eyes. Stephanie scoffed and pointed to his expression with her forefinger.

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You give up on me so easily. I say something, and instead of trying to understand it from my viewpoint, you make me feel stupid for saying anything at all. If I feel alienated by you, that doesn't really make me want to be in a relationship with you again, because that tells me that it will just be more of the same, and I've already had my fill of that."

"You're not stupid for feeling how you feel, and if that's the impression I give off, then I'm sorry. Can I explain my way of thinking so you'll understand me better?"

"I'd love if you did," Stephanie replied.

"Okay, but first, your pretty little head belongs back on my shoulder," Chris instructed. Stephanie tried her hardest to keep a straight face, but she cracked within seconds, lowering her head to his shoulder, this time facing his neck. Her warm breath streaked across his skin and sent a shiver down his spine. Words couldn't express how much he had missed that woman. "Back to what we were saying, the reason we were butting heads was because, in my mind, I felt like you had to give me another chance to be with you before I could prove I had changed. I didn't realize you wanted me to apologize first because I figured once we were together again and you saw evidence of how much I'd grown, you wouldn't need anything else."

"I get what you're saying, but I didn't want to give you another chance without seeing progress ahead of time. I was worried I would end up in the same kind of mess as before."

"But...but..."

"I know. I'm a woman and we're confusing as heck. I get it," she teased. "You have a daughter now, so maybe as she grows older, she can smarten you up about how females operate."

"I love her," Chris gushed. "She's perfect."

"I agree. She's such a gorgeous little baby."

Switching topics at lightning speed, he said, "One more question."

"Yes?" Stephanie asked.

"Why did you touch me and get close to me right after you would reject me? It fucked with my mind that you would say no when I asked if we could be together again, but then you would touch my hair and my back and basically try to mind-fuck me, is what I felt like."

"That's not what I was trying to do. If you want to know the God's honest truth, whenever I was touching you, that was just me slipping. I never meant to do it. I just missed you, so sometimes I would rub your back or touch your hair without thinking, which would cause you to give me a death glare and I would remember myself and move my hand," she answered. "I wasn't trying to send you mixed signals, even though I can definitely see how it came off that way. I would just forget myself sometimes because I wanted back what we had."

Pulling away, Chris's eyes buzzed with panic. "So, you don't think we'll ever be able to get back where we were again? There's never a chance we can be happy together like we used to?"

"I've never gone so far as to say that," Stephanie replied. Chris dropped his hands from her waist, but she grabbed them and held them in her own. Never before had she known a man as persistent as Chris where it concerned getting her back, and that meant something to Stephanie. She liked knowing that he cared enough to pursue her to the ends of the earth. "Chris, I know that you love me. I mean, I already knew it before, but it was knocked into my brain this morning because you told my brother and he told me. He felt like I needed to hear that."

"Did you need to hear it?" Chris asked.

"Yes," Stephanie said. "It helped to work out some stuff in my head. Do you know what I told Shane this morning?"

"What?"

"I told him that I loved you, too, and I meant it."

"I meant what I said, too. But what do we do with it now?"

"We spend the weekend together and let the cards fall where they may." Her stomach growled fiercely and she smiled, patting her belly. "What do you say we start with breakfast?"

"Only if I can cook it for you," Chris challenged. Stephanie's smile widened as she reached out and patted his cheek.

"You're on."