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....
Jenna led him through the living room, past the couch and the coffee table covered in magazines, toward a wall covered in framed photographs. The frames were mismatched, some wooden, some silver, some plastic. They told a story. A family's history in frozen moments, collected over years and arranged with care. Leo followed her, his eyes already scanning the wall, looking for familiar faces.
"Okay, so this is the good stuff," Jenna said, stopping in front of the wall. She pointed to a photo near the top. Her finger hovered just below the frame. "There. That's Elena. First grade. Look at that face."
Leo leaned closer. The photo showed a little girl with pigtails and a gap-toothed smile. Two front teeth missing, replaced by empty space that made her grin look even bigger. She wore a pink backpack twice the size of her small torso, the straps pulled tight to keep it from falling off. In her hands, she held a lunch box covered in cartoon characters, some show Leo did not recognize. Her eyes were the same, though. Even then, even at six years old, Elena's eyes had that warmth, that depth. They looked out from the photo with the same kindness he saw every day.
"She's adorable," Leo said. It was the only word that fit.
"Wasn't she?" Jenna moved her finger to another photo. "And this one. This is the gold mine. Brace yourself."
The photo showed Elena at what looked like middle school age. Her hair was cut short, brutally short, in a style that could only be described as a bowl cut. It was uneven in places, as if someone had done it at home with less skill than enthusiasm. Silver braces covered her teeth, gleaming in the harsh camera flash, reflecting light like tiny mirrors. She wore a sweater with a cartoon cat on it, the cat's face stretched across her chest in faded colors.
Leo laughed. Actually laughed. The sound filled the living room, bouncing off the walls, surprising even himself.
"Oh my god," he said.
Jenna was grinning beside him. Her shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. "I know, right? She was going through a phase. Her mom let her make her own choices about her appearance, and this... this is what she chose. No one forced her. No one said 'hey, Elena, you should get a terrible haircut and wear that sweater to picture day.' She did that all by herself."
"She looks so..."
"Hideous? Adorable? Both?"
"Both," Leo agreed. "Definitely both. Like a small, determined goblin who wants to sell you something."
Jenna laughed too. The sound was warm, easy, filling the space between them. She moved closer to him, pointing at another photo. "Okay, this one is Jeremy. Same era. Look at those black glasses. Coke bottles, I swear."
Leo looked at Jeremy's photo.Black glasses dominated his young face. His hair was messy, sticking up in places, and he wore a scowl that suggested he had been forced into the photo against his will. His arms were crossed over his chest, his body angled away from the camera. Some things never changed, Leo thought. Jeremy still looked like that sometimes.
They moved along the wall together. Jenna pointed out more photos. Elena at the beach, sand covering her legs, a plastic bucket in one hand. Jeremy at a birthday party, cake on his face, a paper hat tilted crookedly on his head. Both kids with their parents, the four of them smiling at some long-ago vacation, the background a blur of trees and sky. Leo noted how Jenna's voice softened when she pointed to Elena's parents. How she lingered on those photos a moment longer than the others.
"That's my sister," Jenna said quietly. Her voice was different now, softer, touched by memory. "Miranda. And her husband, Grayson."
Leo looked at the photo. A woman who looked like an older version of Elena stood beside a man with kind eyes. Same smile, same warmth, same way of tilting her head when she looked at the camera. The man had his arm around her shoulders, protective and loving. They looked happy. They looked like they belonged together.
He knew from the plot of the TVD show he had watched back on earth that these two people were Elena's adoptive parents, not her real ones. He knew about the biological parents, about the secrets buried in the past. But now was not the time to point that out. Now was not the time to create chaos where there was peace.
"They seem like good enjoying couples," Leo said. He kept his voice even, his expression calm. The truth about Elena's real parents stayed locked away in the back of his mind, far from this moment, far from this conversation.
"They were." Jenna's voice was soft. She stood close to him now, their shoulders almost touching as they both faced the wall. He could feel the warmth of her body, the slight rise and fall of her breathing. "They really were. They were the best people I knew. Miranda was always the responsible one, the one who had her life together. I was the mess, the one who couldn't settle down, who bounced from job to job. And then..." She trailed off, not finishing the thought.
For a moment, neither spoke. The silence was comfortable, respectful. A small space carved out for memory and grief.
Then Jenna shook herself slightly, like a dog shaking off water after a bath. Her body moved, her hair shifted, and her voice brightened with obvious effort.
"Okay, enough sadness. More embarrassment." She pointed to another photo, her finger finding it immediately. "This one is Elena's attempt at goth in eighth grade. Look at the eyeliner. Look at it. She looked like a raccoon."
Leo laughed again. The photo showed Elena with dark lipstick and eyeliner applied with what appeared to be a heavy hand and no mirror. The eyeliner was thick and uneven, smudged in places, extending far beyond her eyelids in wings of different sizes. She wore a black shirt and a silver necklace with a bat on it.
"She thought she was so edgy," Jenna continued, grinning. The sadness had been pushed aside, replaced by the joy of embarrassing a loved one. "Came downstairs in all black, told me she was expressing her inner darkness. I had to go in the bathroom and laugh so she wouldn't hear me. I stayed in there for five minutes, just laughing into a towel."
Leo shook his head, still smiling. "I'm going to remember this forever. I'm going to bring it up at dinner someday. 'Hey Elena, remember when you were a raccoon?'"
"You better. That's the whole point of showing you." Jenna turned to face him, still close. The space between them had shrunk without either of them noticing. "So you have ammunition when she gets too full of herself. Consider it a gift from me to you."
Their eyes met. The laughter faded slowly, replaced by something else. Something quieter. Something that had no name.
Jenna became aware of how close they were standing. The living room was not small, but somehow they had ended up in the same small space, facing each other with only inches between them. She could see his eyes clearly from here. Dark. Deep again. The kind of eyes that pulled you in if you were not careful. The kind of eyes that made you forget things, like your age, like your role, like who you were supposed to be.
She was not being careful.
She felt warm. Flushed. The feeling started in her chest and spread outward, down her arms, into her stomach. A physical reaction she could not control. Her body responding to him without asking her permission first. Her skin tingled. Her breath came a little faster. Her heart beat a little harder.
"You have..." Jenna started, then stopped. She licked her lips without thinking. The motion was casual, unconscious. "You have really nice eyes. Has anyone ever told you that?"
The words came out before she could stop them. She heard herself say them and wanted to take them back immediately, wanted to shove them back into her mouth and pretend they had never existed. But it was too late. They hung in the air between them, embarrassing and true, marking the moment when something shifted.
Leo's expression shifted slightly. Surprise, maybe. Or something else. Something harder to read. "Once or twice," he said. His voice was calm. Easy. Like he had not noticed the way her voice had changed, the way her breathing had shifted, the way her eyes had widened slightly after speaking.
Jenna laughed nervously. A small sound, barely there. "I bet. I bet people tell you that all the time. Probably every five minutes. 'Nice eyes, nice eyes, nice eyes.' You probably have a counter somewhere." She moved away from him, just a step, just enough to create space. Her hand went to her hair, touching it self-consciously, smoothing it down. "Sorry. That was weird. I don't know why I said that."
She was lying. She knew exactly why she said it. Because she couldn't stop looking at them. Because something about this boy made her forget for a moment that she was supposed to be the responsible one, the adult, the guardian. Made her feel like she was the one who needed guarding.
Leo smiled. It was a gentle smile, kind. Understanding, even.
"It's okay," he said. "You don't have to apologize."
And somehow, impossibly, his words made her feel worse. Because he was being nice about it. Because he wasn't making it weird. Because he was handling this with more grace than she was, and he was the teenager.
Jenna took another step back. She needed space. She needed air. She needed to remember who she was.
"So," she sad. "More photos? Or did you want more coffee?"
Leo looked at her. He saw the flush on her cheeks, the way her hand still touched her hair, the slight tension in her shoulders. He understood, perhaps better than she did, what was happening. The air between them had changed, thickened with something that had no place here.
He made a decision. It was time to leave. He could meet Elena at school later. Staying here, alone with Jenna, for too longāit was not appropriate.
"Thanks," he said gently. "But I should probably go, Aunt Jenna. Catch Elena at school."
Jenna blinked. The words took a moment to register. Her mind was still elsewhere, still caught in the moment before. "Right. School. Yeah. You should do that."
She did not want him to go. The thought came unbidden, unwanted, and she pushed it away immediately. Of course she wanted him to go. She wanted him to leave right now, this instant, so she could stop feeling whatever this was. So she could breathe again without his eyes on her.
But she did not move toward the door. Neither did he.
The living room was quiet. Somewhere outside, a car passed on the street. Birds sang in the trees, their songs drifting through the open windows. The sounds seemed to come from very far away, muffled, unimportant.
Leo then took a step toward the front hall. Toward the door. Toward leaving.
Jenna followed without meaning to. Her body moved on its own, matching his pace, keeping the distance between them small. She told herself she was just being polite. Walking a guest to the door. That was what you did. That was normal. That was nothing.
They reached the front hall. The door was right there, just a few feet away. Wooden, solid, painted white, with a small window at the top that let in a rectangle of morning light. It was the same door she had opened a thousand times. It looked different now.
Leo stopped in front of it and turned to face her.
"Thanks again for the coffee," he said. "And the photos. I'll treasure them."
Jenna laughed. It came out slightly too high, too nervous. "Blackmail material. That's all it is. Use it wisely."
"I will."
He reached for the door handle. His hand closed around it, fingers wrapping around the cool metal. The door opened a crack, letting in a sliver of outside air, cool and fresh, carrying the smell of grass and trees and morning.
"I'll see you around, Jenna," he said.
Her name in his mouth sounded different than it had before. Warmer. More intimate. Like he had been saying it for years. Like it belonged there.
"Yeah," she said. "See you around."
He turned and stepped outside. He did not look back. He walked forward, down the path, toward the sidewalk, toward the school. His steps were steady, unhurried. The morning sun caught his hair, his shoulders, the line of his back.
Jenna stood in the doorway and watched him go.
She watched his back, his shoulders, the way his shirt moved as he walked. She watched until he reached the sidewalk, until he turned the corner and disappeared behind the tall hedges that lined the property.
Only then did she realize she was still holding the edge of the small table in the hall. Her knuckles were white. The wood was hard against her fingers. She forced her hand to relax, forced herself to let go.
She closed the door slowly. The click of the latch was loud in the quiet house.
For a long moment, she leaned against the door, her back pressed against the wood, her eyes closed. Her heart was still beating too fast. Her skin was still warm. She could still feel his eyes on her, still hear his voice saying her name, still see the way he had looked at her in that last moment before leaving.
She opened her eyes and looked down at herself. Her clothes were the same. The house was the same. Everything was exactly as it had been twenty minutes ago.
But nothing felt the same.
She pushed off from the door and walked slowly to the bathroom.
The bathroom was small, white-tiled, clean. A single window let in light. The mirror hung above the sink, plain and functional. She stood in front of it and looked at her reflection.
Blonde hair. Green hazel eyes. A face that was starting to show its age, just slightly, just enough to notice if you looked closely. Fine lines at the corners of her eyes. A softness to her jaw that had not been there ten years ago.
But her cheeks were flushed. Pink and warm, like a girl's. Her eyes were bright, too bright, with something that looked almost like excitement. Her lips were slightly parted, slightly red, like she had been biting them without realizing.
She looked like someone who had just been kissed. Someone who had just been touched. Even though no one had touched her. Even though the only thing that had happened was a conversation and some photos and a look that lasted too long.
Jenna stared at herself for a long time.
Then she laughed. A small, helpless sound that echoed off the white tiles.
"You're thirty-two," she whispered to her reflection. Her voice was quiet, meant only for herself. "He's just a teenager. He's probably Elena's boyfriend. Get it together."
She said the words, but they did not change anything. The flush on her cheeks remained. The brightness in her eyes remained. The warmth in her chest remained.
She turned on the cold water. She splashed her face, once, twice, three times. The water was cold, shockingly cold, and it helped.
She then dried her face with a towel and looked at herself again.
Better. Slightly.
She took a deep breath and walked out of the bathroom, back into the living room, back into the house that felt suddenly too quiet.
...
Do you want Jenna as love interest?