He’d learned in rehab, he said. Cooking grounded him. Gave his hands something constructive to do when his brain wanted to spiral.
I believed him.
We were good friends now. Best friends, maybe. The kind that didn’t need constant conversation to feel connected. We laughed over spilled Cheerios, argued about diaper brands with ridiculous seriousness, texted memes at 2 a.m. when Asher wouldn’t sleep and Eli was snoring loud enough to register on seismic equipment.
But the chemistry, the old, electric pull, never quite disappeared. It hovered in tiny, dangerous flickers. Zariah noticed it every time.
“You two still look at each other like teenagers who just figured out what sex is,” she said one afternoon while we sat on the patio, Asher crawling between us on a blanket, aggressively trying to eat a plastic giraffe.
I rolled my eyes, tossing a burp cloth onto the table. “We’re divorced, Z.”
“Divorced on paper,” she countered, sipping iced tea with the confidence of someone who had decided she was right before the conversation even started. “Your eyes say something else.”
“They say we’re co-parents who respect each other.”
“They say you still want to climb him like a tree.”
I threw a toy at her. She caught it midair, laughing so hard she nearly spilled her drink across her lap.
She wasn’t wrong.
There were moments, Cal reaching past me to grab a bottle from the fridge, his arm brushing mine, the air thickening for half a second like oxygen forgot how to function. Or when he’d lift Asher high into the air and the baby squealed with that unfiltered, whole-body joy, and Cal’s smile would hit me square in the chest like it used to, reckless, devastating, impossible to ignore.
But I never acted on it.
Neither did he.
We’d both learned the hard way what happened when we rushed headfirst into emotions we hadn’t unpacked yet.
Eli’s girlfriend, Maya, came over three or four times a week now. She was sweet, quiet, smart, always polite, but something about her set my teeth on edge in a way I couldn’t logically explain. She’d light up when Cal walked in, her posture subtly straightening like she’d been plugged into a power source. She asked endless questions about the band, begged for stories about touring, about recording studios, about backstage drama.
Once she asked if she could get backstage passes to the next Embers show. Eli blushed and said yes before I could blink, his ears turning bright red like he’d just agreed to donate a kidney.
“She’s using him,” I told Zariah later, while we folded laundry in the nursery. Tiny socks disappeared into impossible voidswhile we talked, the air smelling faintly of baby detergent and lavender.
“Maybe,” Zariah said, folding a onesie into crisp, efficient thirds. “Or maybe she’s just a sixteen-year-old who likes a boy in a cool band.”
“She’s always on her phone when Eli’s talking,” I muttered, matching pairs of impossibly small pajamas. “And she only asks questions about Cal.”
Zariah stacked the folded clothes into neat piles. “You being paranoid or overprotective?”
“Both,” I admitted, exhaling slowly. “But Eli likes her. He lights up when she texts. I’m not going to ruin that unless I have proof.”
Zariah reached over and squeezed my shoulder, her grip grounding and familiar. “Then watch. But don’t accuse. Let him figure it out.”
I was taking online classes, first to finish my GED, then starting community college prerequisites. I’d sit at the kitchen table after Asher went down, laptop open, textbooks highlighted in too many colors, Eli doing homework across from me while complaining dramatically about algebra like it was a personal attack on his existence.
Cal would sometimes join us, reading scripts or writing lyrics, quiet company that didn’t demand attention but filled the room with steady presence.
One night he looked over at my screen, leaning slightly closer, his shoulder brushing mine just enough to make me hyper-aware of him.
“You’re doing biology?” he asked.
“Human anatomy,” I said, clicking through diagrams of muscle structures. “Thinking about nursing. Maybe. Eventually. Still thinking about the social worker thing.”
He smiled, soft, proud, the kind that didn’t ask for anything in return. “You’d be good at it. You’re already the best mom I know.”
I felt warmth bloom in my chest, spreading slowly, cautiously. “Thanks.”
