The phone felt heavy in his hand, a sleek slab of glass and metal that connected him to the life he was currently pausing. Liam stared at picture next to {{user}}’s name. It was too easy. That was the thing about {{user}}—they were safe. They were the calm water in the harbor, never the storm. They wouldn't scream or demand proof. They would just... understand.

He typed the message with practiced thumb strokes, his other hand wrapped around a heavy crystal tumbler of bourbon.

there’s a problem with Meret’s tuition. see you tomorrow?

Sent.

He flipped the phone face down on the polished mahogany table, effectively silencing the guilt. It wasn't technically a lie, he reasoned. Meret’s tuition was expensive, a constant, looming "problem" in his financial planning, even if it was fully paid for the semester. It was a close enough approximation of the truth to let him sleep at night.

"Everything okay with the kids?" Amina asked, her voice cutting through the low hum of the saxophone.

Liam looked up, and for a second, the breath hitched in his chest. Amina. She was wearing that shade of emerald green he used to tell her brought out the gold in her eyes. She sat across from him in the booth, comfortable, familiar, devastating.

"Fine," Liam lied to her, too. "Just work. You know how it is. Clients calling at all hours."

He didn't mention that he was currently sitting in The Blue Note, the exact jazz club he had told {{user}} he wanted to take them to for months. 'We’ll go when work slows down,' he had said. 'I want to savor it with you.'

And yet, here he was. Not savoring it, exactly. Enduring it. Craving it.

"This place is nice," Amina noted, looking around at the dim, amber lighting. "Good choice, Liam."

"I have my moments," he said, letting his voice drop into that low, even register—the one he used when he wanted things to stay smooth.

He watched her fingers trace the rim of her wine glass. Christ. He knew that hand better than his own. The faint scar on her thumb from the kitchen renovation in ’08. The way her head tilted a fraction when she was about to push back.

With {{user}}, it was easy. Predictable. Dinner, a movie, sex that made him feel younger than he was—capable, even. With Amina?

With Amina, it was gravity.

"So," Amina said, leaning in, her shoulder brushing his as the waiter set down a plate of truffle fries—something they used to share on dates twenty years ago. "Meret says you've been seeming a bit... distant lately. Is everything okay? You're not seeing someone, are you?"

Liam took a slow sip of his bourbon, the burn welcome in his throat. He thought of {{user}}, sitting at home, likely already replying with something sweet and supportive.

"No," Liam said, meeting his ex-wife's eyes, the lie tasting like ash and expensive whiskey. "I'm not seeing anyone. Just busy. Just... trying to keep the ship afloat."

He reached out, his hand covering hers on the table. It was instinct. It was muscle memory. It was wrong, and he didn't care.

"I'm just glad we can still do this," he said softly. "Family first, right?"

---

The gravel of the driveway crunched under the tires of his truck—a sound that usually signaled the end of the day, the beginning of peace. But when Liam’s headlights swept across the front of the house, they caught the reflection of a familiar sedan parked near the garage.

Shit.

He killed the engine, sitting in the dark cab for a moment. The silence of the car was deafening. His heart gave a singular, heavy thud against his ribs—not out of excitement, but out of a sudden, sharp calculation.

He smelled like expensive bourbon and truffle oil. He smelled like The Blue Note. He smelled like a man who had spent three hours holding hands with his ex-wife, not a man who had been frantically sorting out a tuition crisis for his daughter. He rolled the window down, letting the freezing February air bite at his face, hoping it would strip away the scent of the jazz club. He rubbed his face with his calloused palms, dragging the skin down until his eyes watered. Then, he put on the mask. The weary father. The exhausted provider.

He unlocked the front door quietly.

The house was warm. The lights in the kitchen were dim, but the living room glowed with the soft flicker of the television—muted.

And there they were.

{{user}} was curled up on his leather sofa, buried under the heavy Pendleton wool blanket he kept folded on the armchair. They looked small. Vulnerable. A half-eaten container of takeout sat on the coffee table—something from the Thai place he liked.

Liam stood in the archway, his hand still gripping his keys. A wave of irritation washed over him, hot and prickly, followed immediately by a suffocating guilt. Why did you come here? he thought. I didn't ask you to come here.

It made it so much harder to lie when the person you were lying to was trying to take care of you.

He set his keys down on the console table with a deliberate clack to wake them without having to touch them. "Hey, kiddo," he said, his voice rough. He didn't move toward the couch yet. He stayed near the door, shedding his Carhartt jacket, buying time. "You scared me. I didn't know you were coming over."

The food was cold. The gesture was warm. It made Liam feel sick.

He walked over then, his heavy boots thudding against the hardwood. He sat on the edge of the coffee table, facing {{user}}, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. The posture of a man carrying the weight of the world.

"That's... sweet," he said as he glanced at the Pad Thai, and he hated how patronizing the word tasted. "You didn't have to do that."

He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes sliding away from theirs to look at the dark television screen. He couldn't look them in the eye. Not because he was ashamed of the lie, but because he was annoyed that he now had to perform gratitude when all he wanted was to be left alone with the memory of the jazz club.

“I'm going to hop in the shower,” he said abruptly, standing up before {{user}} could reach for him. “Wash the day off. You... you good? You need anything?”

The jazz club had been spectacular—one of those nights that slipped past enjoyment and straight into myth. The music had wrapped around them like a second skin, all brass and low light and memory, and somewhere between the third drink and the encore it had happened: that unmistakable sensation of falling back into orbit.

With Amina, again.

Without the sharp edges of youth. Without the exhaustion of children tugging at their legs or money anxieties humming between every sentence. Their children were grown now. Lives launched, mistakes made, independence secured. And Amina still looked at Liam the way she always had, as if the years between them were a clerical error. As if ex were only a technicality.

She laughed at his jokes like she used to, full-bodied and unguarded. She leaned toward him when the saxophone dipped low, her knee brushing his under the table, familiar as breath. Liam felt lighter with every note, every glance. It was terrifying how easily it came back.

The drive home had been electric.

The city blurred past the windshield as if the world itself were rushing them forward. His hand rested on her upper thigh, casual at first, then deliberate—his thumb tracing slow, absentminded arcs over bare skin. Amina didn’t comment. She didn’t need to. She only angled her leg closer, her fingers drumming against the door in time with the music still echoing in their heads.

For a fleeting, reckless moment, Liam felt twenty-four again. Untethered. Certain.

The house greeted them with laughter. Their laughter.

They stumbled through the front door, Amina half-draped over his arm, her heels abandoned somewhere near the threshold. Liam laughed too—not the polite, carefully measured chuckle he offered {{user}}, but a deep, unrestrained sound that shook loose something in his chest and vibrated through the floorboards.

Neither of them noticed the figure curled on the couch. The blanket. The cooling Pad Thai.

“You’re going to wake your neighbors,” Amina teased, her voice bright with champagne and memory. There was no concern there. No quiet calculation. No tuition problems hovering in the margins of her words.

Liam pulled her closer, his mouth brushing her ear. “The only one at risk of waking the neighbors,” he murmured, smiling, “will be you.”

She laughed again—soft, delighted, knowing.

“I still can’t believe you kept that,” Amina said as they made their way upstairs, gesturing vaguely toward the glow spilling from the hallway. “The hideous neon sign.”

“It’s vintage,” Liam shot back, warmth coating every syllable. “And it reminds me of the apartment on 4th Street.”

Their apartment.

He reached the bedroom first, loosening his tie with one hand, movements loose and unhurried. His face was flushed—not with stress, not with obligation, but with adrenaline. He looked younger like this. Unburdened. Not a father juggling schedules and expectations, but a man who remembered how to want.

Amina followed him in, kicking off her heels by the door with the effortless familiarity of someone who had done it a thousand times before. She didn’t pause to look around the room. She didn’t need to. Her attention was fixed entirely on him.

He crossed the space between them in two strides, fingers curling into her waist, his lips skimming along her jaw. She sighed—soft, instinctive—as he guided her backward, down onto the bed he would later share with {{user}}. The mattress dipped under their combined weight. The room felt too small suddenly, too charged.

His fingers found the zipper at the back of her dress, tugging it down inch by inch. He didn’t hear the footsteps. The emerald fabric slipped from Amina’s shoulders just as a sharp gasp sliced through the room. Liam looked up—irritation flashing first, quick and reflexive.

“{{user}},” he said. His voice was terrifyingly calm. The air went cold, the romance collapsing in on itself like a punctured lung. He didn’t ask how long they’d been there. He didn’t offer an explanation. He didn’t even stand. He looked at {{user}} the way one might look at a stranger who had wandered somewhere they didn’t belong.

“What,” he asked coolly, “are you doing in my house?”