I tilt my head. “What does the other night have to do with being better parents to Tate?”
Her eyes darken, and she runs a frustrated hand through her hair. “Because I can’t do this again, Corbin. I can’t sit with him at night while he cries for you like he did the first year after we split. I can’t be the one wiping his tears and making excuses for why his dad isn’t there.” Her voice cracks, just a little, and it guts me. “It nearly broke me.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
I thought I knew what our divorce did to her. I thought I was doing the right thing back then—letting her go so she could be free. But sitting here, seeing the way her pain still lingers beneath the surface, I realize something I hadn’t before.
Maybe I didn’t set her free.
Maybe I just left her drowning.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and for once, I mean it in every way that matters. “I didn’t know.”
Her eyes glisten with unshed tears. “Of course, you didn’t know.”
“You should have told me,” I exhale, dragging a hand through my hair.
Jules wraps her arms around herself, a shield against the weight of our past. “Maybe. But it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“We’ll figure this out,” I tell her, determined.
“There’s nothing to figure out,” she counters, the words steady, final. “We are co-parents to a son who is struggling right now. Can we just…” She trails off, her thoughts slipping somewhere I can’t follow.
I see the walls going up in real time. Walls that say there is no future here. Not for us. Not beyond this. Two people who once meant everything to each other, now just trying to learn how to coexist after breaking each other’s hearts.
“If Wednesday night dinners are too hard,” I begin.
“No,” she says, jaw tightening. “Tate needs us. What I’m saying, Corbin, is that we have to be on the same page. There won’t be another slip-up.”
The message is crystal clear. I can sit across from her in a booth, pretend the past doesn’t ache between us. I can make dinner, share a table every Wednesday night, pretend we’re something we’re not. But that’s all this will ever be.
“Agreed,” I force out, though it lacks conviction.
Tate barrels toward us, his arm stretched high over his head. “He gave me a snake skin!” he shouts, excitement vibrating off him.
I fight back the lump in my throat as Jules musters a smile.
“Let’s see it,” Jules says as she slides out of the booth and crouches down beside him.
For a fraction of a second, she glances at me, her guard slipping just enough for me to see the truth. The other night wasn’t nothing to her. But she can’t afford another heartbreak. Not from me.
And for some reason, it feels like I’m losing her all over again.
Chapter Five
Jules
Sarge watches me like I’m about to shatter right in front of him. I’m not, for the record. I’m just… processing.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, throwing every ounce of frustration into the ball of dough in front of me. Push, roll, knead. Repeat.
He chuckles. “You keep saying that.”
“I’m fine,” I say again. “Seriously.”
Sarge exhales, unimpressed. “How did breakfast go?”
My lips press together. “You saw.”
