I used to judge couples who seemed content living separately. Now I understand that when you are truly free to be yourself with a partner, where you sleep is secondary. What truly matters is where you choose to show up and how you spend the hours you share while you're awake.
That’s what counts.
At least…that’s how it feels here.
Just as I take my first sip of coffee, Eli leans down and kisses me. It’s familiar.
“I’m going to shower and get myself together,” he says. “We can head into town for breakfast. Then maybe you can tell me what you’re cooking up for the meeting with Drake and Lara on the way?”
I grin. “I’d love to.”
Bears Can Be Dangerous
Eli
It’s Thursday, and on a normal day, I’d be headed into the office. But since Max is here, and I want to make sure she has all the girl stuff she needs for this weekend, I decided to take her on a little shopping trip. Like playing sick to stay home from school.
We’re driving to the city, the sun filtering through the pines and Max is quiet beside me, curled up in her seat, scrolling her phone. I glance at her, and some strange part of me rests easier when she’s near. Even if it’s just sitting next to me in this truck, not saying a word. Or when she’s sleeping yards away on the other side of my house.
I like her there.
I like her with me.
I clear my throat, my voice a little rougher than I mean it to be. “I want to stop by my mom’s on the way. She’s got a few things that need fixing. Won’t take long.”
Max looks up from her phone. “I like your mom.”
I glance her way, a slow smirk pulling at my lips. “Yeah? Pretty sure she likes you too.”
And she does. My mother has never been the type of woman who believes no one is good enough for her sons. She doesn't measure people that way. She has always used a simpler metric: whether someone makes us sink or makes us soar—whether they pull out our best, or our worst.
Vanessa definitely made Elliot worse, and initially, my mother couldn’t stand to be around her after what she did. But I can't quite grasp why her attitude toward Vanessa seems to have softened lately. Perhaps I'm simply not around enough to understand how she was able to forgive so easily. I'm trying not to ruin her good spirits, so I smile through the updates she gives me about my brother and avoid as many conversations about them as possible.
Especially now that there’s a baby on the way.
That is going to be one big-head ass baby.
My father wasn’t around much. We didn’t have a typical father-son relationship; he never made it to my debate matches or Black History Bee competitions. But whenever he was home, we talked.
He was a business consultant who traveled the world solving supply chain issues. He’d tell me about how wasteful these companies were and how his solutions made a global impact. That’s where my passion for sustainability started. My dad didn’t teach me about the birds and the bees, but he taught me what it meant to protect their habitats.
Elliot wasn’t really interested, not the way I was. But still, it didn’t stop us from being inseparable. When my father was away, it was the three of us—my mother, Elliot, and me—against the world. We were best friends in our own unique way. He had the confidence and swagger, I had the grades. Yet, ourcompetition wasn't destructive. We constantly challenged each other, making us both sharper and better.
And while the competition between me and my brother has never been over a woman, it feels like he’s choosing a side because of one. Like he’s choosing to keep our family fractured because he can’t see the truth about the woman he’s climbed into bed with.
I glance over again and smile to myself. Because none of that seems to matter with her here. I’m better when Max is around. Even when she’s clear across the house, tucked away in the guest wing, there’s this…settling that happens in me. Like something finally clicks into place. And I hate how much I’ve started to depend on it. How I wake up already expecting that feeling to be there.
What if I stopped assuming I already knew how this ends? Stopped reaching for self-preservation like it’s the only move I know. What if I didn’t manage the fallout before it ever happened, and didn’t preemptively let her go?
What if I slowed down and let myself fall for her without mapping the escape route first? What if—just once—I was vulnerable enough to ask her to stay? To be my partner, not just in this pitch. Not just in the quiet, private spaces we keep to ourselves.
I want to hear her call me her Bear. Again.
And again.
For as long as we both—
Shit.
