“I’m just asking,” she said, a hint of a pout in her voice.
“Only on the weekends,” I admitted. “I get out sometimes. Walk around a bit. But you know me—I’m not exactly the exploring type on my own.”
Elena huffed softly. “You’re just lazy, that’s all. It could actually be fun, you know—getting out, seeing the place.”
“You could come here,” I said, before I could stop myself.
She didn’t react to that. Not directly. But I caught the subtle shift in her expression. “Don’t overwork yourself, okay?” she said instead. “You tend to forget to eat when you get busy.”
It caught me off guard, because it felt like before, back when everything between us had still been easy, and for some reason, that made my throat tighten. “I don’t skip,” I lied.
Her eyes narrowed. “Uh-huh.”
I looked away for half a second. “Sometimes.”
“Exactly.” Her voice softened, but it didn’t lose its firmness. “I know how you are when you’re busy. You’ll run on coffee and ego until your body forces you to stop.”
I let out a quiet, reluctant laugh. “Ego?”
“Yes. Ego.”
My mouth curved faintly despite myself. “Noted.” Then I cleared my throat, grounding myself. “Thanks,” I said quietly. “For reminding me.”
She blinked, like she hadn’t expected that. Then her expression shifted—small, almost imperceptible. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Whatever.”
I almost smiled.
“I should go,” she said after a moment.
I nodded. “Yeah. Get some rest.”
She hesitated, then said, “You too.”
The call ended, and the screen went black in my palm. I stared at it for a moment before checking the time.
06:24.
The room was quiet, but for once it didn’t feel suffocating. It felt calm.
Maybe, slowly, we were learning how to speak again, not as husband and wife, but as two people who could still be a safe place for each other when the world got too heavy.
I still wanted her back. But wanting her didn’t give me the right to reach. Not yet.
I took a sip of coffee and grimaced when I realized it had already gone cold, then set the mug down and pushed myself to my feet.
Time to work.
CHAPTER 39
Elena
Friday night.
And I was at a bar.
That fact alone felt slightly ridiculous if I thought about it for too long. Not because I hated bars—I didn’t. I used to like them. A lot. But after pregnancy, childbirth, and a year of measuring life in nap schedules and bedtime routines, places like this started to feel distant. Not forbidden. Just unfamiliar. Like an old dress that still fit, but hadn’t been worn in a while.
The bar was warm and dimly lit, the kind of place where conversations blended into low laughter and clinking glasses, where nobody looked twice at a woman sitting comfortably in her own skin.
