“I am calm.”
Roman passed behind him. “He is not.”
By late afternoon, the backyard had settled into the kind of chaos that made my chest feel full. Kids ran around Tiny, who believed every child was his personal assignment. Someone had started music. Owen was losing at cornhole and claiming wind interference despite the air being still. Tessa sat under the umbrella with Olivia and Vanessa, the three of them talking in a way that looked easy from a distance and complicated up close.
Jace kept finding me.
Not dramatically. Not like we needed to prove something. His hand brushed my lower back when he passed. His shoulder pressed against mine while we listened to Roman complain about playoff officiating. When I stood at the grill, he hooked two fingers through my belt loop for three seconds, then let go.
Benny noticed the third time and groaned. “Do you two have a minimum contact requirement?”
Jace didn’t miss a beat. “Yes. It’s in the conflict management plan.”
Tessa looked over her sunglasses. “It is absolutely not.”
“Addendum,” Jace said.
I put a hand on the back of his neck and squeezed once. He quieted under it, not submissive in front of everyone, not performing, just steadying. His eyes flicked to mine, and there he was. Still quick. Still restless. Still too full of feeling for one body some days.
Still here.
As evening cooled, people began leaving in slow clusters. Hugs. Leftovers packed into containers. Tiny collapsing dramatically on the grass as if he had hosted the entire event himself.
Jace and I stood on the patio after the last car pulled away. The yard was a mess. Cups, napkins, one abandoned toy truck, three half-empty chip bowls. Inside, the kitchen would be worse.
“We should clean,” Jace said.
“We will.”
He leaned into my side. “In five minutes?”
“In five minutes.”
His hand slid into mine.
The sky over Denver had gone pink at the edges. He was quiet long enough that I looked down at him.
“What?” I asked.
He rubbed his thumb over my knuckle. “Nothing bad.”
“All right.”
“I was just thinking I used to want the future to arrive with instructions. Like if I could see every step, I wouldn’t screw it up.”
I waited.
He breathed out, almost a laugh. “Still wouldn’t hate instructions.”
“We have calendars.”
“We have Tessa.”
“We have your angry onion list.”
He smiled, then tipped his head against my shoulder. “Yeah. We’ve got systems.”
Not cures. Not guarantees. Systems. Work. Apologies when we needed them. Boundaries that held. Love that had learned to be patient without becoming passive.
