It was a low, intimate laugh, the kind people do when they are leaning into someone unseen and wanting to be wanted back. The study door was cracked. Through the opening, blue light from Brian’s laptop glowed across the floor. Mason heard it too and looked up at you, confused.
You guided him back toward your room first. Fever before fury. Always. You got him medicine, water, a cool cloth, and the old dinosaur thermometer he still trusted more than the digital one because dinosaurs, he maintained at age eight, were wiser than batteries. Then, once his breathing deepened and his small body finally gave in to sleep, you went downstairs.
Brian was in the study with his phone on speaker and his laptop half closed.
He had moved quickly when he heard your steps. Not quickly enough.
A woman’s voice had just finished saying, “You know you’d be happier if you stopped pretending.”
Then silence.
When you opened the door fully, Brian looked up with the exact expression guilty men always wear for one split second before they remember they prefer offense to shame.
“What are you doing up?”
You stared at him.
His phone screen lit briefly, and you saw the name before he turned it facedown.
Tessa.
Tessa Morgan. Twenty-eight. Project coordinator. Glossy hair, perfect posture, liked every one of Brian’s LinkedIn posts within thirty seconds of them going live. You had met her twice at company events. She had called you “so grounded” in a tone women use when they mean decorative.
“Mason has a fever,” you said.
Brian blinked. “Okay.”
That was it.
