Chapter 5 Ant
FIVE
ANT
When I get to pick-up, he comes through the gates with a red cellophane bundle clutched in one hand and the air of someone trying not to look pleased.
“This is from Ruby,” he says, quick and casual, like if he talks fast enough, I won’t hear him.
“Ah,” I say, keeping my voice neutral. “Your first Valentine?”
“Dad.” He rolls his eyes and shoves the bundle into his backpack. “It’s not like that. She just likes my handball serve.”
“Right. Must be the handball,” I say, biting back a grin.
Noah appears right behind him, waving something across the crowd. Eli follows at a more measured pace, sunglasses hooked in the front of his shirt, the late-afternoon sun catching in his hair.
“Happy Valentine’s,” he says, holding up a foil-wrapped heart between two fingers. “From the Year 2 teacher. Payment for fixing the squeaky library door.”
“A romantic gesture if ever there was one,” I say.
“Better than flowers,” he replies, straight-faced, and for half a second, our eyes catch and hold, just long enough for a flicker to spark in my chest before the boys take off towards the handball court.
Eli watches them go, then glances back at me. “Big plans tonight?”
“Single-dad Valentine’s,” I say. “Which is to say, burgers on the barbie and a movie that’s probably animated.”
He grins. “Living the dream.”
It’s nothing more than an easy exchange, but it stays with me longer than it should—the chocolate heart he ended up giving me, the grin, the feeling that maybe Valentine’s isn’t entirely wasted on other people.
By the time the first jacaranda petals start polka-dotting the gutters purple a few weeks later, I’m finally remembering names without peeking at email signatures.
Work feels less like a revolving door of introductions and more like…
mine. I know where the decent coffee is, which printer jams if you look at it funny, and which manager needs a joke before a status update.
I’m easing back into hybrid days; the plan is to go remote again soon, two or three days a week like before the move.
For now, I do drop-offs, head to the office, and still make pick-up most afternoons.
When I can’t, Eli’s there, and when he can’t, I’m there. It’s unspoken and easy.
Henry’s thriving. He comes home with skinned knees and stories he tells so fast, he forgets to breathe.
He says “Noah and I” a lot, like they’re a unit.
Which they are. We’ve had a handful of after-school hangouts already—some at our place, some at theirs—and though we’ve both technically reached the point where we trust the kids together without the other adult hovering, neither of us has taken that option.
If I’m honest, I just like the hovering when it involves Eli.
Sitting under his sister’s big umbrella while the kids run amok.
Watching him laugh at Noah’s words. The slow ease of it.
Last weekend we took the kids to the park, and I met his sister properly—Mel, with her dry humour and soft fierceness—and I left thinking, Maybe this could be real.
And then I also left thinking, Don’t screw it up.
Wanting more is a dangerous little ember.
I tell myself the kids come first; their friendship is not collateral for my late-thirties crush.
That should be enough to keep me steady.
It mostly is. But wanting to see Eli one-on-one—no rake, no school bell, no chorus of “Uncle Eli!”—sits right under my skin, bright as a pilot light.
It’s Saturday arvo now, warm but not oppressive, the sort of Sunshine Coast day when the air tastes faintly of salt. I steer down their street with the windows cracked, Henry kicked back in the passenger seat, clutching his overnight bag like it might try to escape.
“You got everything?” I ask, a ritual question I will ask three more times before I leave.
He taps his bag. “PJs, toothbrush, spare socks, Switch, charger, the good chips.”
“The good chips?” I side-eye him. “You mean the chips I bought for my secret stash and hid at the back of the pantry?”
He tries for innocence. “I would never.”
“Uh-huh.”
He grins out the window. “Ava’s got a friend coming too.”
“Even teams,” I say. “Very diplomatic.”
He watches a pair of lorikeets skitter along a power line. “Do you think we’ll be able to play some Roblox before we have to go to bed?”
“Maybe,” I say, keeping my voice. “But remember, manners first, chaos later. And Mel’s rules.”
He recites with me, mocking my tone. “Be polite, say please and thank you, help clean up, don’t hog the console, no wrestling, listen to Noah’s mum, don’t be a pest.”
“You’re a pest,” I say, which earns me the desired snort.
We pull into Mel’s driveway, shaded by the same poinciana that turns their front verandah into an outdoor room. The house looks breezy and lived-in, a pair of kids’ sneakers abandoned near the steps. Somewhere inside, a dog barks twice and is immediately shushed.
“Last words,” I say, turning off the engine.
Henry rolls his eyes but waits. This is our thing.
“Be on your best behaviour,” I say. “Have fun. If anything’s too much, or weird, or you’re not sure, you call me. I will pick you up in a heartbeat. No questions, no guilt.”
His face sobers; he knows exactly why I say it like that. Late pick-ups, broken promises, always-sorry texts from an airport lounge—the little cuts that add up. I promised myself I’d be the opposite of that, loudly and forever.
“I know,” he says, voice small but steady. “You always do.”
“Always,” I echo and ruffle his hair until he bats me away.
The screen door creaks, and Mel waves us in with a tea towel slung over her shoulder. “G’day! Come on, you. Noah’s been vibrating since breakfast.”
Henry barely remembers to hug me before he vanishes down the hall, Noah’s voice rising to meet his. Their footsteps thump towards what I think is the back room, where the Xbox lives and small wars are waged.
I’m left with air where my kid just was and a quiet I wasn’t expecting.
“Coffee?” Mel asks, as if she’s read my mind and decided it needs caffeine.
“I’d love one. Thanks,” I say.
“S’just a plunger,” she says, ushering me in. “We don’t do anything fancy unless Eli’s in a mood and gets the moka pot out.”
“Plunger is perfect,” I say, and mean it.
Mel’s kitchen is the kind of tidy that comes from ritual, not perfectionism.
Fruit bowl with real fruit, a kid’s after-school timetable stuck on the fridge with a magnet shaped like a koala, school notes corralled in a basket.
A vase of frangipani sits by the window, floating blooms that turn the air sweet.
The benchtop is warm from the sun, and a part of me unspools another inch.
We dance the domestic two-step—she grinds beans, and I reach for mugs. She pours water, and I hunt for the sugar. It’s easy in the way good kitchens are, where you can see where everything might be and you’re right more often than not.
“Long black?” she asks.
“Yep. Thanks.”
She glances up at me through her lashes like we’re sharing a secret. “Milk’s in the fridge if you want to ruin it.”
“Not today,” I say, and accept the mug when she hands it over. The coffee’s strong and clean, the kind that nudges your brain into a higher gear without slapping it.
We stand shoulder to shoulder at the bench, watching a pair of mynas squabble on the fence.
“So,” she says, light as a paper plane, “tell me about Henry’s other parent.”
I blink, then smile. The way she says it—other parent—lands soft. “My ex-husband,” I say. “Owen. Academic. Smart as hell, forgets bin night exists.”
Her mouth quirks. “Men.”
I laugh. “Allegedly.”
“How long…?” she prompts, gentle.
“We split a year ago. Amicable on paper. He’s in Vancouver for a year—uni gig. He was a good partner in a lot of ways,” I add because that’s true, “but he wasn’t great at showing up for Henry when it counted. Scheduling, small things. You know how kids remember the little things.”
“Always,” she says, and it carries the weight of a woman who has done the remembering for everyone. “You don’t have to explain any of it to me.”
I shrug, grateful anyway. “Well, I appreciate your phrasing rather than simply landing on ‘mum’ without even considering other possibilities. It usually ends with me being looked at like I’ve tricked them.”
She huffs. “People love to make your life their puzzle. For what it’s worth, I went on three dates last year with a bloke who thought being allergic to responsibility was a personality type, so….” She clinks her mug to mine. “To men, and the eternal quest to find a good one.”
I clink back. “Cheers to the endangered species.”
She leans her hip against the bench and studies me, a little catlike, a little conspiratorial. “Eli’s had the same problem,” she says, oh-so-casual, like she’s commenting on the weather. “Bad timing. Wrong men. Or maybe right men at the wrong time.”
There it is, slid across the counter between the sugar bowl and the mugs: her brother’s sexuality, declared and gift-wrapped. I try not to grin like a teenager.
“Makes two of us,” I say. “The wrong time part, not the wrong men. Well. Maybe both.”
Her mouth twitches, and she looks entirely too pleased with herself. “He’s annoyingly picky, you know. Pretends he’s above it all. But he wants the real thing or nothing.”
“Does he now?” I aim for neutral and hitting intrigued.
“He does,” she responds and takes an unapologetic sip. “He’ll murder me for saying this, but he’s a softie. He bakes muffins shaped like dinosaurs for the preppies when they win a class award. And he built Ava a bookshelf with a secret compartment because she thinks she’s a spy.”
I picture his hands smoothing oil over timber, his head bent, that curve at the corner of his mouth when he’s focusing. Something expands in my chest and makes space for a possibility I’ve been careful not to name.
“Sounds like a catch,” I say.