Jade
Phoenix is already home when I get back. His car is in the drive and the front door is unlocked and I can hear him in the kitchen before I see him. I stand in the hallway for a moment with my keys still in my hand and my heart going faster.
I've been carrying this secret around for a week. Tonight, I want to put it down.
Phoenix looks up when I come into the kitchen. He's in the clothes he wore to the office, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, and his face has a quiet focus.
"Hey," he says, pulling me close.
"Hey."
He waits. He's been waiting for days and he knows I know it and he doesn't push, just stands at the counter and looks at me with those dark eyes and gives me the room.
"I need to tell you something," I say. "All of it. Tonight."
He sets down whatever he was holding. "Okay."
I sit at the kitchen table. He sits across from me, forearms on the surface, hands loose, giving me his full attention. The kitchen smells like the coffee he made an hour ago.
"There was a man at your parents' BBQ," I say. "James Dupree. When your father introduced him, I heard the name and I couldn't move."
Phoenix is still.
"My mother said it once. I was sixteen,” I continue, keeping my gaze somewhere past him.
“She said he didn't deserve to know I existed. When I tried to talk to her about it again, she refused.” I pause and take a deep breath.
"I lay awake that night while you slept and went through every detail.
The name. The way he smiled at the gate. "
"I texted her the next morning. She replied with Don't do this, Jade." I look away. "She didn't say it wasn't true."
I tell him everything. Olive's call. Hawaii. The café. All of it in order, without softening any of it.
Phoenix listens without interrupting. When I finish, he's quiet for a long moment.
"He thought I died," I say. "Sydney told him there were complications. That the baby didn't make it. He's believed that for twenty-six years."
Phoenix doesn’t move.
I crack my knuckles. "That's everything. That's all of it."
Then he says, "Did my father know?”
Not does he know. Did. Past tense.
"Yes," I say. "Olive told me. He's known for a long time."
Phoenix gets up from the table. He crosses to the window and stands with his back to me, hands in his pockets, looking out at the dark water.
I've learned to read him in silhouette—the tension he carries in his neck, the jaw in profile.
He's not calm. He's holding something under enough pressure that staying still requires everything he has.
He stands there for a long time. I don't fill the silence. I've learned that from Olive.
When he turns back around his face has changed. Not angry. His jaw is set, his eyes doing the thing they do when he's already three moves ahead and hasn't decided which one to make.
"James Dupree," he says. Not a question.
"Yes."
"He's been at my parents' table since I was twelve years old." He says it evenly, saying it like a man only now understanding what it means. "I have known that man my entire life."
"I know."
"My father's oldest friend." He looks at me. "And my father knew who you were. Before I brought you home."
His jaw tightens once. He controls it. Then he's still again.
"I know who he is." His voice is quiet. He looks at me for a long moment. The kitchen is going dim and neither of us has moved to turn on a lamp. "How long have you known."
"Since the BBQ. I was certain by that night."
"A week." He nods slowly, not an accusation. "You needed to understand it first."
"Yes."
He comes back to the table. Doesn't sit down. Instead, he stands with his hands on the back of the chair, looking down at the surface between us. His knuckles are white against the wood.
I reach across and put my hand over his. He turns his hand under mine and holds it. His grip is tight. He exhales once through his nose, slow and measured, and I feel the tension move up through his hand and into his arm.
"What did he say?" Phoenix asks. "James. At the café."
"That he'd follow my lead. That he wasn't going to ask anything from me." I pause. "He said he'd believed for twenty-six years that I didn’t make it."
His grip tightens fractionally.
"It didn't sound fake," I say.
Phoenix is quiet for a moment. "It wouldn't be," he says. "James has always been exactly what he looks like. That's the thing about him." He says it evenly, like a fact he's known for years.
"Phoenix." I wait until he looks at me. "I'm not telling you what to do with this. I'm just telling you."
He holds my gaze. "I know." He straightens and releases my hand. He moves to the window again, just needing the distance.
The room has gone dark. I haven't turned on the lights and neither has he. Outside the coastline lights are beginning to appear in both directions, small and steady, the sailing ships on the water moving so slowly they look fixed.
"My father knew," he says. Not to me, exactly.
"Yes."
He turns from the window. His face is sealed again, fully controlled, the version of him that decides things and doesn't show them until he has. His eyes are wet at the corners, just barely, and he blinks once and it's gone.
"I need to talk to him," he says.
"I know."
"Not tonight." He looks at me. "Tonight, I need to sit with this."
"Okay."
He crosses to the table and stands behind me and puts both hands on my shoulders. I feel the weight of them, the warmth, the slight pressure of his thumbs against the back of my neck. He bends and presses his lips to the top of my head and stays there for a moment.
I put my hand up and cover one of his. We stand still together for some time, not wanting to pull away.
He straightens eventually. Goes to the counter and turns on the light above the stove, the low warm one, and starts making dinner without asking if I'm hungry.
Phoenix's back is to me. His shoulders haven't dropped since he stood up from the table. Neither have mine.