Five
The living room is a holdout against the rest of the house—no toys, no crumbs, the only place where the original carpet still shows, tan and perfectly forgettable.
The couch is low-slung and modern, meant to be childproof, which really just means it’s heavy enough that when Jason sits, it barely shifts.
The TV is on, muted—closed captions crawling across a drama no one is watching. The air still smells faintly of lemon from Brielle’s earlier attack on a rogue juice box, the chemical brightness layered over laundry and old coffee.
She’s cocooned at one end of the couch, phone in one hand, blanket in the other. Knees tucked up, blue joggers stretched thin, scrolling with the kind of focus reserved for last-minute tax prep.
It’s the hour where the house feels too big for two people.
Jason stands at the kitchen island—close enough to touch, far enough to feel separate. He folds laundry with quiet precision: snap, flatten, crease. Repeat. The only sound is fabric shifting and the low hum of the fridge, the captions flickering on the TV like a conversation no one is having.
Neither of them speaks.
Not for a while.
Brielle only looks up when his rhythm changes—slows, just slightly, like something in the room has shifted.
He picks up one of her shirts. Red. Worn thin at the seams. He turns it in his hands, reading the faded logo like it might tell him something new, then folds it smaller than it needs to be.
He’s the one who says it.
“You don’t look at me anymore.”
Not a question.
Not sharp.
Just… a fact.
Her thumb stalls on the screen.
Her pulse kicks up, sudden and bright.
She tries to laugh. “I look at you all the time.”
Jason doesn’t argue.
Doesn’t even look at her.
He sets the shirt down, leans forward, palms braced against the counter.
“Yeah,” he says. “But not like you used to.”
And then he goes back to folding.
Like that’s all he needed to say.
The line hangs in the air—thick, unavoidable.
Brielle stares at her phone, but the screen doesn’t make sense anymore. The images blur—other people’s lives, other women’s curated chaos.
It doesn’t hold her.
Not tonight.
She shifts under the blanket, studies him in profile.
There are more lines at his temples now. Around his mouth. She watches his jaw flex—subtle, controlled—when he’s thinking too hard.
He never used to be the one to say it first.
That was her.
But lately—
lately, he says things like this.
And it makes her want to crawl out of her own skin.
She drops the phone. It bounces off the armrest, hits the carpet with a dull thud.
“You mean I don’t look at you during sex,” she says, too fast, like if she doesn’t get it out now she won’t say it at all.
Jason straightens, then lets out a quiet laugh.
“I mean in general,” he says. A beat. “But yeah. There too.”
He doesn’t soften it.
She wants to push back.
Say it’s stress. Fatigue. Normal.
Say it’s what happens when life gets full and there’s no room left for anything sharp.
But she can’t.
Because lately—since the Pact, since that night, since she wrote the truth down and sealed it—she’s been seeing too much.
And he is too.
She pulls her knees in tighter.
“So what’s your plan?” she says, aiming for glib and missing. “Intervention? Eye-contact rehab? You gonna send me articles about how marriages die without it?”
He doesn’t take it.
Finishes the towel in his hands. Sets it aside.
Then turns to face her.
“I just miss it,” he says.
Simple.
“I miss you looking at me like you wanted to know what I was thinking.”
That lands.
She rolls her eyes—but it’s reflex, not defense.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
He considers that.
“Nothing,” he says. “Probably.”
A pause.
“Just… if you ever want to, I’m here.”
Not waiting.
Not asking.
Just—
there.
And that’s the problem.
He always is.
The laundry basket is empty now. Jason slides it aside, crosses the room barefoot, and disappears into the hallway.
No goodnight.
They don’t really do that anymore.
Brielle stays where she is, letting the silence stretch into the space he left behind.
She breathes in. Holds it.
Tries to remember the last time she actually looked at him.
Not out of habit.
Not as a check-in.
But because she wanted to.
The memory doesn’t hold.
It slips away when she reaches for it.
She pulls the blanket higher, presses her face into her arm. Her eyes burn, but nothing falls.
On the TV, someone mouths something dramatic—an apology, maybe, or a confession written by someone who’s never folded anyone else’s underwear at midnight.
The subtitles flicker past, meaningless.
In the reflection of the window, she sees herself layered over it.
A ghost in someone else’s story.
It’s not enough.
She wants more.
But all she has right now is the truth he left behind:
The house is quiet.
And the air has never felt more full.
?
Time doesn’t pass. It thickens.
In the living room, the hours gather in the corners, pooling behind the couch, pressing the night closer to the bones of the house.
Brielle stays where she is, wrapped in the blanket, long after Jason’s footsteps fade down the hall. Her phone vibrates against her palm—group chats, reminders, noise—but she doesn’t move. Naomi’s text sits at the top, the period at the end of got home. heavier than anything else.
The house is so quiet she can hear the kitchen clock ticking.
She thinks about getting up. Getting water. Going to bed and pretending to sleep.
She doesn’t.
She lets the silence settle into her.
She doesn’t hear Jason come back.
She feels it—the shift in the room, the subtle displacement of air. He stands in the archway, arms folded, gaze unfocused, like he’s listening for something that hasn’t happened yet.
She doesn’t look at him.
Pulls the blanket higher, lets her eyes drift to the wall of photos—the curated version of their life. In half of them, she’s not even looking at the camera.
Jason clears his throat.
“Can I say something weird?”
His voice is low. Careful.
Brielle tilts her head. “Since when do you ask permission?”
It almost sounds like a joke.
He crosses the room slowly, takes the far end of the couch. Leaves space between them.
“I saw the way he looked at you.”
She stills.
He doesn’t need to say the name.
But he does anyway.
“Leo.”
Her instinct is to laugh.
It doesn’t come.
“That was years ago,” she says.
It wasn’t.
She remembers it too clearly—the way Leo watched her, not invasive, not shy. Just… attentive. Present.
Jason nods slightly. “It’s not really about him.”
A beat.
“It’s about the way you looked back.”
That lands deeper.
She laughs then—but it’s thin, defensive. “So what, this is where you get jealous? We fight about something that didn’t even happen?”
“I’m not jealous,” he says.
No hesitation.
No edge.
Just true.
“I’m not mad either.”
That unsettles her more.
He leans forward, forearms on his knees, hands clasped.
“I just keep thinking about something you said.”
She frowns. “What?”
“That you don’t want to wait for permission anymore.”
Her breath catches.
“I’ve been watching you,” he continues, quieter now. “Trying to figure out what that looks like for you.”
The room tightens.
“And?” she asks.
“And I think you’re still asking,” he says.
“From me. From everything.”
She opens her mouth—
He lifts a hand, stopping her.
“You’re not doing anything wrong,” he says. “That’s not what this is.”
He leans back, runs a hand over his face.
“I just… see you holding something back.”
Silence.
Then:
“What would happen if you didn’t?”
Her pulse spikes.
She doesn’t answer.
He turns toward her fully now.
“If there’s a moment,” he says slowly, choosing each word, “where you actually want something—where it’s real, not just habit or obligation…”
He pauses.
Watches her.
“I don’t want you to have to hide it.”
That’s the shift.
Not explosive.
But unmistakable.
She swallows. “You’re my husband.”
It sounds smaller than she meant.
“Yeah,” he says.
A faint, tired smile.
“And I don’t want to be the reason you feel like you have to shrink.”
That lands.
Hard.
Her mind flashes—Scottsdale, the bar, the way he watched her then, not stopping her, not pulling her away.
He steps closer.
Not touching.
Close enough to change the air.
“If that moment ever comes,” he says, softer now, “I’d rather be part of it than something you have to hide from.”
Her heart stutters.
Her body reacts before she understands why.
“And maybe,” he adds, quieter still, almost to himself, “I’d want to see you in it.”
There it is.
Not blunt.
Not performative.
But undeniable.
The meaning hangs between them.
She stares at him.
Everything in her body goes tight—then loose.
“You’re full of shit,” she says, but there’s no bite.
He shakes his head once.
“I’m not.”
A long silence.
“Why?” she asks.
Because that’s the real question.
He doesn’t hesitate this time.
“Because I want all of you,” he says. “Not just the parts that fit into this.”
The room hums.
Not quiet anymore.
Alive.
She can’t think.
Can’t sort it.
Can only feel the shift—something opening that doesn’t close again.
He steps back.
Gives her space.
“You don’t have to answer,” he says. “Not now. Not ever.”
Then he turns, walking toward the hallway.
Pauses once.
“If you ever want to talk about it—I’m here.”
And then he’s gone.
The house settles again.
Same room. Same couch. Same silence.
But it’s different now.
Brielle sits there, pulse racing, skin alive, the edges of her life no longer where she thought they were.
The permission sits in her chest like something breathing.
She doesn’t know what she’s going to do with it.
She just knows she can’t unknow it.
Mom Club Confidential
Brielle
Hypothetical question.
Rachel
Oh no.
Claire
I’m lighting a candle already.
Naomi
This better not involve glitter again.
Brielle
What if… for research purposes… one man wasn’t enough?
Harper
I leave you people alone for two hours.
Rachel
Is this cardio related or criminal related?
Brielle
Birthday related.
Naomi
Oh.
Claire
Oh??
Harper
I need wine.
?
The house is dark, the hallway hushed. Every door is closed against the cold, even the ones she never remembers shutting.
In the bedroom, Brielle slips out of her sweats but leaves the tank top on, climbing under the covers like she’s carrying something she shouldn’t.
Jason’s side of the bed is a tangle—pillows, the old quilt they argue over every winter. The window is cracked just enough to let in dry air that pulls at her lips.
She lies on her back, arms at her sides, not touching him.
The ceiling is blank, but she sees it anyway—the conversation from the living room, his words, the shape of what he offered.
He’s awake.
She knows by the way he breathes—too even, too careful. The mattress holds a quiet tension, like he’s not turned away, not shutting her out. Just… waiting.
She wants to ask if he meant it.
What happens if I say yes?
The question sits between them, unspoken.
Jason turns toward her. The bed shifts under his weight. His arm crosses the space, his hand settling at her hip—light, certain.
He doesn’t pull her in.
He just stays there.
Grounding.
After a while, he speaks.
“Still thinking about it?”
She nods.
“I don’t know what to do with that kind of permission.”
He leans in, presses his mouth to her shoulder, just above the strap. The kiss is slow, unhurried. His beard drags against her skin, rough enough to register.
“I see you,” it says.
“I’m not afraid.”
He doesn’t rush past it.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he murmurs. “Or decide anything. Not tonight.”
His thumb makes a small, steady circle at her hip.
Comfort, not direction.
“But if it ever happens—if you want it—I’ll know. You won’t have to explain it.”
A breath catches in her chest.
“You’re sure?” she asks.
He takes a second.
Then tucks her hair behind her ear, thumb tracing the edge of it the way he does when she’s off-balance.
“I know you,” he says. “You’re not subtle when you want something.”
It should feel like a tease.
It doesn’t.
It lands like permission.
She turns toward him.
Really looks.
There’s something familiar in his expression—softer, younger. The version of him from before everything got organized into schedules and systems.
There’s sadness there.
But it isn’t defeat.
It’s acceptance.
“I’m scared,” she says.
He pulls her in fully this time, arm firm around her waist, hand at the back of her head.
“I know,” he says into her hair. “I am too.”
A beat.
“But I’d rather be scared with you than bored without you.”
That lands.
Deep.
She lets herself stay there.
Her heart is too loud for the room, but she can feel his, too—steady, faster than it pretends to be.
They don’t move.
Like if they hold still long enough, the moment might stay contained.
He’s the first to drift.
She feels it—the way his body lets go, breath deepening, grip loosening but not leaving.
He trusts sleep.
She doesn’t.
She listens to him breathe. Memorizes the weight of his arm, the texture of his skin, the shape of him against her.
Tries to hold onto the feeling—
being loved
and forgiven
at the same time.
Her eyes stay open in the dark.
She lets the thought come again.
What happens if she says yes.
If she lets herself want without softening it, without apologizing.
She turns it over.
Doesn’t answer it.
Doesn’t need to.
Not yet.
But she believes him now.
That if that moment comes—
he’ll still be there.
Hand open.
Looking at her the same way.
The clock ticks in the kitchen.
The house stays still.
She watches the thin line of moonlight shift across the ceiling—
and waits for morning.