Chapter 29
Hadley
Cal left at eight that morning for a full day.
Recording session first. Therapy at two. Then a meeting with the label about tour dates that might stretch into evening if negotiations got ugly, which, knowing Cal’s label, they probably would.
He moved through the bedroom like he always did on workdays, efficient, quiet, contained.
Jeans, black shirt, leather jacket tossed over his shoulder like armor he wore automatically.
I sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on socks that didn’t quite fit around my swelling ankles anymore, watching him without making it obvious.
He came over when he was done. Leaned down. Kissed my forehead. The kind of kiss that lingered half a second longer than necessary.
His hand rested on my bump.
Stayed there.
Two seconds.
Maybe three.
The baby shifted beneath his palm like she recognized him. Or him recognizing her. I still didn’t know which way that connection worked.
“Text me if you need anything,” he said.
“I will.”
He nodded, but he didn’t move immediately. His eyes lingered on mine like he wanted to say something bigger. Something heavier. His mouth parted slightly...
Then he exhaled instead.
“See you tonight.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
Silence flooded the room almost instantly. The kind of silence that didn’t feel peaceful. Just… hollow.
Eli had already left for school. The house staff moved quietly downstairs, their footsteps distant and careful like they respected the fragile emotional ecosystem living inside the mansion walls.
By ten-thirty, the quiet started pressing in on my chest.
My phone buzzed against the nightstand.
Kei.
Hey. You free today? I’m drowning in old band photos and lyric scraps. Could use another set of eyes.
I stared at the message longer than necessary.
There was nothing wrong with it.
Nothing inappropriate.
But something in my chest tightened anyway.
Cal wouldn’t be home until late. Eli had after-school tutoring. The house would stay echoingly empty until dinner.
I typed back before I could overthink it.
Sure. What time?
The three dots popped up instantly.
Now? I’m already at the house.
Of course he was.
I changed into something comfortable, loose oatmeal-colored sweater, soft black leggings that didn’t press too tightly against my stomach. My hair went into a messy bun that would absolutely fall out in twenty minutes, but I didn’t care enough to redo it.
When I walked downstairs, Kei was already in the living room.
Boxes covered the coffee table, floor, even part of the couch. Black-and-white prints scattered beside faded Polaroids. Torn notebook pages filled with cramped handwriting sat in uneven stacks, some stained with coffee rings or smeared ink.
He looked up when he heard me.
Smiled.
Small. Tired. Familiar.
“Thanks for coming.”
“I live here,” I said, lowering myself carefully onto the floor across from him. “But also… you’re welcome. What are we sorting?”
“Everything,” he said, nudging a stack toward me. “Anniversary box set. Label wants nostalgia. Cal keeps avoiding it, so it landed on me.”
I picked up the first photo. Young Cal on stage. Barely out of his teens. Shirtless. Sweaty. Smiling in a way I had never seen him smile now, wide and reckless and completely unguarded.
My chest tightened.
We worked in comfortable quiet at first.
The kind that felt easy, not forced.
I sorted photos by year using dates scribbled on the back. Kei flipped through lyric pages, occasionally reading lines aloud under his breath, deciding what deserved preservation and what belonged in the trash pile.
Then he froze.
I glanced up.
He was staring at a photograph.
Five of them stood in front of a beach backdrop, Mexico. Arms slung around each other’s shoulders. Their smiles were bright. Almost exaggerated. But their eyes…
Their eyes looked hollow. Like they were performing happiness instead of living it.
“You okay?” I asked gently.
He exhaled slowly and set the photo face-down.
“My sister called last night,” he said.
The subject shift felt intentional.
“Her kid, my nephew, started walking. She sent a video. He fell on his ass and laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world.”
I smiled despite myself. “That’s adorable.”
“Yeah.”
He rubbed his jaw, staring at nothing in particular.
“She’s doing good. College degree. Husband. House. Kid. All the things I made sure she got.”
I stayed quiet. Let him fill the space.
“We didn’t come from money,” he continued.
“Not like Cal or Holland. Dad was mean when he drank. Mom worked doubles. I was the oldest.” His fingers tapped absent patterns against the floor.
“So I protected her. Took the hits. Made sure she studied. Saved every cent from our garbage high-school gigs and sent her to community college. Then university. She graduated. Got out.”
His voice softened near the end, pride bleeding through the exhaustion.
“I’m proud of her,” he added quietly. “Every time she calls, I feel… lighter. Like maybe I didn’t screw everything up.”
“You didn’t,” I said softly.
He looked at me then. Really looked. His gaze lingered a second too long.
“You remind me of her sometimes,” he said. “The way you hold everything together. The way you keep moving even when it hurts.”
My throat tightened. “I don’t always feel like I’m holding it together.”
“You are,” he said firmly.
He hesitated.
“Cal doesn’t deserve your emotional depth. He never learned how to hold it. He just… takes.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them. I saw the regret flash across his face immediately.
“I don’t mean that like it sounds,” he added quickly. “I just... I see how much you give. And I worry he’ll never give it back the way you need.”
My breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my ribs.
I looked down at another photo in my hands. Young Cal. Young Kei. Young Sydney wedged between them, laughing with her head thrown back like she owned the world.
“You were there,” I said quietly. “In Mexico.”
Kei nodded once. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He gave a hollow laugh. “Not really.”
He stared at the floor.
“But I think you already know enough,” he said after a moment.
“It was bad. We were kids. Terrified. We clung to each other in ways that weren’t healthy.
Sex. Drugs. Whatever numbed it. And it didn’t stop when we got home.
The five of us just… kept it going. Because facing it meant admitting we were broken. ”
I swallowed hard but didn’t look away.
“I regret not getting help sooner,” he admitted. “For all of us. Cal especially. He shut down hardest. Became this shell. And I let him stay there.”
I traced the edge of the photo absentmindedly.
“He’s trying now,” I said.
“I know,” Kei replied softly.
His eyes met mine again. Something complicated flickered there. Something that felt dangerously close to crossing a line, but stopped just short of it.
“And if he loses you,” he added, “it won’t be because you failed him. It’ll be because he never learned how to hold something without breaking it.”
The words landed deep. Heavy. Too honest.
I didn’t respond.
We worked another hour.
Laughter slowly replaced tension as we found ridiculous old tour photos, Cal with neon green hair, Holland passed out face-first into a pizza box, Jake attempting to crowd-surf in a venue barely big enough to hold thirty people.
I told him about Eli’s latest obsession with circuit boards and how he was currently convinced he could build a robot that sorted socks.
Kei laughed softly. “Kid’s a genius.”
“It felt easy.”
Too easy.
When Cal walked in at seven-thirty, I knew instantly.
He stopped in the doorway.
His expression stayed neutral. Controlled. Practiced.
But his eyes…
His eyes went flat.
“Hey,” he said.
Kei looked up casually. “Hey, man. We’re just going through archives.”
Cal nodded once. “Cool.”
He walked past us without another word. His footsteps were steady. Measured. Controlled.
That scared me more than if he had snapped.
Kei glanced at me. “He okay?”
“He’s tired,” I said.
We both knew that wasn’t the whole truth.
Kei helped me finish organizing the stacks. He left twenty minutes later, hugging me quickly at the door.
“Take care, Hads.”
“You too.”
The house felt colder the second it closed behind him.
I found Cal in the nursery.
Standing at the window. Arms crossed. City lights flickering against the glass.
“You’re home early,” I said softly.
“Meeting wrapped fast.”
Silence stretched between us, tight and uncomfortable.
“You two looked cozy,” he said finally.
“We were sorting photos.”
“Yeah.”
I stepped closer. “Cal.”
He turned.
His eyes were darker now. Emotion sitting too close to the surface.
“I’m trying,” he said, voice rough. “Therapy. Meetings. Showing up. And I come home and you’re laughing with him like… like I don’t exist.”
My chest tightened painfully.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?”
“He’s my friend,” I said. “He listens. He doesn’t make me feel like I’m auditioning.”
He flinched visibly this time.
“I’m not cheating. I’m not leaving. But I needed someone today. You were gone. He was here.”
Cal dragged a hand down his face. “I hate this.”
“Me too.”
He stepped closer and reached for my hand.
I let him take it.
But I didn’t squeeze back.
He felt it instantly.
His thumb brushed over my knuckles, slow and tentative.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered.
“I know,” I said.
But it sounded fragile even to my own ears.
The house was quiet later that night. Too quiet.
I woke around midnight to an empty space beside me.
My stomach dropped.
I followed the faint glow of light down the hallway and toward the studio. Music wasn’t playing, but the door was cracked open, golden light spilling across the floor.
I froze in the doorway.
Cal sat on the couch; elbows braced on his knees. A bottle of whiskey sat in his hand. Not open. Just… held. His other hand clutched an old photo. I recognized Sydney instantly from the red streak in her hair and the way she leaned into him like gravity bent around her.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
He looked up.
Saw me.
And immediately set the bottle down on the table like it burned him.
“I didn’t drink,” he said quickly. His voice cracked. “I wanted to. Bad. But I thought about you. About him kicking. And I couldn’t.”
I stepped into the room slowly. My hands trembled as I picked up the bottle, walked to the sink, and poured it out. The smell of whiskey filled the air as amber liquid spiraled down the drain.
“Thank you for stopping,” I said quietly.
He grabbed my waist and pulled me onto his lap. Wrapped his arms around me so tightly I could feel his heartbeat racing through his chest.
“I’m terrified I’ll fail you,” he whispered into my hair.
“Then don’t,” I said.
It came out stronger than I felt.
Eli overheard part of it.
I didn’t realize until later, when he stood awkwardly in the kitchen doorway while I wiped silent tears from my face.
“Cal’s trying,” he said matter-of-factly.
I looked up.
“Like when I try new foods,” he added. “It’s gross and scary but I keep going anyway.”
My throat closed.
He stepped forward and hugged me. Awkward. Tight. Rare.
I broke quietly into his shoulder.
That night, Cal spooned behind me in bed. His hand rested over my bump like it naturally belonged there.
“I told the therapist about you today,” he murmured.
“What did she say?” I whispered.
“That it starts with showing up,” he said. “Every day. Even when I don’t feel it.”
I turned slowly and kissed him. Soft. Slow. Careful.
He kissed back like he was memorizing it.
He’s not fixed, I thought as I settled back into his arms.
But he’s fighting.
And for the first time…
I think I might stay long enough to watch him win.