31. Troka
TROKA
Iwake to the weight of a child on my chest and the unmistakable scent of warm baby skin and half-dried cereal spit.
And I don’t move.
I stay perfectly still, breathing shallow so I don’t shift him. Caelix. That’s his name. Hers. Theirs. Ours? I don’t know. Not yet. But his breath ghosts over my throat like he owns the right to sleep there.
He grumbles once, then sighs—a full-body exhale like he’s punching sleep in the face and winning. His tiny fingers twitch against my collarbone.
I’m seven feet of trained killer with bones like durasteel and a spine that’s been cracked twice in combat.
But this kid?
He could break me with a giggle.
And he doesn’t even know it.
His golden eyes peek open for a heartbeat. He stares up at me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Hey,” I whisper, afraid if I speak too loud, he’ll vanish.
He doesn’t speak, obviously. Too young. But he makes a sound. Soft. Familiar.
A sound I’ve heard once before.
Dada.
It’s not clear. Not precise. But it’s there.
He says it with a little smirk. And a slap of one palm against my jaw like it’s a button he’s pressing.
“Yeah, alright,” I mutter, half-smile tugging at my mouth. “We’ll table that.”
I want to ask.
Desperately.
But I don’t.
Not because I don’t care.
Because I do.
Because gods, I do.
But asking means pressing a bruise we’re both pretending doesn’t hurt anymore. It means risking the first real peace we’ve had in weeks. Maybe months.
So I tuck the question back into my chest and let him thump his tiny fists on me like I’m just furniture.
Alaina’s watching.
I feel her in the kitchen doorway, holding her mug like it’s a ward against feeling too much.
Her eyes track him, not me.
Then me.
Then both of us, like she’s doing math she doesn’t want to say out loud.
“You’re good with him,” she says, finally.
My voice is rougher than usual. “He makes it easy.”
“Most people would disagree.”
“Most people aren’t me.”
She leans her hip against the wall. Her hair’s a mess. She smells like sleep and burnt caff. There’s something in her eyes I haven’t seen since before this all started.
Fear.
The kind that doesn’t show up in screams—but in stillness.
I nod at the broken sink. “Pipe’s still leaking under the dish basin.”
She blinks, caught off-guard. “You noticed?”
“Could smell it. Mildew starting. Give me a few minutes and a wrench.”
She hesitates. Then hands me the toolkit.
No words.
Just… trust.
That’s new.
I fix the pipe.
Takes twenty minutes.
Mostly because she bought the cheap polymer tubing instead of reinforced lining, and I refuse to let that slide.
“Next time, don’t cut corners,” I mutter under the cabinet.
“You done judging my plumbing choices?”
“I’m never done judging your plumbing choices.”
She kicks me. Gently.
“Eat something,” she says.
And I do.
Not because I’m hungry.
But because she asked.
And that matters more than it should.
Every day, I tell myself I’ll ask.
Straight up. No games. No hesitation.
“Is he mine?”
But the second the words start to form, they burn.
Because what if the answer is no?
What if it’s yes?
What if she laughs?
What if she cries?
What if I break and we lose this fragile almost-peace we’ve built from the scraps of bad timing and worse choices?
So I don’t ask.
Instead, I do other things.
I change the air filters.
I adjust the baby monitor to fix the pitch delay that’s been screwing with the alerts.
I take out the trash without being asked. Which apparently earns me a weird look and a muttered “thanks” like it’s never happened before.
I read to Caelix before bed.
He likes this one book. Something about a space mammoth who forgets everything except how to love. The story’s dumb. But he laughs every time I make the trumpet noise.
Alaina stands in the doorway some nights, arms crossed, biting her lip to hide a smile.
“Your voice is too low,” she says once. “You’re going to ruin the mammoth for him.”
“He loves it.”
“He laughs because it’s absurd.”
“Good. Life’s absurd. He’s ahead of the curve.”
She laughs then.
And I damn near lose it.
Because I haven’t heard her laugh like that since—
Since before the lie.
Since before I became a ghost in my own life.
One night, after Caelix’s down and the lights are low, she pours two glasses of synthwine and offers one without a word.
We sit on the couch, too close for casual, too far for honest.
She sips.
I don’t.
“You ever think,” she says, quietly, “about leaving again?”
I shake my head. “Not since you told me to come home.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She turns her glass slowly. “You don’t ask much, do you?”
“I ask about work.”
“You ask around the things that matter.”
I set the glass down.
“I don’t want to push.”
“Since when?”
I shrug. “Since I started wanting more than just to win.”
She watches me then. Like I’m some ancient relic that started moving under glass.
“You’re changing.”
“Trying.”
“Why?”
“Because he deserves better. And so do you.”
Her eyes flick to the hallway. Where the baby’s sleeping.
“Say it,” she whispers.
My throat clenches. “Say what?”
“What you want to ask.”
I meet her eyes.
She doesn’t blink.
The words come. Half-formed. Barely air.
“Is he—?”
She swallows.
And looks away.
“I can’t,” she says. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because the moment I say it, everything changes.”
I nod.
Then stand.
And gather the blanket from the chair.
I drape it over her legs.
She grabs my wrist as I turn.
“Don’t give up on me,” she whispers.
“Not in a million cycles.”
And I mean it.
With everything I am.