Sabine
The door swung open behind Pam, and Ade came barreling out. “Mommy!” He crashed into her legs, clutching her thighs, his small voice muffled in the fabric of her dress.
Ade grinned, already breathless from excitement. “Daddy bought me the blue race car and I beat him in Mario Kart three times!”
“Three?” She widened her eyes in playful shock. “Wow. Your daddy must be slipping.”
“No, I’m just good,” Ade smirked, popping his collar, every single bit of his father in him. He was his Adair’s face with her eyes. Wide and brown and always curious.
Pam laughed from the porch. “Boy, go get your things. Don’t leave nothin’ behind again, I ain’t Uber.”
As Ade ran back inside, Sabine stood, her eyes lingering on the doorway for a moment longer than they should have. She knew what was coming before it happened. It always happened.
Adair stepped out. He looked tired in that end-of-a-long-week kind of way, button-down rolled at the sleeves, slacks slightly creased, but still every inch the man who used to kiss her forehead before sunrise and rub her feet after work.
The man who once made her laugh until she cried, and now sometimes just made her want to cry.
He stood beside his mother, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a toy car.
“Hey,” he said, voice low.
Sabine kept her tone cool. “Hey.”
He held her gaze for a beat, then looked down. “You get the email about the fall program? For STEM?”
“I did. I’ll enroll him tomorrow.”
“You think he’ll like it?”
“He’ll love it.”
A pause stretched between them. He studied her like he always did. Like he was searching for the woman she used to be; the one who used to love him openly, shamelessly, the one who used to fold herself into his arms without question.
Adair exhaled. “Alright.”
Pam crossed her arms, watching the exchange from a few feet away. Her lips pursed in thought. She’d watched this dance play out every week for a couple years now. But the way Adair looked at Sabine…it hadn’t changed once. Her baby was still in love. Even when he tried not to be.
And Sabine? She was still Sabine. Proud. Poised. But soft when it came to her son. And when it came to Adair…Pam could see it. That guardedness wasn’t hate. It was hurt.
Their son came bounding back out, this time with a suitcase, that he only stuffed with toys, dragging behind him and a crumpled piece of paper in one hand.
“Mommy, look! I drew a family rocket ship!” He shoved it into her hands proudly.
A lopsided rocket colored with crayons. Three stick figures inside.
Sabine smiled. “This is amazing. Who’s flying it?”
“Daddy is. And you’re doing the computer.” He pointed at each scribbled figure. “And I’m the alien.”
Sabine laughed, genuine and full. “Sounds about right.”
“Don’t forget to show Mommy your robot moves tonight.”
“I won’t daddy!”
Pam crouched and kissed Ade on both cheeks, smoothing his shirt collar. “You be good, sugar. Grandma loves you. And eat them green beans your mama makes or I’ma know about it,” she gave him her fake threatening smile before handing him the container of cookies.
Adair stepped up doing their signature handshake that always made Ade feel like he was one of the big boys. “Love you man,” he kissed the top of his head.
“Love you too daddy!”
“See ya baby,” Pam kissed Sabine’s cheek. “Text me to let me know y’all made it home.”
“I will,” she responded before grabbing Ade’s hand and going down the stairs.
While his mother went inside, Adair stayed there like she knew he would make sure his son and baby mother were safely in the car.
He stood on the porch, watching Sabine buckle Ade into the car seat, adjusting the strap like only she could.
Like it was second nature. Like loving him came just as easy.
Adair never stopped thinking of her that way, no matter what the paperwork said.
No matter who laid beside him now, or who laid beside her.
That woman was still his in all the ways that mattered.
And seeing her like this—so calm, so good, still wearing motherhood like a crown—just made it worse. Made the ache ache.
Ade turned in his seat, flashing him a toothy grin and waving with both hands. That boy. That boy was his whole damn heart walking around outside his body.
Sabine? She was the part he’d fumbled. Fumbled so bad he didn’t know if he could ever get her back. But damn if he didn’t still hope. Still wait on porches, still look for openings in the silence.
Adair stepped down one stair, just to see them off. Just to breathe in one more second of the only thing he’d ever built that felt like home.
Sabine could feel him. She didn’t have to look back to know Adair was still on the porch, arms crossed or maybe hands stuffed in his pockets, watching her with that same quiet ache he never said out loud. She could feel it. Like the air thickened every time he was near.
She buckled Ade in gently, smoothing his curls off his forehead. Checked the straps twice, like she always did. Routine. Habit. But beneath that, her hands trembled a little.
Because it still mattered. He still mattered.
And maybe that’s what hurt the most—how deeply it still lived under her skin.
“Can we get ice cream too?” Ade piped up from the backseat, kicking his legs, too excited to notice the shift in her breath. “I was really good this week. Daddy said so.”
Sabine smiled, even as her eyes stung. “Mmmmm…” she pretended to think.
“Mommy…” Ade whined.
“Okay okay.”
“Yayyyyy!”
Sabine slid into the driver’s seat and let her hand linger on the push to start button. She didn’t look back. Not right away. But in the rearview mirror, just past the curve of her own shoulder, there he was.
Adair. Still there. Still watching.
Same man who once rubbed her back through finals week.
Who whispered every dream in her ear before it ever came true.
Who kissed her like he believed in forever.
She hated that she missed him. Hated that some days she waited for those 2 a.m. texts she swore she wouldn’t read.
Hated that no matter how careful she was, a part of her heart still turned toward him.
He didn’t move. Neither did she, for a second.
"Be safe," he called.
Sabine didn’t turn. Just raised her hand halfway out the window. Ade was already yelling about what ice cream flavors he wanted.
Sabine pressed her foot to the pedal and drove off slow. Not because of him but maybe, a little, because of him.
In the mirror, she saw him shrink into distance.
Still standing there. Still watching.
Still hers in all the ways he never figured out how to keep.
Sabine stood at the island, slipping a juice box into Ade’s lunch bag while her AirPods buzzed with Narri’s voice mid-rant.
“I swear to God, Sabine, if Tate leaves one more diaper on the counter, I’m calling CPS.”
Sabine cracked a smile, folding up a paper towel to tuck beside Ade’s sandwich. “Nobody is coming over there for a diaper.”
“Well maybe they should. This man really sat on my couch last night and said, ‘two kids in and you still don’t get it.’ What the hell does that even mean?”
Sabine laughed softly under her breath and moved to double-check the lunch bag. Ade, sitting at the table in his rocket ship pajamas, swung his legs while spooning cereal into his mouth, spilling more milk onto the placemat than anything.
“Mommy,” he said, through a mouthful, “I want the cookie with the stars for snack.” Her son was obsessed with robots, and cars, and aliens and space.
“You’ll get two star cookies in your lunchbox if you finish that cereal,” she said, wiping his chin. “Eat the banana too.”
In her ear, Narri sighed. “You know I don’t even like that man, right? I hate him. I’m serious this time.”
“Did you ever stop to think maybe you and Tate are just…incompatible roommates with benefits?”
“I’m fine with being incompatible. Shit, I’m ready for him to realize but his ass won’t leave!”
“Do you want him to?” Sabine asked and she could instantly hear the pause from her best friend. She and Tate had been together, or messing around, or whatever they called it depending on the day, about as long as she and Adair.
They shared two children, a son who was three, Tate Junior whom everyone called TJ, and the most beautiful baby girl, Nariyah, at two. Back-to-back births and in between lots of fighting—back and forth, breakups to makeups.
Everyone around Narri and Tate were over them.
In her ear, Narri sighed then in true fashion when it came to her baby’s daddy—deflection. “I’m serious this time.”
“You always serious ‘til he show up being daddy of the year and chicken wings,” Sabine said, walking to the sink. Tate was a good father, but he went over the top whenever he could feel Narri pulling away.
A pause.
“…They were lemon pepper,” Narri admitted.
“I know.” Sabine smiled, tossing a wrapper in the trash. “I know you.”
Ade lifted his bowl with both hands. “All gone! Can I call Daddy now?”
Sabine nodded, already pulling up Adair’s contact on Ade’s iPad. As soon as it rang, he snatched the device and ran to his room with the biggest smile.
“Hey Daddy!”
Ade’s little voice echoed from down the hall, followed by a muffled “You brush your teeth?” and “Lemme see.”
Even on his off week, Adair didn’t miss a morning. Didn’t let the physical distance cut the thread between them. Sometimes Sabine hated that. Not the bond—just the reminder of what she and Adair had almost kept whole.
Narri sighed on the other end of the line. “That man loves that baby like my fat ass love some all flats, lemon pepper, spicy.”
Sabine sat down, finally taking a sip of her own cold coffee. “Yeah…he really does.”
“You okay?”
“I’m good,” she said quickly. “Just…trying to stay on schedule.”
But her eyes drifted toward Ade’s empty chair, to the soft hum of his voice in the back room. And she wondered—for just a second—if Adair ever felt it too. That quiet ache that came when one half of the house was missing.
“Alright, let me go,” Narri said, her voice stretching into a yawn. “I know Junior is about to get up and work my nerves.”
“Tate didn’t stay the night?”
“He was gone when I woke up.”
“Oh okay…well, call me later.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you more.”
And the house settled again into the soft, steady rhythm of morning.
After giving Ade two braids, making sure his clothes were neat, and they had everything, they were off.
She dropped him off to school, giving him several kisses that he tried to dodge in front of his friends then she headed to work.
The office smelled like fresh coffee and glass cleaner with muted conversations and keystrokes.
Sabine moved through it with a kind of quiet precision—heels high against the polished floors, a tablet tucked under her arm, and a fitted ivory blouse tucked neatly into tailored navy slacks.
Every inch of her said, I know what I’m doing. Please try and keep up.
Her title—Senior Operations Analyst—meant she wasn’t just here to run the numbers. She built systems. Smoothed inefficiencies. Predicted bottlenecks before they happened. When she spoke in meetings, people listened. Not because she was loud, but because she was right.
Sabine had just finished running a sensitivity analysis on the logistics model for one of their biggest retail clients and was reviewing the final optimization output when a knock came at her office door—more of a lean, really. Casual. Confident.
“Killing it already and it’s not even ten,” said Malik, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation.
Sabine didn’t look up right away. She knew the voice. That low, velvet-smooth bass that always seemed to settle somewhere behind her knees.
“I kill it before coffee,” she said, finally glancing at him. “You bring it?”
He grinned and held up two cups. “You know I did. Caramel for the analyst queen.”
She reached for it. Their fingers brushed. That part was always the same—brief contact that lingered too long.
“Thanks,” she said, sipping.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, settling into the chair across from her. “You’ve got a dozen open variables in this model and zero margin for error. I saw the projection board.”
“I’ve got it handled.”
“You always do,” he murmured. And he meant it.
Malik was a systems engineer, one of the few on her level who could challenge her without posturing. Tall, dark, and built like he played ball in college, which he did. He wore his professional confidence well but when it came to Sabine, it all crumbled.
“You didn’t text me back,” he said after a pause. “This weekend.”
Sabine tapped the side of her mug, not looking at him.
“Busy.”
“I wasn’t just looking for a late-night pull-up, Bine.” His laced tone with honesty. “You know that.”
She looked up, meeting his gaze, “I know.”
He exhaled, leaned back in the chair. “But you’re still not ready.”
“I’m co-parenting a five-year-old. I’m building a life that makes sense outside of that. I’m…” she trailed off, but he didn’t interrupt. “I’m not in the space to offer more than what we already had.”
“Have…” he corrected her. “Last time I checked this was still a have.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that…have.”
“You ever gonna stop pretending like you don’t feel it too?”
“Feel what?”
“That charge. The way you freeze up whenever I get too close. Like your body remembers what your mouth won’t say.”
She smirked, but it didn’t reach her eyes because he was definitely reading way too much into their interactions. “I just have a lot—”
“Good thing I’m not asking for a lot. I’m just saying, I’m not running just because the situation’s complicated. I respect it,” he added after a moment. “I respect your position, your motherhood, all that shit.”
She nodded. “You deserve someone who’s fully there.”
“I want you. But I’m not gonna beg.”
Her phone buzzed. A text.
Adair: Ade showed me the rocket again this morning. Said it’s on the fridge ‘so everybody remembers.’ I don’t think he was just talking about the picture.
Sabine’s fingers hovered over the screen, breath leaving her slow. Somehow, Adair always knew when another man was sniffing around. Like clockwork. He’d call or text at the wrong times, reminding her he was still there. Still tethered. She closed the message without replying.
“Malik…” she started
“You don’t owe me anything,” Malik held up a hand, not pushing. “I just want you to know, I’m not going anywhere unless you tell me to.” He nodded once, slow, and left without another word.
Sabine turned back to her screen. The model finished running. Her assumptions held. The logistics plan was airtight. Flawless.
But her chest still felt like a pressure point waiting to give.