Chapter 22 #2
Tate poured heavy into both glasses. “To the dumbest niggas in the room.”
Adair raised his. “To the ones who know better now.”
They clinked and drank in silence. No more words for a while. Just two men sitting in what they lost. Sitting in what they hoped they could rebuild—Black men—quiet in the aftermath of love they almost got right. Trying, maybe for the first time, to figure out what it meant to show up the right way.
Before it was too late.
Men who got handed love and were finally learning how to hold it.
2:47AM
The living room was dark except for the glow of the muted TV still running sports reruns. The bottle of Henny was half gone, and Tate had disappeared at some point without saying goodbye. Adair barely remembered him leaving.
What he did remember, though, was passing out on the couch, heart heavy and chest cracked open from everything they’d said. Shared. Felt.
He stirred to a sound. A shift in air. A presence.
And when he opened his eyes—
Sabine was standing over him.
Not yelling. Not speaking.
Just looking at him like he had lost his damn mind.
Her curls were pulled up in a bun, hoodie half-zipped over what looked like pajamas. No makeup. Purse strap hanging loose from her shoulder. But it wasn’t her outfit that made him sit up fast.
It was her face.
“Baby…” he started automatically, voice thick from sleep and liquor. Then he looked at the wall clock. It was damn near three in the morning. “What’s wrong?” he asked, blinking the haze from his eyes, still not convinced he wasn’t dreaming.
Sabine just looked at him. That tight look she got when she was seconds away from saying something she couldn’t unsay. Or…whipping his ass.
“You called me,” she said finally.
Adair sat up straighter. “What?”
“You FaceTimed me.”
“I—what?” He looked around, saw his phone facedown on the coffee table and grabbed it.
2:27 AM — Missed FaceTime Call: Sabine
2:29 AM — Missed Call: Sabine
2:31 AM — Are you okay?
2:37 AM — Adair, answer the phone.
He stared at the notifications then looked up at the clock on the wall.
2:50 AM.
She was standing in front of him now, arms crossed, hoodie zipped halfway up, eyes hard but gleaming. Not with anger—with something else.
Concern.
She hadn’t just responded to a call.
She’d gotten dressed.
She’d driven.
Which meant…she’d already been on her way by the time the second text came in. Sabine didn’t wait for things to get worse. She moved the minute she thought something was off.
She was worried.
She came to him because…she was worried.
Not out of obligation.
Not out of pity.
But because some part of her still responded to him on instinct. And that realization did something to his chest—stretched it open and cracked it in the same breath. He softened his voice. “You used the key?”
“Yes,” she said, clipped. “Because when a man you’ve had two kids with, obviously drunk calls you in the middle of the night,” she gestured towards the Hennessey bottle. “You don’t ignore it. You show the fuck up.”
“My bad, Bine,” Adair sighed, swiping a hand down his face. “I didn’t mean to call you.”
“I figured,” she muttered, shrugging. “Still. I’m here.” She scanned his face. Took in the empty glasses. The slump in his shoulders. The pain that still hadn’t left his eyes. “You been drinking with Tate?”
Adair nodded.
“Y’all alright?”
He looked up at her for a long moment. Then shook his head. She sighed and sank onto the arm of the couch, resting her palms on her thighs. She didn’t ask more questions. Not yet.
Adair leaned back, rubbed his hands over his face. “He told me you went on a date.”
Sabine looked away.
“I know you don’t owe me shit,” he said quickly, before she could answer. “And I’m not mad at you. I swear I’m not. I’m mad at myself. For making it so easy for another man to step in.”
She didn’t interrupt. Didn’t soften.
Just waited.
“And it’s not even about that,” he added.
“It’s not about some nigga. It’s about how I know you looked in that dress.
How you probably took your time getting ready.
Picked earrings. Smoothed your lipstick and shit.
How your heart probably beat a little different when y’all got to the restaurant and his bitch ass told you how good you looked. ”
Sabine swallowed but said nothing.
“I should’ve been the last man to make your heart do that.”
“You had that chance, Adair,” she said quietly. “You had so many chances.”
“I know.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees again. “I know I did. I just…”
“What?”
“I didn’t know how to keep something good when I had it. I knew how to work for it. I knew how to fight for it…but once it was in my hands?” he held his palms open. “I let the weight of my own shit drown us.”
Sabine looked at him now.
Really looked.
Not angry. Not nostalgic.
Just…tired.
Sabine stood slowly, adjusting her bag.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. Her voice was even. Not soft, not cold. Just regular.
The fact that she didn’t even question his state or having Ade while he and Tate were getting hammered said everything.
She trusted him as a father, trusted that he wouldn’t test the limits while with their child.
Enough to know Ade was asleep, safe, untouched by whatever emotional wreckage was spread across this night.
Enough to know Adair wouldn’t dare cross a line when it came to their son.
But that was all she trusted him with now. Not her heart. Not her vulnerability. Not her worry, even though that’s what got her here.
“And I’m glad you had someone to talk to tonight.” She started for the door, but he stood too.
“Sabine.”
She turned.
“I miss you.”
She nodded. “I miss you too, Adair. I really do. I miss who we were but I’m still learning who I am now and I’m not her anymore.”
He stepped closer. “And if…if I learn who I am too…really learn…do you think there’s still a chance?”
She looked at him.
Looked and didn’t answer.
Not yes. Not no.
Just something unreadable.
But that was the answer, wasn’t it? That pause. That breath she held between her ribs.
It wasn’t rejection.
It was ache.
He could see it.
Feel it.
Smell it.
Fuck…taste it.
It was all over her like it was all over him.
Adair stepped forward, slow. Careful. Like if he moved too fast, she might vanish. He didn’t touch her—not yet. Just stood close enough to feel the tension warming the space between them.
“I know I don’t deserve another chance,” he said, his voice low and raw. “But I’ve been trying, Sabine. Not to win you back. Just to be the kind of man I should’ve been all along. For me. For Ade. For you.”
Her eyes fluttered shut. Just for a second and when they opened again, they shimmered but didn’t spill. Sabine didn’t cry easy. Never had but her silence? Her silence used to undo him.
Still did.
“I miss you,” he said again, even gentler this time. “Not just the us from before. But you now. The woman who’s figuring it out. The woman whose going after everything I never should’ve let you let go of in the first place. I see you…and I miss you.”
Sabine swallowed hard, like his words touched something too deep to say out loud. She didn’t move away when he touched her face. His fingers brushed her cheek. Light. Like reverence.
It was nothing like earlier.
Not like the touch she’d pulled away from hours ago.
Harlan had been kind. Gentle. Respected her pause without question. His touch had been safe, measured, intentional but it hadn’t reached her. Not like this.
Because this—Adair’s hand on her skin, the warmth in his palm, the tremble he barely showed—this was the touch her body always remembered. The one her spirit, her mind, her whole soul still answered to no matter how many times she told it not to.
This was the ache she'd buried. The hunger she’d trained herself to ignore and in one small caress, it rose like it had never left.
Not a spark.
A calling.
“Say something,” he whispered. She leaned in. Just slightly. Her voice barely there.
“I don’t want to want you.”
That broke him.
Because that meant she did.
Adair didn’t ask permission out loud. He didn’t need to. Not when her breath was already catching, her body already leaning toward his without force or pressure.
There was nothing rushed in how he touched her. Nothing assumed. Just the steady, reverent patience of a man who wasn’t trying to take, but offer.
Every move said: I’ll follow your lead.
Every pause said: I remember you.
No one had ever held her like he did. Like she was both the wound and the salve. And right now, in this quiet, messy, middle-of-the-night truth…her whole being craved the honesty in his hand more than any speech.
It wasn’t fair.
But it was real.
And she let him keep touching her. Her body answered for her—with the slow press of her palm against his chest, the soft tilt of her chin, the way her lips parted just enough to whisper a want without sound.
This wasn’t about permission.
It was about trust.
And she gave it to him.
Sabine didn’t pull away when he leaned in.
Didn’t resist when their mouths finally met.
Soft. Searching. Like he was learning her lips all over again.
The kiss deepened with need, but it wasn’t fast. It was full.
Mouths parting and finding, hands still unsure where they belonged, but hearts—those traitorous, tangled hearts—beating loud in the silence.
Adair lifted her gently—hands at her waist, sliding under her thighs—and she wrapped around him instinctively, like her body never forgot the way he carried her.
In the bedroom, clothes peeled away slowly. Like forgiveness. Her breath hitched when his hand touched her rib, then her hip, then lower. She gasped into his mouth, and he swallowed it whole.
This wasn’t like before.
It wasn’t a reconciliation.
It wasn’t a mistake.
It was a release.