CHAPTER 27
TREY
Christmas brought families together.
Paula’s people came to Trey’s mother’s house in shifts.
The result was loud, warm and structurally impossible.
Trey stood in the kitchen watching Paula argue with Julian over macaroni and cheese.
“You put breadcrumbs on it,” Paula said.
“Texture.”
Paula's apartment carried her differently than Trey's house did.
The furniture was scaled to her, the shelves crowded with books and objects he would never have chosen, the kitchen arranged according to a logic he still could not predict.
He liked being a guest there because it corrected the dangerous fantasy that closeness required absorption.
She had a home before him. He wanted partnership, not annexation.
“Betrayal.”
Julian looked at Trey. “Come get your woman.”
Trey smiled.
“Absolutely not.”
Paula pointed at him. “Smart.”
Danielle arrived with wine.
Anthony arrived ten minutes later with Ava and pretended not to notice Danielle.
Ava noticed everything.
She whispered to Trey, “They like each other.”
Trey crouched slightly.
“Who?”
“Dad and Ms. Danielle.”
“I have no information.”
Ava rolled her eyes.
“You’re a bad liar.”
Across the room, Danielle laughed at something Anthony said.
Ava smiled.
Trey looked at the child.
There was hope there.
And caution.
He understood.
Divorce did not erase family. New love did not automatically repair old hurt.
Anthony had more at stake than attraction.
Later Trey found Paula on the back porch alone.
Cold air curled around her.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He stood beside her.
She looked through the window at the families inside.
“This is very Huxtable.”
Trey smiled.
He knew the phrase.
Paula’s private shorthand for the kind of Black love and family life she had always wanted: accomplished, warm, funny, imperfect, rooted.
“Too much?”
“No.”
She leaned against him.
“I used to think wanting this made me less ambitious.”
“Why?”
“Because women get told to pick a story.”
Trey put an arm around her.
“Career woman. Wife. Mother. Whatever. Like wanting one disqualifies you from the others.”
He listened.
“I don’t know what all I want yet,” she said.
“You don’t have to.”
Paula looked up.
“Do you want children?”
Trey did not answer casually.
“Yes.”
Her eyes stayed on him.
“Do you?”
“I think so.”
“Think is enough.”
“You’re not worried?”
“About?”
“That I’m thirty-something and saying think.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because children deserve more than being used to satisfy a timeline.”
Paula went quiet.
Then smiled.
“Good answer.”
“True answer.”
Inside, his mother yelled that dessert was ready.
Paula took his hand.
“Come on.”
They went back inside.
No decisions.
No deadlines.
Just another door opened carefully.