Twenty-three
Jason:
The house is quiet enough to hear everything.
The tick of the heating vents.
The soft shush of pipes in the walls.
The tiny question-mark sound their daughter makes when she shifts in her sleep down the hall.
Jason sits on the edge of the bed with his elbows braced on his knees, the bedroom washed in low amber light from the bedside lamp. His hands are fisted tightly enough that the knuckles have gone pale.
He isn’t sure what he’s bracing for.
From the bathroom, he hears Brielle humming while she brushes her teeth—a tuneless, wandering melody she’s probably been unconsciously building for years. She never remembers actual lyrics. Just fragments. Bones of songs.
The sound carries through the cracked bathroom door, soft and absentminded and painfully familiar.
Jason closes his eyes briefly.
It’s ridiculous how much he loves her for things like that.
For unfinished songs.
For talking to herself while folding laundry.
For making toothpaste and a cheap Target toothbrush somehow sound comforting.
He should be exhausted.
He worked all day. Built the new closet shelf after dinner. Packed lunches. Cleaned up bath water.
Instead, his brain keeps replaying everything in slow motion.
Not even the sex itself anymore.
Not Leo’s hands on her. Not the sounds she made.
It’s the aftermath that won’t leave him alone.
The way Brielle looked afterward.
Not undone.
Not exposed.
Reassembled.
Like something in her had shifted back into its proper place.
He’s seen her in every possible state over the years: the morning after their wedding when she insisted on making pancakes in nothing but his dress shirt; the hospital room after their daughter was born, half-delirious and swearing at a nurse while crushing his fingers in her grip.
But this version of her feels entirely new.
Or maybe not new.
Maybe recovered.
She moved through the house all day like someone who had stopped apologizing for existing. Like she’d discovered a hidden door somewhere inside herself and no longer intended to pretend it wasn’t there.
The toilet flushes.
Water runs.
More humming.
Then the bathroom door opens.
Light spills across the carpet in a long gold wedge.
Brielle walks out barefoot wearing one of his old race shirts—the gray 5K one so soft and worn it’s practically transparent now. The lettering across the chest has mostly peeled away, but he still knows the slogan by heart.
GET IT. DON’T REGRET IT.
A towel is twisted around her damp hair, making her somehow look both younger and more grounded at the same time.
She moves around the bed without hesitation and drops beside him easily, folding one knee up against her chest as she stretches her arms overhead. Comfortable. Loose in her own skin.
Jason says nothing.
He doesn’t trust himself to speak yet.
Brielle notices immediately, of course. She always notices.
Her expression softens as she studies him.
“You okay?”
Jason nods once.
The truth feels too large to explain.
He wants to tell her he’s never felt more certain and more terrified at the same time.
He wants to tell her that watching her become fully herself again feels a little like standing too close to lightning.
He wants to tell her she looks like she finally believes she’s allowed to take up space in the world.
Instead, he just nods again.
The lamp turns her skin gold at the edges.
Brielle watches him for another second before sliding off the bed and crossing the room toward him. The towel drops forgotten onto the carpet behind her.
She kneels beside him and rests her chin lightly against his shoulder.
In the mirror across the room, Jason catches their reflection.
Two people.
No performance left between them.
No hiding.
Just this quiet, unfinished moment suspended in amber light.
And somehow, for now, it feels like enough.
?
The silence settles softly at first, then heavier as the minutes stretch.
Brielle shifts beside him, shirt riding higher on her thighs as she folds one leg beneath herself. In the mirror across the room, Jason catches the strange double image of her: the woman leaning against him, and the woman watching herself be seen.
“You’re buzzing, babe,” she says finally, voice warm with amusement. “What’s up?”
Jason almost shakes his head automatically, but she’s already looking at him sideways, smile flickering at the corner of her mouth.
He can’t hide in this light.
“I’ve been thinking,” he admits.
“Mm.” Her grin turns lazy. “That’s usually dangerous.”
Heat crawls up the back of his neck. Somehow she always lands the joke before he’s even figured out how to make it himself.
He exhales slowly. “About last night. About… what happens after.”
The teasing fades from her expression. Now she’s fully focused on him, blue eyes sharp enough to split him open.
“What if next time,” he says carefully, “you weren’t the only one being watched?”
The words land between them.
Brielle turns fully toward him now, knee knocking gently against his. “You want to watch me with him again?”
“No.” Jason shakes his head once, then corrects himself. “Not just that.”
She waits patiently, giving him room to work through it.
Jason licks his lips, pulse hammering hard enough he can feel it in his throat. “What if I was in the middle next time?”
Silence.
Then Brielle goes very still.
Jason forces himself not to look away.
“What if,” he says more quietly now, “I was the one being touched instead?”
Her entire posture changes—alert, intent, completely awake now.
Part of him wants to stop talking.
A bigger part wants to see what she’ll do with this.
“What if you told both of us what to do?”
The quiet that follows stretches taut between them.
Jason realizes too late that his fists are clenched hard enough to blanch the knuckles white.
Brielle shifts closer slowly, like approaching something skittish and dangerous.
“You want to be watched?” she asks softly.
“Not just watched.”
His voice roughens on the confession.
“I want both of you. I want to know what that feels like.”
The admission settles heavily into the room.
Brielle doesn’t recoil.
She doesn’t laugh.
If anything, she looks more alive than before.
The room suddenly feels too small to contain what he’s asking for.
And for the first time in a long time, Jason realizes he doesn’t want to take the words back.
?
Brielle doesn’t answer right away, but she doesn’t look away, either.
Instead, she studies his face like she’s tuning a radio, filtering out every trace of irony or self-protection until all that’s left is the raw, live wire of his need.
“You want to be shared?” she asks softly.
Not mocking.
Not careful.
The words hit him hard and precise. Jason feels his throat tighten like he’s swallowed a live wire.
“No,” he says automatically, then catches himself. “Yes, but—not just that.”
He exhales hard.
“I want to be taken. By you. And him.”
The admission lands heavily between them.
He expects her to laugh. Or soften it with a joke. Or give him an escape hatch he can pretend not to take.
She doesn’t.
Her eyes stay locked on his, bright and intent, waiting for him to go deeper.
Jason feels his pulse everywhere—in his wrists, his tongue, the hollow at the base of his throat.
“I want to know what it’s like,” he says quietly, “to be the one falling apart.”
He glances away once, then forces himself back.
“I watched what it did to you. The way you let go. The way you trusted us.”
His hands flex hard against his thighs.
“I want to feel that too.”
Brielle still doesn’t move.
Jason swallows.
“I don’t want to be in control this time,” he admits. “I don’t want to be the anchor.”
Heat crawls up the back of his neck.
“Just once,” he adds, even though some deeper part of him already knows that’s a lie he needs in order to say it out loud.
The quiet that follows pulses with possibility.
His shoulders ache with tension. He can feel his heartbeat in every joint.
He wonders if she’ll ever look at him the same way again.
But Brielle keeps staring at him like she can’t get enough.
Like this only makes her want him more.
She shifts closer slowly, like approaching something fragile enough to break under the wrong touch.
“Jason,” she says softly.
The sound of his name in her mouth almost undoes him.
She cups his face, thumbs brushing the tension from his jaw.
There’s no fear in her expression.
No judgment.
Only hunger.
“Okay,” she says quietly.
“Then next time, we try.”
Jason exhales like he’s been holding his breath for years.
Then Brielle’s phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Mom Club Confidential.
Naomi
Reminder: PTA meeting Thursday. Wear something modest.
Harper
Why is modest italicized.
Rachel
Because last time someone’s nipples made eye contact.
Brielle
Free the nipple.
Claire
Please don’t free anything at school.
Jason laughs so suddenly it cracks the tension clean in half.
And somehow, impossibly, that makes everything feel even more real.
Mom Club Confidential
Naomi
Reminder: PTA meeting Thursday. Wear something modest.
Harper
Why is modest italicized.
Rachel
Because last time someone’s nipples made eye contact.
Brielle
Free the nipple.
Claire
Please don’t free anything at school.
But he doesn’t regret it.
Not for a second.