CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SYDNEY
Tobias started coming to the café after closing on Thursdays.
It happened by accident the first time. He returned Patrick's jacket after leaving it in his car, found me wiping down the espresso machine, and stayed because Shirley had gone home and I was struggling with a delivery invoice that made no sense.
"You know this is technically my area," he said.
I looked at him over the papers. "Billionaire logistics?"
"Numbers."
"I'm capable of reading numbers."
"Clearly. You have circled this one three times."
"Because it's wrong."
He pulled out a chair. "Then let's prove it."
We found the error in ten minutes.
Afterward, neither of us seemed in a hurry to leave.
The café felt different when it was empty. During the day, the room belonged to customers, milk steaming, cups knocking against saucers, people ordering and leaving. At night, it became quieter and more personal.
I put music on while I counted the register.
Tobias sat at a table with his sleeves rolled up, answering email on his phone.
A song I loved came on.
I started singing without thinking.
Halfway through the first verse, I noticed he had stopped typing.
"Don't," I said.
"Don't what?"
"Look at me like that."
"I don't know what my face is doing."
"Yes, you do."
He smiled.
It was the same smile he used to wear at David's café when he thought I had not noticed him listening.
"I missed your voice."
I turned back to the register.
"You could have listened to music."
"I did. None of it sounded like you."
The words should have annoyed me.
They did not.
That was becoming a problem.
I finished the count and sat across from him.
"Do you remember the first time you asked me out?"
Tobias laughed. "Unfortunately."
"You said, 'If you aren't seeing anyone and if this isn't weird and if you don't hate me coming in here, maybe dinner.'"
"I was trying to give you options."
"You gave me six escape routes in one sentence."
"You were intimidating."
"I was carrying a tray of muffins."
"Exactly. Dangerous."
I laughed.
For a few minutes we were simply two people remembering something good.
That felt more intimate than any apology.
Then the memory shifted.
"I liked the way you looked at me," I said.
Tobias's smile faded.
"Back then?"
I nodded.
"I had spent so long feeling like every part of my life came with an explanation. Single mother. Broke. Bad boyfriend. Too many jobs. You looked at me and didn't seem to be calculating what any of it said about me."
He looked down at his hands.
"Until I did."
"Yes."
The answer sat between us.
"That's why it hurt so much," I continued. "Your parents judging me was predictable. You weren't. You were the person I thought would hear the worst thing and still know who I was."
"I should have."
"You should have asked me. You could have been furious. You could have told me I had broken your trust. You could have walked out for a night if you needed to. I could have survived all of that."
Tobias nodded slowly.
"Instead, I let them turn your past into a verdict."
"Yes."
He did not defend himself.
That mattered.
I watched him for a while.
"I don't know if I can ever trust you the way I did before."
"I know."
"And I don't want the old marriage back."
His face changed slightly.
"Neither do I."
I blinked.
"You don't?"
"The old marriage had you hiding something because you were afraid to tell me. It had me pretending monthly dinners with my parents were tolerable because I defended you afterward. It looked happy because a lot of it was happy. That doesn't mean every part was healthy."
I sat back.
"When did you get so sensible?"
"Painful amounts of therapy."
I stared at him.
Then he laughed.
"I'm joking. Ian yelled at me for three years. Much cheaper."
I smiled again.
The ease frightened me.
Tobias seemed to notice.
He stood.
"I should go."
"You don't have to run every time we have a good moment."
"I'm not running. I'm trying not to turn one good moment into pressure for another."
I looked at him.
There were versions of Tobias I had known for years.
The confident businessman. The ridiculous pancake cook. The father who read bedtime stories in terrible voices. The husband who had failed me.
This careful man was newer.
I was beginning to like him too.
The Thursday visits became a quiet habit.
Sometimes Tobias arrived before I locked the door and helped stack chairs. Sometimes he sat in the corner answering email until I finished. He never assumed he was welcome. Every week he asked.
That small courtesy mattered because our marriage had once been full of assumptions. I had assumed his love would survive any truth. He had assumed my silence meant there was nothing important left to know. We had both learned what assumptions could cost.
One night the dishwasher broke.
I was on my knees under the counter with a flashlight when Tobias arrived.
"What are you doing?"
"Becoming a plumber."
"Should I be worried?"
"Extremely."
He took off his jacket and crouched beside me.
"Move."
I looked at him.
"Excuse me?"
"I know enough to know electricity and water shouldn't be introduced by enthusiasm."
"And you're an expert?"
"No. I'm rich enough to know when to call one."
I laughed and slid out from under the counter.
He called a repair service. I made coffee. The technician arrived forty minutes later and fixed a loose connection in ten.
"You see?" Tobias said after the man left. "My most valuable skill. Phone ownership."
"You are very talented."
We sat at the counter drinking coffee after midnight.
"Do you miss the old house?" he asked.
I thought about it.
"Parts of it. The kitchen. The porch. Tyra's room."
"I kept it."
I looked at him.
"I know."
"How?"
"Karen looked it up once."
"Of course she did."
"She said it was creepy that you still owned it."
"I considered selling. Every time I tried, it felt like selling a place that still belonged to you too."
I traced the rim of my mug.
"I don't want to go back there."
"Okay."
"You say that so easily."
"Because the house is a building."
"It was our home."
"You were my home. The kids were my home. I learned that when the building stayed and all of you were gone."
I looked away before he could see how deeply the sentence affected me.
Tobias changed the subject without making me ask.
That was another new skill.
We talked about Shirley's plan to expand the patio and Patrick's obsession with garbage trucks. I told him Tyra had started asking questions about high school even though she was years away.
"She plans early," he said.
"She gets that from you."
"Poor kid."
When we finally left the café, Tobias walked me to my car.
He did not kiss me.
For months, part of me had been waiting for him to try.
Another part was grateful he had not.
The absence of pressure gave desire room to become mine again.
A week after our late-night coffee, Tobias came to the café while Tyra was doing homework at a corner table.
She watched us talk for five minutes, then closed her book.
"This is weird."
I looked over. "What is?"
"You two."
Tobias leaned back in his chair. "Very specific."
"You act married, but you don't live together."
I nearly dropped my pen.
"Tyra."
"What?"
"Some conversations can wait until you're not doing fractions."
"I'm done with fractions."
Tobias hid a smile.
"Do not encourage her."
"I said nothing."
Tyra looked between us.
"Are you getting back together?"
The room seemed suddenly too small.
I set my pen down.
"We're trying to figure out what our relationship is now."
"That's adult for maybe."
"Yes."
She nodded.
"Okay."
"That's it?"
"What else am I supposed to say?"
"I don't know. You brought it up."
"I just wanted to know if I should stop pretending I don't notice."
Tobias laughed then.
I did too.
After Tyra returned to her homework, Tobias looked at me.
"She's terrifying."
"She learned from your mother."
His smile faded.
"Too soon."
"A little."
Then he reached for his coffee.
"For what it's worth, I don't know the answer either."
"To whether we're getting back together?"
"I know what I want. I don't know what you want."
I looked at him.
"I'm starting to want things I wasn't ready to want."
His hand tightened slightly around the cup.
He did not ask me to explain.
That restraint was becoming one of the reasons I wanted to.
The first time Tobias and I spent an evening together without the children, neither of us called it a date.
We went to dinner after closing because Shirley pushed me out the café door and told me I had discussed milk inventory enough for one lifetime.
Tobias suggested a small restaurant instead of somewhere expensive.
"You researched this," I said.
"A little."
"How much?"
"Three review sites and one interrogation of Karen."
"Traitor."
Dinner was easy until the server asked whether we were celebrating anything.
Tobias and I looked at each other.
"No," I said.
"Maybe," he said at the same time.
The server wisely left.
I laughed.
"Maybe?"
"We're having dinner without discussing custody, legal threats, my parents, or whether Patrick ate a crayon. Feels celebratory."
"Low standards."
"Hard-earned standards."
We talked about music, books, and things that had nothing to do with the marriage.
That was what made the evening important.
I remembered that Tobias had once been my friend as well as my husband.
Trust had to return in more than crisis.
It had to survive an ordinary dinner too.
After our unofficial date, Tobias walked me to my car and stopped a few feet away.
"I want to kiss you," he said.
My heart jumped.
"I know."
"I'm not going to."
"Why tell me?"
"Because pretending I don't want to feels dishonest. Acting on it without knowing you want the same would be worse."
I looked at him for a long second.
"Goodnight, Tobias."
"Goodnight, Sydney."
I drove home smiling and annoyed with myself for smiling.
Desire was returning before certainty.
Apparently my body had no interest in waiting for committee approval.
Tobias began ordering tea on Thursdays because he claimed my coffee kept him awake.
I reminded him he used to spend years buying coffee he barely drank.
He said, "I had a better reason then." The flirtation was light enough to enjoy.
For the first time, being wanted by him did not feel tied to forgiveness.