Page 56 of Shattered Promise

We’re still there when the second set starts, the folk band’s rhythm slowing, the crowd mellowing as the sun softens behind the tree line. Theo’s falling asleep, his head heavy on Abby’s collarbone. Her arms have gone slack around him, and she rocks him without even noticing, matching the slow sway of the lullaby curling out from the stage.

I lean back on my elbows, watching the way the last light paints her face in honey and shadow. She’s humming, low and tuneless, maybe not even aware she’s doing it.

She looks at me over his head with an arched brow. “Think we should get this little pumpkin home? I’m pretty sure he’s asleep.”

“Yeah,” I say with a sigh.

“It’s just, I don’t want his bedtime routine to get messed up, not when you’re already fighting nap strikes and sleep regression.”

“Yeah.” I nod a few times. She’s not wrong, I don’t want to throw his routine off. But I’m enjoying myself more than I thought I would today.

Still, I push to my feet and start to gather our stuff up. I balance the guitar case in the stroller seat and fold the blanket, and Abby tucks Theo’s toy frog into the cupholder of the stroller. She shifts Theo in her arms, boosting him a little higher.

“I’ll take him if he’s getting too heavy.”

“I’m fine,” she says, and her voice is softer now. Different.

I reach for him anyway, just in case she changes her mind. But she doesn't hand him over. Not yet.

For a heartbeat, we’re close—her face inches from mine, eyes flicking up, unguarded. I could kiss her right now.

And fuck me, do I want to.

“You do that thing,” she says suddenly, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“What thing?”

“That . . . squint. When you’re thinking too hard. Like you’re trying to talk yourself out of something before you’ve even let yourself want it.”

I freeze. My jaw ticks.

“You’ve always done it,” she adds, smiling like it costs her something. “Back in high school, too. Right before you’d say something important. Or lie.”

I laugh once, rough and startled. “That so?”

She shrugs, and it’s unfair how light she can make things that feel like they weigh a ton inside me.

“Anyway,” she says, brushing her hand along my wrist as she passes Theo to me, “I’ll let you carry him. But only because you look good like this.”

It’s soft, casual. Like it doesn’t cost her anything to say it.

But it hits like a goddamn freight train.

My fingers tighten reflexively on the curve of Theo’s back, and for a second, I forget how to breathe. She’s already turning away, adjusting the strap of the diaper bag, like she didn’t just undo me in five words.

The walk back to the truck is slow, crowd thinning as the sun goes orange at the horizon. The festival’s heavier on the beer garden now—more adults clustered around food trucks, fewer kids, the energy shifting from family chaos to something looser, messier.

The temporary parking lot is dark, lit only by a few scattered headlights as cars navigate the makeshift rows.

Theo’s head sinks against my shoulder. He’s out cold, his fist still tangled tight in my collar. Abby pushes the stroller, her steps in sync with mine, close enough I can smell the citrus of her shampoo and the faint, unmistakable note of summer.

She always smelled like summer to me. Like sunny afternoons and late night street racing. Like the kind of peace you don’t realize you’re missing until it brushes past you in the dark.

Neither of us says much. The silence is thick, but it isn’t uncomfortable. The air around us is cooler with the night, heavy with the scent of the festival and woodsmoke from a bonfirethey’ve lit at the far end of the field. Somewhere across the lot, someone’s playing a harmonica, the notes floating over the cars, sweet and a little haunting.

I hit the unlock on the truck, and the cab’s already cooling off by the time we get there. The guitar goes in the back, the stroller folds up with a snap, and I buckle Theo into his car seat with the kind of muscle memory that no longer needs thinking. Abby stands beside me, one hand on the open door, and for a second I think she’s going to climb in, but she doesn’t. She just stands there, looking at me.

“What?” I ask, softer than I mean to.

---