Liam holds the diaper bag over one shoulder, a bouquet of textbooks and half-read magazines clutched in the other arm. He looks softer in the daylight, the edge worn off by new parenthood and the ten thousand micro-chores of keeping a baby alive. We walk with that peculiar intimacy of long-term couples: no need to talk, but sharing a whole language of shrugs and glances and suppressed laughter.
He says, “You know, I never thought I’d be one of those parents who schedules naps with military precision. And yet here I am, plotting our escape route like a five-star general.”
“Never say never,” I reply, adjusting the wrap so Emmy’s cheek nestles more firmly against me.
We cut through the park, skirting a clump of teens playing ultimate frisbee with the kind of reckless optimism only theyoung and uninjured can muster. Liam steers me around a patch of mud, then squeezes my hand with the hand that’s not carrying a small library.
I let the silence ride a while, savoring the dappled shade and the way the wind whips stray strands of my hair into my mouth. I want to tell him something, but the words are awkward and angular, and I keep twisting them in my head to see if they’ll fit better.
Finally, I say, “Andie’s been weird lately.”
He hums, noncommittal. “Define weird.”
I kick a pebble off the sidewalk. “Cagey. She keeps dodging my calls, and she hasn’t posted a selfie in, like, a week. Last time we talked, she sounded… I don’t know. Giddy? But nervous, too. I think it’s that older guy she’s seeing.”
He glances over, blue eyes narrowing. “She’s entitled to date older men. I’m an older man.”
I nod, but I’m not finished. “I think it’s serious. Like, seriously serious. And I have a theory.”
He arches an eyebrow, teacher mode engaged. “Let’s hear it.”
I check that the street is empty, as if this is the kind of intel that needs to be whispered. “She’s seeing Stella Moreland’s dad. Stella’s a girl who used to live down the hall from us. I think this new guy is really dominant and he’s got Andie wrapped around his little finger. I mean, I don’t really know, but …”
For a moment, nothing changes. Liam keeps walking, keeps breathing. But then he stops so suddenly the diaper bag nearly swings out of his grasp. He stares at me, all pretense of casual dropped like a mask.
“So she’s dating Thomas Moreland.” His voice is lower now, nearly inaudible. “Are you certain?”
I hesitate, caught off guard by the gravity in his face. “Not one hundred percent, but Stella mentioned something about her dad helping Andie move out at the end of spring semester. Then Andie started showing up with, like, suspiciously expensive handbags. And she’s been to Chicago twice in two months, which just happens to be where he lives.”
Liam’s jaw works, the muscle pulsing like a separate animal. “Andie needs to be careful. Moreland is a huge donor to the school, and on the Board of Trustees.” He trails off, then finds the thread again. “He’s ruthless. In business, sure, but in every other way, too. You don’t get to where he is without some scorched earth behind you.”
We stand there on the sidewalk, Emmy snoring gently, my own heart rate spiking for reasons I can’t name.
“What do you know about him?” I ask. “Besides what everyone can find on Google?”
Liam looks away, scanning the horizon as if expecting Moreland to materialize from the hydrangeas. “Nothing I can prove. But when I was on faculty council, I watched him destroy someone in a meeting. No warning, no compromise. One week the guy was a rising star; next week, blackballed from every campus in the state. There are rumors about non-disclosure settlements, but nobody will talk.”
He starts walking again, more slowly now, his hand resting at my lower back, a steady pressure.
I process this, trying to picture Andie in a world that sharp and unforgiving. “She’s not an idiot,” I say, half to myself.
“No,” he agrees. “But she’s young. And men like Moreland—” he pauses, searching for words “—they know how to find your weak spots.”
We walk a few paces more. Emmy shudders in her sleep, a tiny fist clenching and unclenching at my sternum.
I say, “She’s happy, though. I can hear it in her voice. And she says the sex is fantastic.”
Liam makes a noncommittal noise, but doesn’t contradict me.
We reach the corner where the bakery always smells like caramelized sugar, and I look up at the cloud-patched sky, searching for something light to say. Instead, all I find is the ache of wanting to protect the people I love, even from themselves.
“Should I talk to her?” I ask, unsure whether I want him to say yes.
He shakes his head. “Let her tell you. She’ll need someone in her corner if things go bad.”
He takes Emmy from my chest, transferring her to his own with the practiced efficiency of a dad who’s done this a hundred times. She shifts, resettles, then immediately drools a new stain onto his shirt.
“Classic,” I say, and he grins, his tension ebbing a little.