He didn’t knock. Just pushed the door open like he belonged there, even though he hadn’t in a long time. You looked up from the couch, remote still in your hand, blanket bunched around your legs, the TV casting soft shadows on the wall. The apartment smelled like clean laundry and lemon dish soap, it was annoyingly quiet.

Jax didn’t say much, just nodded like that covered everything he didn’t want to get into. He looked tired, the kind of tired that lives behind the eyes. His kutte hung off his frame like it weighed more than it used to, and the grease on his hands said he’d been under a bike or a body, probably both. He sat down without asking, elbows on his knees, face in his hands for a second like he needed to reset something inside of himself.

Your hand rested on your stomach without thinking. Second trimester, just starting to show. He didn’t ask how you were feeling. Didn’t ask about the last doctor visit or if the baby had kicked yet. But he looked, those blue eyes flicking toward your belly like it might move, might offer him a sign he couldn’t ask for out loud.

You didn’t speak, not right away anyways. You weren’t angry, not anymore. Anger takes energy, and you’d already spent most of that on the first few weeks, the silence between calls, the nights you cried without knowing why.

“Did you eat yet?” Jax asked you as he looked at the dishes piling up in the sink. When you looked over at him he had this look on his face as he stared down at the dishes, hands clenching the edge of the sink. You knew whatever the thoughts that were in his mind would never pass his lips. Even though you and him weren’t as close as you used to be, he didn’t want to hurt you with remarks. Jax was above that.