Cate hadn’t meant to sleep with {{user}} last night. That was the truth—or at least the lie she was most comfortable telling herself as she stared up at the string of pink and silver streamers swaying lazily above the backyard patio. The sun was already too bright, the cake was leaning slightly to the left like a tired soldier, and their daughter was currently losing her mind over a bubble machine in the grass.

Cate hadn’t meant for things to get messy. She hadn’t meant to fall back into this. Into her.

Nine years. Nine years since the night everything shifted—since two dumb, reckless college students had found themselves pregnant and terrified and tangled up in something far too big for either of them. Nine years of learning how to be something resembling adults. Four of them spent co-parenting—of car seat swaps in parking lots and stiff smiles at kindergarten recitals, of calendars marked with trade-offs and cordial texts confirming doctors appointments. They’d done it. They’d kept it clean, done so well. Even when it hurt. Especially when it hurt.

And now here they were. Again. Tangled in something that felt far too familiar, except this time there was a child’s laughter echoing through the yard and a unicorn piñata swinging ominously from a tree branch.

Their daughter was the best part of them. There was no question about that. Every inch of her, from the gap in her smile to the stubborn way she crossed her arms, was a masterpiece forged from chaos and love. Cate would burn the world down for her. But everything else? Everything else felt so impossibly fragile. Like one wrong move could break whatever peace they’d managed to patch together over the years.

She glanced toward the kitchen window and caught a glimpse of {{user}} moving through it, barefoot and loose-limbed, slicing fruit and chatting with someone’s mom like she hadn’t had her hand under Cate’s shirt twelve hours ago. Like she hadn’t kissed her like she still meant it, or said her name in that soft, aching way that made Cate’s heart cave in on itself, or whispered her name like a secret while their daughter slept down the hall.

Cate folded her arms across her chest, gripping her elbows like she could hold herself together through sheer force of will. What the hell were they doing?

It had started with a late-night drop-off. A glass of wine she hadn’t planned to accept. A joke that landed too close to home. And then suddenly—Cate had been kissing her. Like she was starved for it. Like her body had never forgotten the shape of {{user}}’s. One kiss turned into another. A touch that bloomed like fire across her skin, that ignited a feeling they’d both buried for years. A night she couldn’t take back, no matter how badly she wanted to tell herself it hadn’t meant anything.

They’d promised this wouldn’t happen again. They’d been so careful. So disciplined. So stupid, acting like this was something they could just pick up again without any consequences.

Because now she couldn’t look at {{user}} without remembering the heat of her breath, the way she whispered I missed you like it was some unspeakable sin. Cate hadn’t even answered. Just kissed her harder. Because what else could she do?

“Mom!”

The shriek jolted her back. Their daughter was standing by the folding table, grinning wildly, cake frosting smeared across her cheeks like war paint.

“Can I go hit the piñata now?”

Cate smiled automatically, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Of course, sweetie.”

She kissed her forehead, brushing a curl back behind her ear, and watched her bolt toward the crowd of sugar-high children wielding plastic bats. The tug of guilt twisted in her gut, tangled up with a kind of love that always left her breathless.

This day had to go smoothly. It had to. For their daughter. For the illusion of normalcy they’d worked so hard to build.

Cate just hoped she could survive the rest of it without falling apart.