A chill skitters across my skin, stiffening my back and tensing my muscles. Is this where he confesses he did give in to temptation and sleep with Aiko once, twice, three times?

“What happened?” I ask, keeping my voice even and just the right degree of curious.

“I did what I needed to do,” he says, studying the sheets. “I wanted to be there for Mai and Noah and Aiko, of course.”

I gulp at the tears threatening, grit my teeth and brace for disappointment.

“I stayed there until Mai came, stayed for the first few months so I could be around to help as much as possible. Changing diapers, midnight feedings—the whole thing.”

My heart clenches into a fist at the picture he paints of their family, their baby, their life together while we were apart.

“But we needed our own places to establish a new normal,” he says. “Especially for Noah. He needed to see that separation to understand how our relationship was changing.”

“Look,” I say, deciding to just address my worst fears. “If you need to tell me that you…slipped…that you and Aiko—”

“I’m trying to assure you there is no me and Aiko,” he cuts in, holding my eyes in a steady stare. “Not beyond Mai and Noah, and a long friendship. I knew what I wanted then and I know what I want now.”

I don’t ask, afraid to ask, to assume, but look away, hold my breath and wait.

“You.” He squeezes my hand, tugs my fingers until I look into his eyes. “I only want you.”

A relieved breath escapes the tight line of my mouth. “And Aiko? What does she want?”

“At first,” he says, his mouth a wry curve, “she didn’t know. It was hard for her to think of us differently, but she had no choice. She knows I’m in love with you, and she had to accept that she and I would never be what we were before.”

“And?”

“And she gets it now.” He chuckles, shaking his head. “Chaz helped.”

“I saw him at your house. Your old house. I went there first.”

“They’re together. Chaz started coming back around when she was still pregnant. Now they’re dating, sickeningly sweet, the whole nine.”

“Well, that’s unconventional.”

“At no point has Aiko ever been conventional.”

“And how is Noah adjusting to all of this?”