CHAPTER 0025- The park

Chloe was the one who suggested it.

She came home from her shift around three, dropped her bag by the door, and announced that the weather was too nice to waste inside. “Park. All of us. I already checked and Dad’s free. No arguments.”

Elias looked up from his laptop at the kitchen island. “All of us?”

“Yes. You, me, Riley. Fresh air. Walking. Maybe ice cream after if you’re both good.” She pointed at me. “You’re coming. You’ve been moping around this house like a Victorian ghost.”

I almost said no. The idea of the three of us out in public, acting like a normal unit, felt strange after everything that had happened inside these walls. But Chloe was already grabbing her keys, and Elias closed his laptop without arguing. Twenty minutes later we were in his car, Chloe in the front passenger seat, me in the back, the windows cracked to let the late afternoon air in.

The park wasn’t crowded. A few families near the playground, joggers on the path, someone throwing a tennis ball for a dog in the open field. We found a stretch of grass under a cluster of trees and claimed it. Chloe stretched out on her back immediately, sunglasses on, scrolling her phone. Elias sat with one knee up, forearm resting on it, looking out across the field like he was cataloguing the space. I sat a little apart from both of them, plucking at the grass.

For a while it was almost easy.

Chloe talked about work, about a coworker who’d gotten into a fight with a customer over a wrong order. Elias listened, occasionally adding a dry comment that made her laugh. I contributed enough to not seem checked out. The sun was warm without being aggressive. A breeze moved through the leaves overhead. If someone had taken a picture, we might have looked like any other group of people killing time on a nice day.

I caught Elias watching me once when Chloe was mid-story. Not long. Just a glance, unreadable, before he looked away again. I focused on the dog in the distance instead.

After a while Chloe sat up and declared she was going to the restrooms and then to check if the ice cream cart near the entrance was still open. She pointed at both of us. “Don’t move. I’ll be back.”

We watched her cut across the grass toward the path.

The silence she left behind felt different. Heavier.

Elias didn’t say anything at first. He just kept looking out at the field. I picked at a blade of grass until it split.

“You didn’t have to come,” I said eventually.

“Chloe wanted all of us.” He paused. “And I wanted to see you outside the house.”

I glanced at him. “Why?”

“Because everything between us has happened inside those walls. I was curious what it would feel like out here.”

“And?”

He considered the question. “Strange. Normal. Both.”

I didn’t have a good answer for that, so I let it sit. A couple walked past with a stroller. Somewhere behind us a kid screeched with laughter on the playground. Ordinary sounds. Ordinary afternoon.

Chloe was taking a while.

Elias shifted, resting his weight back on his hands. “How are you? After the call with your mom.”

“Better. Still weird. But better.”

He nodded once. Didn’t push.

We lapsed into quiet again. It wasn’t uncomfortable exactly, but it wasn’t easy either. Too much history compressed into too small a space, even out here under open sky.

I was about to ask how long he thought Chloe would be when I saw him.

At first it was just a shape on the path — tall, familiar posture, the way he walked with his hands in his pockets like he had nowhere particular to be. Then he turned his head and the recognition hit like a cold drop down my spine.

My ex.

Jake.

He was with someone. A girl I didn’t know, laughing at something he’d said, her arm looped through his. They were heading in our general direction, not looking at us yet.

I must have made a sound, because Elias’s attention snapped to me.

“What?”

I didn’t answer. Jake’s eyes landed on our little group a second later. He slowed. The girl kept talking for a moment before noticing he’d stopped. Jake’s expression moved through surprise, then something more complicated, then settled on a careful half-smile.

He raised a hand in a vague greeting.

I stayed frozen.

Elias followed my line of sight. His posture changed — subtle, but I felt it. Straighter. More alert.

Jake said something to the girl, then started walking toward us. She hesitated, then followed.

Chloe chose that exact moment to reappear from the other direction, ice cream in hand, grinning like she’d won something.

She saw Jake when she was about ten feet away. Her steps faltered.

“Oh,” she said. “Shit.”

Jake stopped a few paces from our spot on the grass. His eyes moved from me to Elias to Chloe and back to me.

“Riley,” he said. “Hey.”

The girl beside him looked between all of us, confused but polite.

I swallowed. My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “Hey.”

Jake’s gaze flicked to Elias again, lingering a second too long, like he was trying to place him. Then back to me.

“Didn’t expect to run into you here.”

Chloe recovered enough to step closer, positioning herself slightly between us without making it obvious. “Small world.”

Jake nodded at her, then at Elias. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Elias stood. It wasn’t aggressive, but it changed the air. He was taller than Jake by a couple of inches, and the way he held himself made the difference feel larger.

“Elias,” he said simply. He didn’t offer a hand.

Jake’s smile tightened a fraction. “Jake. Riley’s—” He stopped himself, glanced at me, then adjusted. “We used to… know each other.”

The girl beside him shifted her weight. Jake didn’t introduce her.

Chloe jumped in, too bright. “We were just about to head out, actually. Ice cream’s already starting to melt.”

Jake looked at me again. There was something in his expression I couldn’t read — curiosity, maybe. Or the residue of old history that hadn’t fully settled.

“You look good,” he said.

I didn’t know what to do with that. “Thanks.”

Elias’s hand settled lightly against the small of my back. Not obvious. Not dramatic. Just there. Possessive in a way that would only register if you were already looking for it.

Jake noticed.

His eyes dropped to where Elias’s hand rested, then came back up. Something sharper moved through his expression before he smoothed it over.

“Well,” he said. “Good seeing you.”

“Yeah,” I managed. “You too.”

He nodded once more, then steered the girl away with a light touch on her arm. They continued down the path. I watched them until they disappeared around a bend.

Chloe let out a long breath. “That was awkward as hell.”

Elias’s hand was still on my back. He hadn’t moved it.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure it was true.

Chloe held out the ice cream like a peace offering. “It’s melted. But the walk back to the car is short.”

We gathered our things in silence. The sun was lower now, casting longer shadows across the grass. As we started toward the parking lot, Elias’s hand slipped away from my back, but he stayed close enough that his shoulder almost brushed mine.

I didn’t look back toward the path.

But I could still feel the weight of Jake’s eyes, and the quiet, deliberate way Elias had claimed the space beside me without saying a word.