Cole’s POV
Derek and Sarah arrive for Sunday dinner at 5 PM sharp, their daughter Emma bouncing through the front door with the uncontained energy of a four-year-old who's been promised dessert.
I watch from my designated corner of the living room as the performance unfolds—Grace playing perfect hostess in the dress Ryan complimented this morning.
Ryan's hand resting on her lower back with casual ownership, the three of us pretending to be a normal family preparing for a baby instead of whatever twisted arrangement we've actually become.
"You look wonderful, Grace," Sarah says, air-kissing her cheek. "Pregnancy really suits you."
"Cole, you're glowing," Sarah continues, turning to me, then catches herself with visible horror. "I mean, Ryan is glowing. Obviously. Ryan. Not Cole."
The slip hangs in the air like smoke from a fire everyone can smell but no one will acknowledge. Derek's eyes find mine across the room, and I see the knowledge there.
He knows, Sarah suspects, probably everyone who looks at us for more than five seconds can see the truth written in the way I watch Grace move through the room like she's the only real thing in a world of shadows.
"Thanks for having us," Derek says, filling the awkward silence. "Emma's been talking about Aunt Grace's pasta all week."
"Uncle Cole!" Emma launches herself at my legs, and I catch her automatically, lifting her onto my hip. "Are you excited about the baby?"
"Very excited," I manage, while Grace's eyes find mine over Emma's head, soft with something I can't let myself name.
"Will the baby look like you?" Emma asks with the devastating innocence only children possess. "Since you live here too?"
"Babies look like their parents," Ryan says smoothly, taking Emma from my arms with practiced ease. "And this baby will be very lucky to look like Grace."
"But is Uncle Cole the baby's daddy too?" Emma persists, her little face scrunched in confusion. "Since you all live together? Like how Jessie has two daddies at preschool?"
The room goes so quiet I can hear the pasta water boiling in the kitchen. Grace's face drains of color while Ryan's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly.
"No, sweetheart," Ryan answers with a politician's smile. "Uncle Cole just helps us out. He's a good friend who's staying with us for a while."
I grip my fork hard enough that the metal bends slightly under my fingers. Just a friend. Just helping out. Just the man who actually created the life growing inside Grace while Ryan plans paint colors.
"Like a babysitter?" Emma asks.
"Something like that," Ryan agrees, and I have to excuse myself to the kitchen before I say something that will shatter this careful fiction we're all maintaining.
Dinner passes in a blur of forced conversation and avoided eye contact.
Grace tells a funny story about her latest pregnancy craving, pickles dipped in chocolate ice cream, and everyone laughs like we're not all suffocating on unspoken truths.
Ryan discusses his nursery plans with Derek, who nods along while shooting me concerned glances.
Sarah mentions a pregnancy yoga class Grace should try, and I bite my tongue to keep from saying I already signed her up for one.
That I researched every prenatal class in a thirty-mile radius because I want to be involved even if I can't be acknowledged.
After dinner, while the women clean up and Emma watches cartoons, Derek corners me on the back deck. He pulls out a cigarette, which surprises me since he quit three years ago when Emma was born.
"We need to talk," he says, lighting up with hands that shake slightly.
"About what?" I lean against the railing, staring into the darkness beyond the yard.
"Don't play dumb with me."
He takes a long drag, exhales slowly.
"You're in love with her. It's written all over your face every time she breathes. Every time she laughs. Every time Ryan touches her and your jaw clenches like you're about to punch your best friend in the face."
I don't deny it. What would be the point?
"So?"
"So? Jesus Christ, Cole."
He stubs out the cigarette halfway through, immediately lights another.
"You're living in their house, fucking his wife with his permission, fathered the child he's planning to raise as his own. This arrangement you've got going? It needs to end before someone gets destroyed."
"You think I don't know that?"
I drain my beer in three swallows, wishing it was something stronger.
"You think I like sneaking around, pretending I'm just the helpful roommate while he picks out cribs and interviews pediatricians? You think I enjoy watching him touch her belly like he has any claim to what's inside?"
"Then leave," Derek says simply, like it's that easy. "Pack your shit tonight and go. Find an apartment, hell, crash with me again. Just get out before this gets worse."
"I can't."
"Why the fuck not?"
"Because Grace asked me to stay."
The admission burns coming out, like confessing to a crime.
"She can't abandon him—says it would be cruel after everything he's sacrificed. And I can't abandon her. I won't be another man who walks away when things get complicated."
Derek stares at me like I've grown a second head.
"You're all going to destroy each other. You realize that, right? This isn't sustainable. Someone's going to snap, someone's going to get hurt, and that kid is going to grow up in the wreckage."
"Probably," I agree, the word tasting like ash.
"She's never going to choose you, Cole. Not really, not completely."
His voice gentles, becomes almost pitying.
"She'll keep you both dangling forever because she's too kind to hurt anyone, too afraid to make a choice that causes pain. She'll split herself between you until there's nothing left."
Inside, through the kitchen window, I watch Grace laugh at something Ryan said, her hand touching his arm with casual intimacy.
The perfect wife having Sunday dinner with friends, growing her husband's miracle baby, glowing with happiness that might be real or might be performance—I can't tell anymore.
"I'd rather have part of her than none of her," I admit to the darkness.
Derek drops his second cigarette, crushing it under his heel with unnecessary force. "That's the saddest fucking thing I've ever heard."
"Yeah, well."
I watch Grace through the window, memorizing the way the kitchen light catches in her hair, the way her hand unconsciously rests on her stomach, the way she belongs to everyone but me. "Love makes idiots of us all."
"This isn't love," Derek says quietly. "This is slow-motion suicide. For all of you."
He's probably right. But I stand there anyway, watching the woman I love play house with her husband while my child grows inside her, and I know with terrible certainty that I'll stay until it kills me.
Because the alternative, leaving her, leaving them, would kill me faster.
"Uncle Cole!" Emma calls from inside. "Come play with me!"
I go, because that's what I do. I play my part.
Uncle Cole, the helpful friend, the good guy who's always there but never really present, never really acknowledged, never really anything but borrowed time in someone else's family.