Page 16 of What Broke First (The Cheating A$$hole #1)

It started with a phone call. Or maybe it started earlier when Sarah re-read Matt’s texts, set her phone down, and left the room. Emily, with her toddler curiosity and tiny fingers, picked it up.

Matt had just finished his second cup of coffee when the screen lit up. Sarah calling. His stomach flipped. He answered with a wide grin.

“Calling me already? You miss my face that much?”

There was a pause. Then a tiny voice.“Hi, Daddy! I called you! What you doing?”

Matt’s grin turned into something soft and overwhelming.

“Emily? Sweetheart, is that you?”

“Yup. I push the button and it worked! Mommy’s phone is magic.”

He laughed.

“It sure is. I’m just sitting here thinking about my best girl. That’s you, by the way.”

Emily giggled.

“I wear my pink dress and my crown, and and... I have tea ready. But not the hot kind. The pretend kind. You want to come play?”

Matt leaned back, heart swelling.

“Of course I do. Save me a seat. And make sure Sir Teddy behaves this time, alright?”

Emily giggled again, but then her voice shifted. “Daddy?”

“Yeah, baby?"

“I miss you being home.”

Matt swallowed hard.

“I miss being home, too.”

In the other room, Sarah froze. She had just stepped back into the living room, laundry basket in hand, and heard it all through the speaker. The way Matt’s voice wrapped around their daughter like safety. The shift in Emily’s tone. The ache in her own heart caught her off guard.

She walked around the couch and gently took the phone.“Hey,” she said.

Matt’s voice was light.

“Hey. I just received a royal invitation to a very important tea party.

”Emily nodded.

“Mommy, Daddy said he wants to play. Can he come now?”

Sarah looked at her daughter, then at the phone, then out the window, as if the answer might be written in the sky.

She heard Matt chuckle softly through the speaker.

“Yes,”

she said finally.

“He can come.”

Matt arrived in record time, hair damp from a rushed shower, and shirt slightly wrinkled from where he’d yanked it over his head too fast. He barely knocked before Sarah opened the door.

“Wow,”

she said, eyes wide.

“You really don’t mess around.”

He grinned, stepping in.

“What can I say? Tea time is sacred.”

Emily squealed with delight and rushed into his arms.

“Daddy! I got Mommy’s phone and I called you!”

Matt scooped her up, peppering her cheeks with kisses.

“You sure did, princess. And you saved the day. I was just about to have a very boring lunch.”

Sarah raised a brow.

“You haven’t eaten, have you?”

He looked sheepish.

“Nope. But I’ll survive. I’m on a strict diet of invisible cookies and imaginary tea.”

They set up the tea party in the living room. Emily was the host, assigning roles with the seriousness of a royal butler.

Matt was Sir Crumpet, and Sarah was Lady Fancy; their stuffed animal guests were all given accents that made no geographical sense.

Tommy wandered in, holding a Lego dinosaur.

“What’s going on?”

“Tea party,”

Sarah said. “Join us?”

Tommy shrugged, then grinned and plopped down beside them.

“My dino likes Earl Grey.”

The four of them laughed, sipped from plastic cups, and made exaggerated slurping sounds.

The kids were noticeably lighter and brighter, and Emily’s giggle came in bursts like bubbles popping. Tommy’s grin was wide and constant, the kind that didn’t need prompting.

They piled on accents, demanded second rounds of imaginary tea, and created rules that changed every three minutes. The room buzzed with the kind of joy that didn’t ask questions. Just being together was enough.

Sarah watched Matt, how effortlessly he shifted between silly and gentle, his deep voice morphing into a high-pitched squeak for Emily’s teddy bear, how he let Tommy win a cookie stacking contest with an over-the-top groan of defeat.

It was the way he moved, easy but purposeful, with that animal grace she used to adore. When their eyes met, he caught her staring. She didn’t look away in time.

His brow lifted slightly, and she could see the question forming in his mind, the way his expression softened, hopeful, searching.

She glanced at the clock.

“Alright, time to wind down, everyone.”

“Awwww,”

Tommy groaned.

Matt scooped Emily up and tickled her until she giggled uncontrollably.

“Bedtime, giggle monster. You heard the queen.”

They helped brush teeth, read a short book, and tucked the kids in together. Emily clung to Matt a little longer than usual.

“Can you stay for two more stories?”

she asked sleepily.

“Next time, sweetheart,”

Matt whispered, kissing her forehead.

“Daddy has to go get his own bedtime soon.”

Emily blinked up at him, her voice sleepy and sincere.

“You can do bedtime here. Mommy won’t mind. She’s really good at snuggles.”

Matt smiled, heart twisting. He kissed her again, softer this time.

“I know she is. Goodnight, my brave girl.”

Emily’s eyes fluttered shut, her small hand still curled around his finger.

Back in the living room, the energy shifted. Matt turned toward Sarah, expression open. He took a step forward.

“Tonight felt right,”

he said quietly.

“Just us. Like we remembered who we are.”

She didn’t back away, but she didn’t step closer either.

“I’ll see you in a few days,”

she said gently. Matt nodded, the warmth in his eyes tempered with acceptance.

“Yeah. Okay. I miss this,”

Matt said, voice low.

“All of it. Not just you. Us.”

Sarah didn’t answer right away. Her fingers traced the edge of the light switch, as if flipping it might change the conversation.

“I know,”

she finally said.

“Me too. Somedays.”

She opened the door.

He left without another word, and Sarah stood at the door long after it closed, her hand resting on the frame.

The quiet in the house felt heavier now, filled with the echo of laughter and something dangerously close to need.

She wasn’t sure if she was bracing for a beginning or an ending, only that whatever it was, it was getting harder to deny.