Page 100 of Never Alone
In the days since, I had caught him looking at me. Not often. Not long. Across the kitchen while I was at the counter. Down the hall, when I came out of Noah's room at night. From the driver's seat once, while I was buckling my seatbelt and my hair fell in the way I never let it fall in front of strangers. Each time, by the time I lifted my head, he was looking at something else.
I had not said anything about it.
I had let myself smile, once, when I caught him. The smile had lasted longer than I'd meant it to. By the time I'd put it down, Cole had already turned back to whatever he had been pretending to do.
I had been telling myself, in the days since the dinner, that the warmth I was carrying around was the warmth of a woman whose lawyer had a strategy and whose son was sleeping through the night and whose locks had been changed by a man who knew which locks were good. I had been telling myself it was relief.
It wasn't relief.
Miranda called me at the bakery the day before, while I was wiping down the counter.
I knew before I picked up.
"Miranda."
"Tessa. Are you somewhere you can talk?"
"Hold on."
I told Benjie I'd be right back. I went out the back door into the alley, the one that smelled like restaurant grease and wet cardboard, and put my back against the brick where the dumpster blocked the wind.
"Okay."
"Nicholas filed for a gag order this morning."
I shut my eyes.
"He's citing concern for Noah's well-being. The media circus. The viral exposure. He's framing it as protection. Both parties are prohibited from speaking to the press, posting on social media, or making public statements about the case."
"Will the judge grant it?"
"Probably. It's not unreasonable on its face. A child is involved."
"What's he actually doing?"
"Controlling the narrative. He's losing it, and he knows it. The kiss photos from Sean's are making the rounds again this week. He can't spin the hero couple. So he's trying to silence the story he can't tell."
I leaned my head back against the brick.
"I want you off social media completely," Miranda said. "Don't comment, don't like, don't post, don't read. I want a paper trail of compliance starting today. The judge is going to grant it because it's reasonable, and the moment he does, I want our hands clean."
"Okay."
"He won't move in the open after this. Whatever he does next, he'll do quietly."
"Okay."
A pause. The kind of pause Miranda took when she was deciding whether to give me a thing she didn't have to.
"Tessa. He's not winning. He's adjusting. There's a difference. You're still in the strongest position. Keep doing what you're doing."
"Okay."
I stood in the alley for a minute after she hung up. The wind was cold against the back of my neck. A delivery truck rumbled at the mouth of the alley, idled, and pulled away. I put my phone in my apron pocket and went back inside and picked up where I'd left off on the counter.
I didn't tell Cole about the call until the truck. He'd come to pick Noah and me up at three. I waited until Noah had his headphones on in the back seat and the bakery was a block behind us.
"Miranda called."
