She was still breathing hard when the chair went quiet, her thighs clamped tight over Kaiden’s lap like a seal. He kissed her temple, palm broad over her lower belly, and met my eyes. We didn’t need words.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured, sliding one arm under her knees and the other behind her shoulders. “Keep your legs together for me, baby.”
Mia nodded, cheeks flushed, lashes damp. She pressed her thighs firm and tucked her face into my neck, breath hot against my skin. Kaiden rose with us, one hand steadying her back, the other covering low, protective, possessive, like he could help her hold everything she wanted to keep.
We moved as a unit across the hall. The floorboards were cool under my bare feet; the nursery door stayed open that inch on purpose, a soft–lit promise in my periphery. Kaiden walked backward into our room, shouldering the door wide, flipping the duvet down with a practiced snap. I lowered Mia to the center of the mattress like she was something precious (she is), keeping her hips tilted just enough. Kaiden slid a pillow beneath the small of her back for comfort, not superstition, though tonight it felt like both.
I reached automatically for a cloth, and her fingers caught my wrist.
“Don’t,” she whispered, eyes on mine. “Let me keep this. All of it. Please.”
“Okay,” I said, because the answer was easy. “Okay.”
Kaiden echoed the nod. No rush, no fuss, just the two of us making the room gentle. He lifted the headboard a notch so she wasn’t flat. I drew the duvet up over her hips and tucked it close, so nothing felt exposed or taken.
“Water?” Kaiden asked.
She nodded. I held the glass to her mouth, tipping it just enough; she drank in small sips, that little line between her brows easing when she finished. I thumbed it away anyway, greedy for excuses to touch her.
“Any pain?” I kept my voice low. “Lightheaded? Too warm?”
“I’m okay,” she said, steady in a way that felt like a gift. “Just… don’t move me yet.”
“Not moving,” I promised, settling at her side. I slid a pillow under one knee to take the pull from her hips. Kaiden’s palm rested over her lower belly, the gentlest pressure in the world; I laced my fingers over his so it felt like one hand instead
of two.
We kept the stillness. Kaiden combed through her hair with slow, patient fingers. I traced circles on the inside of her wrist where the elastic had sat earlier, a tiny groove like a ring made of habit and hope.
“Tell me something good,” she breathed.
Kaiden’s mouth tipped. “The olive sprig we plant tomorrow is going to root like it paid rent.”
“And,” I added, “the rocking chair just got promoted to heirloom.”
That pulled a smile, small, real, perfect. “It did feel… right,” she said. “Like the room decided to have us back.”
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“It did,” I said. “So did we.”
Her gaze found mine. “Thank you for not… fixing.”
“We did,” I said. “Just differently.” I kissed her temple. “If you change your mind in five minutes and want the cloth, say it. If you want the shower in an hour, say that. If you want us to fall asleep exactly like this, we can do that too.”
“Like this,” she decided, settling deeper into the pillows. “For a while,”
“Done,” Kaiden said, sealing it with a kiss to her hairline.
We matched our breaths to hers until all three of us ran the same quiet rhythm. I wasn’t thinking about calendars or charts or timing. I was thinking about the warmth we were guarding under the duvet, about the stubborn, living thing that is hope and how it always seems to choose her.
“Tomorrow we call someone reputable,” she murmured, eyes half–closed. “Together.”
“Together,” we answered, Kaiden first, then me like a chorus we’d practiced.
A car hissed past outside on wet asphalt; the old floorboards settled in the hall. I pulled the spare blanket over her calves, careful not to shift her. She sighed, soft, pleased and reached for me with her toes the way she does when she’s half–asleep and still choosing.
I lay on my side facing her, one arm under her head, the other circling her waist. Kaiden mirrored me on the other side so she was held without being pinned, our bodies a warm bracket around the place she wanted to keep.
“Hold me here,” she whispered, drowsy, “just a little longer.”
“As long as you want,” I said.
We didn’t count minutes. We didn’t bless or bargain. We just stayed. When her breathing evened, I felt it through Kaiden’s hand under mine, the steady, patient thrum of a body that has not given up on itself. I kissed the back of her fingers and let my eyes close.
The house settles around us until the dark feels soft. Mia sleeps warm between us, breath a slow tide.
“Think she’s really out?” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Finally.”
We listen, pipes, wind in the eaves, until the quiet invites speech.
“I want a kid,” I say, truth small in the dark. “I want the chaos. Crayons on walls. A hundred tiny socks that never match.”
“I know.” His thumb strokes the sheet. “Me too. God, me too.”
A minute passes, long enough to be honest.,
“But if it’s this,” I add, “if it’s just us and Sunday lunches and being the uncles who spoil Rosa rotten… I’m okay. As long as she’s happy.”
Kaiden’s laugh is barely air. “Same. I keep picturing gray in my beard and her yelling at us for climbing ladders we
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shouldn’t. That’s not a loss.”
“No.” I agree. “That’s a life.”
He shifts, careful not to move Mia. “I’m scared sometimes that wanting makes it worse for her.”
“We can want quietly,” I say. “We can want without turning her into a goal.”
“Want without worshipping an outcome,” he echoes.
“Exactly.”
Another minute. The clock ticks like a wink.
*If we do get lucky,” he says, softer, “I’m building the crib even if it takes me a week and twelve splinters.”
“You’ll swear at the instructions,” I tease, smiling in the dark.
“You’ll read them upside down,” he fires back, smiling. Then his voice steadies. “But if luck never comes… we still get to be the men she chose.”
I squeeze his fingers over Mia’s hand. “We already are.”
*Then we keep her laughing,” he says.
“And we keep this peace,” I finish, listening to her breaths.
“Deal,” he whispers softly.
“Deal.”
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