Mason let out a quiet breath, the kind that felt too big for his chest.

Because Jesus Christ.

There she was — full of sunlit smiles and sly jokes and that soft, break-your-heart kind of honesty that hit him harder than anything ever had. And somehow, somehow, she was looking at him like he was worth all of it.

He didn’t deserve that. Not really. Not this kind of magic. Not a girl like Rowan Starling — all storms and steel and baby blue hoodies he still swore she stole from him.

But she was here.

And she was his.

And that crooked-ass crib behind them was somehow proof that they’d built something real.

“Ignored them beautifully,” he echoed under his breath, leaning his head against hers with a soft chuckle. “That might be my new favorite Rowan quote. Top five, easily. Right above: ‘This chair doesn’t need legs if the vibe is strong enough.’”

His thumb skimmed along her knuckles where their hands were joined over her stomach. The paint on her skin. The bolt grease on his. They were a mess. But they were their mess.

“I’m gonna tell her everything,” he added after a moment, voice lower now. “How you built her crib with a screwdriver in one hand and a death glare in the other. How you threatened to stab me lovingly. How you smiled like the whole world was right here, in this room.”

His throat tightened, but he didn’t look away.

“I’ll tell her how brave you were. How much you loved her before she ever showed up. And how the minute I saw you like this — paint-smudged and bossy and so fucking alive — I knew I was done for.”

He turned his head slightly, kissed her temple, slow and reverent.

“You’re gonna be her whole universe,” he whispered. “And I’m gonna be the guy making snack runs and fixing lopsided furniture and reminding you both that chaos can still be beautiful.”

He pulled back just enough to look at her, his smile crooked, like the crib. “And hey… if we screw it all up along the way, at least we’ll have glitter and pudding cups.”

Then he held up their linked hands and kissed her fingers one by one, soft and certain. “No instructions. No blueprints. Just you. Me. Her. And whatever the hell comes next.”

A beat passed.

Then, smirking, he added, “But I am buying extra bolts next time. Just in case we ignored the part that said ‘tighten until fully secure.’”

Because God help him, he was all in.

Rowan laughed under her breath, quiet and warm, the sound spilling out before she could stop it. “You keep a running list of my quotes now? God, you’re worse than Jovie’s fan club.” She nudged his shoulder lightly. “And for the record, that chair was stable. It just needed… spiritual support.”

She looked down when his thumb brushed across her hand, tracing the same paint smudge she’d already forgotten about. Her fingers twitched against his — like instinct — and then stilled, lacing tighter around his. “You’re really gonna tell her that?” she said softly, smiling to herself. “All of it? Even the part where I spent ten minutes trying to use the wrong screw and then swore it was the manufacturer’s fault?”

Her grin deepened, bright and a little self-aware. “She’s gonna think her mom’s a genius and a menace at the same time.”

But then his voice changed — that quiet, steady one that always found its way under her ribs. And she couldn’t joke through that. Not when he said things like that. Not when he looked at her like that.

Her smile faltered into something smaller. Realer. “You make it sound like I built Rome,” she whispered, tilting her forehead to his. “I just wanted her to have something made by us. Something messy and real and…” She trailed off, eyes flicking up to his. “Something that feels like this.”

She let out a soft laugh when he kissed her temple. “You realize you’re signing up for a lifetime of snack runs, right? Like, that’s not just a pregnancy clause. That’s forever. I’m not above sending you out at 2 a.m. for pudding cups when she’s twelve and emotional about homework.”

He called her brave, and for a second, she had to breathe through it. “You’re the one who makes this easy,” she said quietly. “All the brave does is show up — you’re the reason it feels safe too.”

When he kissed her fingers, she smiled again — lazy, unguarded, the kind of smile that meant she was completely gone for him. “No instructions, no blueprints,” she echoed, brushing her thumb across his jaw. “That’s us, huh? Just building our weird little empire one crooked crib and snack run at a time.”

Then her eyes glinted, mischievous again. “And hey, about those extra bolts? I’m not saying you’re paranoid, but if Indigo’s anything like me, she’s absolutely going to climb out of this crib by eight months old. So yeah — stock up.”

She leaned in, her voice low, teasing. “Also… just so you know? If I wasn’t five months pregnant, you wouldn’t be talking right now.” Her grin curved slow and wicked. “You’d be thanking your lucky stars I don’t still have the energy for that kind of cardio.”

She laughed softly, the sound catching somewhere between affection and trouble. “Now hand me that wrench, Hayes. Let’s finish building her future before I decide to make you part of the décor.”

Mason choked on a laugh — the kind that hit too suddenly and cracked straight through the middle of him. “Okay, first of all,” he said, wide-eyed and grinning, “do not threaten me with a good time while I’m emotionally vulnerable and surrounded by hardware.”

He reached for the wrench with one hand, the other still tangled with hers like he couldn’t quite bear to let go. “Second of all, you saying ‘make you part of the décor’ is the exact kind of terrifying poetry that tells me Indigo’s going to rule the world by age five.”

He passed her the tool, but not before tugging her fingers to his lips again — a kiss, a thank you, a prayer, all in one.

“And yeah,” he added, voice dipping slightly, “I am keeping a list of your quotes. I’ve got a whole Google Doc called ‘Things Rowan Says That Should Be in Stone or at Least on a T-Shirt.’ And that chair did not have spiritual support, it had one functioning leg and your blind faith.”

He paused then, letting the silence stretch just long enough for the next truth to land.

“But yeah. I’ll tell her everything. Even the wrong screw part. Especially that part. Because it means her mom doesn’t give up when things don’t fit the first time. She figures it out. She swears at it, sure, but she stays. And that matters.”

He reached up and brushed a smudge of paint from the curve of her jaw. His voice went soft. “You didn’t build Rome, Starling. You built a home. That’s bigger.”

He leaned in until their noses almost touched, until all he could see was her. Her freckles. Her smirk. Her light. “And for the record, if she gets your chaos and my symmetry? We’ll raise a beautiful contradiction.”

His grin turned wicked. “Although, if she gets your cardio skills, I’m terrified. Do we start baby-proofing the ceiling now or later?”

He laughed again, the sound wrecked and full of everything she’d ever made him feel — all the years of almost, of missteps and missed chances, all the days since she’d started showing up and staying.

And then, gentler: “You know, it’s wild. I used to think love had to be some huge declaration, some show-stopping grand gesture. But this?” He motioned to the half-built crib, the scattered tools, the way her hand fit perfectly over his heartbeat. “This is louder than anything.”

He kissed her again — soft and slow, lips pressed to hers like punctuation on a chapter he never wanted to end. And when he pulled back, forehead still against hers, he whispered:

“Let’s finish building her future. And maybe a chair that doesn’t need divine intervention to stand.”

He reached for the next piece, still smiling. “Just don’t let Jovie hear I’m the one who followed directions. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

Rowan laughed so hard she had to press a hand to her belly. “You’re the only person I know who can make a threat sound like a compliment,” she said between breaths, shaking her head. “And don’t flatter yourself, Hayes — emotionally vulnerable or not, you’d still deserve whatever chaos you get.”

She reached for the wrench, pretending to snatch it with mock authority, but her hand lingered when his fingers brushed hers. That stupid soft kiss to her knuckles made her heart skip the way it always did — and the way it still shouldn’t, even now, even after all these months. “You’re ridiculous,” she said quietly, the edge gone from her voice. “And that’s not terrifying poetry, by the way. That’s called creative honesty. Indigo’s gonna learn from the best.”

When he mentioned the Google Doc, her jaw dropped in mock horror. “You did not,” she gasped, smirking through it. “You actually have one? Mason, that’s—okay, that’s borderline romantic and deeply concerning. And for the record, the chair was fine. If you’d believed in her, she would’ve made it through the semester.”

Her voice softened when he kept going — when the teasing fell away and he said the kind of things she’d never get used to hearing. “You’re such a sap,” she murmured, smiling down at the half-built crib. “But you’re right. I do swear a lot. And I do stay. Mostly because you never make me feel like I have to earn staying.”

She tilted her head when he brushed her jaw, eyes flicking up to his. “Rome can keep its marble,” she said softly. “I’ll take paint smudges and bad IKEA decisions any day.”

Her lips curved into something smaller, gentler. “And for the record? Chaos and symmetry sound like a pretty solid mix to me. We’ll balance out. You’ll alphabetize her toys, and I’ll teach her how to charm her way out of time-out.”

He joked about baby-proofing the ceiling, and she snorted. “Please. By the time she’s walking, she’ll be scaling cabinets and gaslighting us both about it. We should just accept defeat early.”

Then he said this is louder than anything, and it hit her in the ribs. She blinked once, slow. “Yeah,” she said finally, voice soft but sure. “It really is.”

When he kissed her, she leaned into it like it was the most natural thing in the world — warm, certain, familiar. When he pulled back, she kept her forehead against his, eyes closed for a beat longer. “You talk too much,” she whispered, a grin tugging at her mouth. “But if you keep saying stuff like that, I’m never gonna shut you up.”

She took the next piece from his hands and set it carefully in place. “Now come on, Captain Reputation,” she said, nudging his knee with hers. “Let’s finish before she starts kicking again. I think she’s already judging us.”

A pause. Her grin softened into something quieter. “And Mason? For the record… this? You’re right. It’s everything.”

Mason tried — really tried — not to look completely gone for her in that moment. But it was hard when she laughed like that — full-body, tip-your-head-back kind of laughing, the kind that felt like applause in the middle of a quiet scene. His chest tightened, all ridiculous and warm.

“Okay, rude,” he said, eyes wide in mock offense. “I’ll have you know my chaos is award-winning. I once got a standing ovation for tripping over a stage sword and confessing my love in the same scene. It was very moving.”

He handed her another bolt, biting back a smile when her fingers lingered. “And yeah, I kiss your hand like we’re in a period drama,” he added, deadpan. “It’s called range, Starling.”

Her gasp at the Google Doc made him double down, grinning like the menace he was. “Oh, it’s real. Titled Rowanisms: A Chronicle of Chaos, Brilliance, and Mild Threats. Color-coded by mood. There’s even a ‘Don’t let her read this or she’ll set it on fire’ section. Very exclusive.”

He laughed at her defense of the chair — honest-to-God cackled — but as she spoke softer, his grin steadied into something deeper.

Because God, she had no idea what she did to him.

“You staying isn’t something you have to earn,” he said, his voice softer now, brushing a thumb against her wrist. “It’s the whole damn point. You stay, and suddenly the world feels like something I can stand in.”

She called him a sap. He grinned. “I’m a romantic disaster,” he confessed. “Fully self-aware. And honestly, if Indigo’s first word is ‘alphabetize,’ I’ll cry happy tears. Just sayin’.”

He shifted slightly, helping secure the next piece. The crib was coming together, a little wobbly maybe, but real. Tangible. The kind of thing that would hold a future they weren’t totally ready for — but were still choosing anyway.

He looked at her — really looked — as she described their daughter gaslighting them before she could even speak, and yeah, that was probably true.

“I give it three years before she’s directing school plays and bossing me around backstage,” he said fondly. “Five bucks says she steals my copy of Hamlet and rewrites it with a glitter ending.”

And then — her voice softened.

It’s everything.

His chest ached, sweet and full, and he tried to blink it back like she hadn’t just completely ruined him again.

“Starling,” he said, leaning in with a crooked smile, “you say stuff like that and I become the off-brand pudding. Just—completely soft. No spine. Just vibes.”

He kissed her temple, then her jaw, then pulled back only enough to help guide the next crib rail into place. “Also,” he added, with faux seriousness, “just so we’re clear — when Indigo grows up and asks why one side of her crib is slightly lower than the other, we’re blaming it on a rogue musical number. Full tap-dancing ghost scenario. I’ll commit.”

He glanced up at her, that crooked grin softening at the edges. “You and me? We’re chaos and curtain calls. Snacks and symphonies. Messy, brilliant, stubborn as hell — and totally in sync where it counts.”

He reached for the final screw, fingers brushing hers again. “Let’s finish it,” he said gently. “Our girl deserves a throne. Even if it’s slightly uneven.”

And with that, he settled in beside her — heart steady, hands sure — ready to build whatever came next.

Rowan grinned, eyes bright, trying — and failing — not to completely melt. “You seriously just compared yourself to pudding?” she said, biting back a laugh. “You realize that’s never coming off your record, right? Indigo’s first solid food is going to be pudding just so I can tell her this story.”

She leaned against him, pretending to examine the crooked crib rail like she was a professional contractor instead of someone who’d put one screw in backward twenty minutes ago. “Also, you tripping over a stage sword and confessing your love sounds exactly like the origin story of my favorite idiot. I can’t even be mad about it. It’s on-brand.”

He passed her another bolt, and she rolled her eyes, but her voice softened when their fingers brushed. “And don’t act like you’re some tragic romantic hero with range. You’re just trying to distract me so I don’t notice you’ve been tightening the wrong side.” She leaned in closer, her bump brushing his arm, and whispered, “Nice try, Shakespeare.”

When he mentioned Rowanisms: A Chronicle of Chaos, Brilliance, and Mild Threats, she stared at him like she might combust. “You color-coded me? Oh my God, you’re lucky I can’t bend down fast enough to chase you right now,” she said, mock furious but laughing. “Delete that ‘don’t let her read this’ section or I’ll add you to my list — and it’s not color-coded, it’s cursed.”

But then he said you staying isn’t something you have to earn, and her smirk faltered. Just for a second. “You always know how to do that,” she murmured. “Say something that makes me laugh, then immediately ruin my eyeliner.”

She exhaled, brushing her thumb over his wrist in return. “You’re a romantic disaster,” she agreed softly, “but you’re my disaster. And if Indigo’s first word is ‘alphabetize,’ I’m staging an intervention. Or at least a counterattack. Her second word’s gonna be ‘chaos.’”

When he joked about Indigo rewriting Hamlet with glitter, Rowan snorted so hard she almost dropped a screw. “That’s our girl,” she said proudly. “Tragic, dramatic, and fabulous.”

He said it’s everything, and she looked up, all the teasing melting away. “It is,” she whispered. “Even the wobbly parts.”

Then, after a long pause and the faint sound of the crib creaking under their combined effort, she added, “And if you ever call yourself off-brand pudding again, I’m upgrading to deluxe gelatin dessert on your contact name.”

When he kissed her temple, she smiled against it, then caught his jaw lightly with her paint-stained hand. “You’re lucky I can’t get up,” she said, grinning. “Because if I could, I’d climb you like this half-built crib.”

Her tone turned teasing again as she looked at the crooked railing. “And for the record, when Indigo asks why her crib’s uneven, I’m saying it was a creative choice. You can take the tap-dancing ghost credit if you want, but I’m calling it architectural whimsy.”

She reached for the final screw, bumping his hand in the process. “Teamwork,” she said with a smirk. “Or at least controlled chaos.”

And then, softer — so soft he almost missed it: “You’re my favorite kind of uneven, Hayes.”

She squeezed his hand once, smiled, and nodded toward the last bolt. “Now let’s finish our daughter’s throne before she starts practicing her rebellion in there.”

Mason was grinning like an idiot. Just completely gone.

“You’re out here threatening to rename me deluxe gelatin dessert and somehow that’s the hottest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” he muttered, shaking his head like he stood no chance — because honestly? He didn’t.

Not with her laughing like that. Not when she looked at him like that.

He nudged her knee with his, eyes still on her instead of the crib. “And listen, I stand by the pudding metaphor. You kiss me like that again and I go full gelatinous. It's tragic. I lose all structure. OSHA would be concerned.”

She said you’re my favorite kind of uneven, and his breath caught so hard he almost forgot how to use the screwdriver.

Because damn.
That wasn’t just a line.
That was her wrecking him, in the quietest, most perfect way.

“I—” he started, but stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. “Starling, if I didn’t already believe in soulmates, that line alone would’ve converted me.”

He didn’t even try to hide the way his eyes went soft — all glint and glass and boyish devotion.

Then, like a reflex, he leaned in and kissed her again.

Not rushed. Not showy. Just full. Deep. The kind of kiss that didn’t need an audience. The kind that said this is it, this is home, this is us.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers, breath still a little uneven. “You’re lucky I’m too emotionally compromised to flirt properly right now,” he murmured. “Because I’d absolutely start reciting Shakespeare and do a whole monologue about how you’ve bewitched me, body and soul.”

A beat.

“Wait, crap — that’s Austen, not Shakespeare. Don’t tell Indigo I got that wrong. She’ll think I’m a fake theater kid.”

He turned his attention back to the crib for exactly two seconds before stealing one last look at her — paint-smudged, grinning, glowing with the kind of light that only came from building something real.

He squeezed her hand back. “Let’s finish this thing,” he said quietly. “And then I’m drawing up blueprints for a snack throne. You deserve both.”

Because if Indigo was getting a throne,
then so was the queen who made it.

Rowan blinked at him, trying to look unimpressed, but her mouth was already curving. “You’re unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head. “I threaten you with dessert-based humiliation, and you take it as foreplay. We’re doomed.”

He bumped her knee, and she smirked, brushing her hair off her cheek. “Also, OSHA would one hundred percent shut us down,” she shot back. “You? Gelatinous. Me? Five months pregnant and unsupervised with a screwdriver. This whole operation’s a walking safety violation.”

But then he said if I didn’t already believe in soulmates, and she felt it — the shift, that little ache that always followed when he got serious out of nowhere. Her teasing stilled for just a second. She met his eyes, all soft warmth and disbelief wrapped into one. “You really have to stop saying stuff like that mid–construction project,” she murmured. “You’re gonna make me cry on the hardware.”

He kissed her, and she leaned in without thinking, the taste of him mixing with paint and sugar and home. When he pulled back, she laughed quietly, eyes still closed. “You do realize if Indigo ever hears you say things like that, she’s never gonna let you live it down. Like, first word out of her mouth might actually be cringe.”

Then he fumbled the quote, and she gasped, mock scandalized. “Oh, you better believe I’m telling her that one,” she said, hand pressed to her chest in exaggerated horror. “The great Mason Hayes — the leading man of the Evergreen High spring play — mixing up Austen and Shakespeare? Oh, she’s gonna dine on that story for years.”

She poked his chest with the screwdriver for emphasis. “Don’t think being emotionally compromised gets you a free pass, Mr. Fake Theater Kid. I’ve got receipts.”

Her voice softened, though, as she caught the way he looked at her again — like she was still mid-monologue and he hadn’t remembered to breathe. She gave his hand a squeeze. “You know,” she said, quieter now, “you say stuff like that, and suddenly I remember why I agreed to let you near power tools.”

She tilted her head, watching him line up the last piece of the crib, still smirking. “But fine. Let’s finish this ‘throne.’ And when you build my snack chair, make sure it reclines. Queen deserves lumbar support.”

She leaned over just enough to bump her shoulder against his, grinning. “And Mason?” she added, voice dropping playful but tender. “For the record — if Indigo ever asks, I’m totally telling her the crib was a masterpiece. But I’m definitely telling her you got Austen wrong.”

She kissed his cheek, low and warm. “A queen’s gotta keep her king humble.”

Mason practically melted.

Right there on the nursery floor — paint-streaked, covered in Allen wrench regret, knee-deep in misaligned crib pieces — he was done for.

“Okay,” he whispered dramatically, eyes wide and hand over his heart like she’d just delivered a Tony Award-worthy monologue. “You’re threatening me with receipts and literary slander and somehow I’m even more in love with you. What does that say about me?”

He wiggled his eyebrows, but his voice turned a little breathless when she kissed his cheek like that. Warm. Casual. Devastating.

“You’re dangerous, Starling,” he murmured, eyes catching hers. “Like, weapon-grade tenderness over here. You call me pudding, roast my stage credentials, and then kiss me like that? That’s psychological warfare.”

Then he sighed deeply — fake dramatic but somehow still sincere — and gestured to the nearly finished crib. “Alright, let’s finish building our daughter’s crooked palace of doom. And then I’ll get started on your snack throne. Reclining. With cupholders. Maybe even Bluetooth.”

He leaned close, voice dropping to a playful whisper. “Because if I’m gonna be emotionally wrecked and out-quoted by my own child, I at least wanna be doing it next to you. Preferably with snacks.”

And just before turning back to the last bolt, he tapped her finger with the screwdriver like a pinky swear. “Also? Don’t ever stop keeping me humble. It’s weirdly hot.”

He shot her a grin that was entirely Mason — all goof and glow and theater boy wrecked — then got back to work, humming softly under his breath as they finished the last pieces together.

Rowan’s laugh came out low and warm, the kind that curled around a person and stayed. “You have got to stop calling me dangerous like it’s a compliment,” she said, tilting her head toward him. “You make it sound like I should have a warning label.”

Her grin widened. “Although… weapon-grade tenderness? That one’s going on a T-shirt. Don’t tempt me, Hayes.”

He gestured toward the crib, and she looked at it the way someone might look at a miracle that didn’t quite follow the blueprints—tilted, imperfect, still standing. “Crooked palace of doom,” she repeated, amused. “You say that like it isn’t exactly the vibe we’re going for. She’s going to be born into pure chaos; might as well make it aesthetic.”

When he whispered about snacks, she nudged his shoulder with hers. “Deal,” she said softly. “You bring the snacks, I’ll bring the attitude. That’s our system.”

He tapped her finger with the screwdriver, and she caught it before he could pull away, eyes glinting. “Oh, I’ll keep you humble,” she promised. “Somebody has to make sure your pudding-theater-boy ego doesn’t inflate and float out the window.”

Her tone softened as he turned back to the last bolt, humming under his breath. She watched him for a moment—this ridiculous, earnest, perfect disaster of a man—and reached over to steady the panel he was tightening.

“There,” she murmured when it finally clicked into place. “We did it.”

The crib wasn’t perfect, but it was sturdy enough, beautiful in its lopsided way. She leaned against him, her bump fitting comfortably against his side, and smiled. “Our first masterpiece,” she said quietly. “Crooked, chaotic, completely ours.”

Then, teasing again: “Now get to work on my throne, Hayes. The queen demands snacks.”

Mason stepped back to admire the crib like it was an off-Broadway set piece he’d personally saved from collapse. Hands on his hips. Head tilted. Brow furrowed just enough to look artistic about it.

“Well,” he said solemnly, “she may lean to the left like a hungover pirate ship, but I’m proud of her. Indigo’s first command center. Perfect for plotting her baby villain arc.”

He looked over at Rowan, eyes dancing. “I give it four and a half stars. Lost half a point for structural integrity, gained ten for style and sentimental value. And for the record, if anyone asks, yes — it was absolutely intentional. Postmodern crib design. Very edgy. Very avant-garde.”

Then, with faux seriousness, he added, “We’ll just… put that side against the wall.”

When Rowan called it a masterpiece, his expression softened — the smirk still there, but gentled by the way she said it. The way she looked at him like maybe, somehow, none of this was a mistake.

“Our first masterpiece,” he echoed, voice dropping. “Built with love, paint smudges, and the world’s most aggressively labeled screws. We’re unstoppable.”

He nudged her shoulder lightly, catching the way her bump pressed against his side like it belonged there. Like she did. And he couldn’t help it — he glanced down at her hand, still flecked with dried paint, still holding his like she meant it.

“Don’t worry,” he said softly, brushing a curl behind her ear. “Your snack throne is next. I’m thinking crushed velvet. Built-in snack drawer. Maybe a secret compartment for sour straws.”

He grinned. “Indigo’s gonna look at us one day and wonder how the hell she came from this — a tragic pudding monologue and a woman who could probably overthrow a small government with just her side-eye.”

Then, quieter, “But she’s gonna know it’s love. That we built something real. Even if it wobbles a little.”

He bumped her shoulder again, his voice all warmth and wonder. “And hey… if we can survive flat-pack furniture and me misquoting Austen, I think we can survive anything.”

Lyric Arden Hayes was six weeks old and already deeply opinionated.

It was February now — the kind of cold that seeped into the bones of the house. The windows were dark. The heater hummed low and constant. Outside, the world was still and frozen.

Inside, Rowan sat curled in the corner of the couch, one lamp on, blanket tucked around her legs.

Lyric was warm against her chest.

And furious.

Not screaming. Not inconsolable. Just frustrated in that small, newborn way — mouth rooting, head turning, little fists clenching like she couldn’t believe the world wasn’t immediately cooperating.

Rowan held the bottle steady.

Lyric turned her head away.

Then back.

Then away again.

A tiny noise — not quite a cry, more like a protest.

Rowan didn’t tense.

She didn’t rush.

She didn’t sigh.

She just adjusted her grip, sliding one hand under Lyric’s neck, supporting her head with careful fingers. “Hey,” she murmured softly. “It’s okay. We’ve got time.”

Lyric’s face scrunched — red, indignant, overwhelmed by hunger and confusion and being six weeks old in February at two in the morning.

Rowan brushed her thumb along Lyric’s cheek, slow and grounding. “I know. I know,” she whispered. “It’s not what you wanted. But it’s what we’ve got.”

Lyric’s tiny body stiffened again, mouth searching, then pulling away like she couldn’t quite decide what she was upset about.

Rowan stayed calm.

Her breathing stayed slow.

She pressed a kiss to the top of Lyric’s head, breathing in that warm, milky newborn scent. “You don’t have to panic,” she murmured. “We’re not in a rush.”

She let the bottle rest lightly against Lyric’s lips instead of pushing it in.

A beat.

Another.

Lyric’s mouth opened.

Latched.

Then pulled off again.

Rowan smiled faintly. “We’re negotiating. That’s fine.”

She adjusted the angle slightly — patient, steady, no sudden movements. Her thumb kept tracing small circles along Lyric’s back.

Finally — finally — Lyric latched for real. Small sucks. Hesitant at first. Then steadier.

Rowan exhaled slowly, shoulders softening.

“There you go,” she whispered. “That’s it.”

Lyric’s tiny hand opened and closed against Rowan’s shirt, still dramatic even in surrender.

The house stayed quiet. February pressed against the windows. Mason was asleep down the hall, exhausted from shifts and late nights and learning fatherhood in real time.

Rowan leaned her head back against the couch cushion, eyes half-lidded but alert.

Six weeks old.

Brand new.

Already stubborn.

Already hers.

“You can fight me later,” Rowan murmured softly into the dim room. “Tonight, we eat.”

And Lyric, warm and small and very sure of herself, finally allowed it.

Mason woke up to the quiet kind of noise first.

Not a scream. Not a full-blown emergency. Just… the soft, insistent cadence of newborn frustration—tiny little protests that somehow still managed to fill the whole house. Like Lyric had opinions she needed on record immediately.

He blinked at the ceiling, disoriented for half a second, then rolled over and saw the other side of the bed empty.

Of course.

He sat up slowly, careful not to knock the glass of water off the nightstand like a cartoon dad in a sitcom, and padded into the hall in socks that didn’t match. The heater hummed. The floorboards sighed under his feet.

Halfway to the living room, he paused—because he could hear Rowan’s voice.

Low. Calm. Steady.

The kind of calm that didn’t come from pretending. The kind of calm that came from her actually being here, in it, with their daughter. Holding the moment like it wasn’t going to swallow her whole.

Mason leaned around the doorway and just… stopped.

Rowan was curled in the corner of the couch under the lamp, blanket around her legs, hair a mess in the softest way. Lyric was tucked against her like a warm little comma—angry at first, then gradually giving in, cheeks working as she finally latched.

Rowan didn’t look frantic. She didn’t look like she was bracing for impact.

She looked… capable.

Mason’s chest did that stupid, painful thing it always did lately—like pride and love and awe all tried to exist in the same breath and didn’t know how to share space politely. He’d watched Rowan be a thousand versions of strong. Sharp. Funny. Untouchable. All armor.

But this?

This was different.

This was her building safety out of nothing but her hands and her voice and patience she didn’t even know she had.

He walked in quietly, like he was entering a stage mid-scene and didn’t want to ruin the rhythm. He grabbed the burp cloth off the armchair, scooped up the bottle cap she’d set down, and moved to the kitchen without saying a word—because the silence felt earned.

He rinsed the spare bottle parts, checked the warmer out of habit, then stood there for a second with his palms on the counter, listening to the faint suck-suck-suck from the living room.

He wasn’t religious.

But sometimes, moments like this made him understand why people were.

When he came back, Rowan’s shoulders had softened, Lyric’s little fist still doing dramatic opening-and-closing choreography against her shirt like she was conducting the orchestra of her own meal.

Mason crouched beside the couch and slid his hand—warm, gentle—over Rowan’s knee beneath the blanket. A small squeeze. A quiet I’m here.

Then, without thinking too hard, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to Rowan’s temple.

“You’re… unreal,” he whispered, like he couldn’t help it.

He didn’t wait for her to answer. He knew she wouldn’t want to break the spell. So he just stayed there, low to the ground, watching their daughter’s tiny jaw work, watching Rowan’s thumb trace those slow circles along Lyric’s back like she was writing a promise into her skin.

Lyric paused for a second—pulled off, offended by something only she understood.

Mason froze like he’d personally been caught causing it.

He lifted his brows at Rowan, silently offering: Do we intervene? Do we negotiate? Do we call a mediator?

Lyric latched again like, never mind. I’ll allow it.

Mason’s mouth twitched. He couldn’t help the soft huff of a laugh.

“Okay,” he murmured under his breath, mostly to Lyric. “Yeah. You’re in charge. We got it.”

His hand slid up Rowan’s shin, then back down—restless, affectionate, like his body needed contact the way his mind needed oxygen. He watched Rowan’s face in the lamp light. The exhaustion under her eyes. The steadiness in them anyway.

He swallowed.

Six weeks ago, he’d thought love was the biggest thing he could carry.

Then Lyric arrived and proved him wrong.

And Rowan—Rowan sitting here in February at two a.m., negotiating a bottle like it was diplomacy, keeping their baby calm with nothing but her presence—

She was his whole damn future.

Mason leaned closer again, his voice barely there. “You’re doing so good.”

Then he shifted his weight, careful and quiet, and offered Rowan the burp cloth with two fingers like it was a sacred relic. His other hand stayed on her leg.

“Tag me in when she’s done,” he whispered, eyes flicking to Lyric. “I can burp. I can bounce. I can do the little… aggressive dad sway.”

He demonstrated it in miniature—just a tiny shoulder rock—like he couldn’t resist being stupid for one second, even in a holy moment.

Lyric’s eyes fluttered, milk-drunk and satisfied, her whole body slowly unclenching like she’d forgiven the world for being inconvenient.

Mason watched it happen, breath held.

Then he tucked his chin down near Rowan’s shoulder, cheek almost against her hair, and stayed there—quiet as the house, warm as the lamp—while February pressed against the windows and their family kept learning each other in the dark.

Rowan didn’t look up when he came in.

She felt him before she saw him—the way the air shifted when he stepped into the room, the quiet gravity of him moving carefully so he wouldn’t disturb whatever fragile peace had just settled over the couch.

Lyric had finally latched, little jaw working with dramatic determination, one fist still opening and closing like she was casting spells in her sleep. Rowan’s back ached. Her shoulder was numb. There was dried milk on the collar of her shirt and she hadn’t brushed her hair since… Tuesday? Maybe.

But she was steady.

When Mason’s hand slid over her knee under the blanket, she exhaled without realizing she’d been holding her breath. Just a small shift. A recalibration.

And then he kissed her temple.

You’re… unreal.

Rowan’s mouth twitched immediately.

She kept her voice low so she wouldn’t break Lyric’s rhythm, but the dry edge was there, soft and familiar.

“Oh, please,” she murmured. “You’re biased.”

Her thumb kept tracing slow circles along Lyric’s back, the rhythm automatic now. The baby made a tiny disgruntled sound, then latched again with renewed authority.

Rowan didn’t even blink.

“You’ve been in love with me since sixth grade,” she added quietly, like this was simply a fact entered into evidence. “Your objectivity is compromised.”

Her eyes flicked down to Mason where he crouched beside them, watching like this was a front-row seat to the greatest show on earth.

He looked wrecked.

In the best way.

She saw it—the pride, the awe, the way he still seemed surprised that she was capable of this. Like he hadn’t watched her carry entire worlds on her back before.

Lyric paused again, offended by something invisible, and Rowan adjusted without panic. A slight shift of her wrist. A murmured, “Hey, hey,” barely louder than breath.

When Mason froze like he’d personally triggered the disruption, Rowan’s lips curved again.

“Relax,” she whispered. “She’s dramatic. It’s genetic.”

Lyric latched again with righteous indignation.

Rowan lifted one eyebrow at him without looking away from their daughter.

“See? Negotiations successful. We avoided arbitration.”

When he offered the burp cloth like it was holy scripture, she took it with a small, grateful smile that didn’t need to be big to be real.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Not performative. Just… meant.

He demonstrated the aggressive dad sway and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing too loudly.

“Oh, she loves the sway,” Rowan said under her breath. “Very intense. Very alpha.”

Lyric’s eyelids fluttered, body slowly melting into that milk-drunk looseness. Rowan felt it happen in real time—the tension leaving, the little spine relaxing, the fist finally unclenching against her chest.

Rowan’s own shoulders softened in response.

Six weeks ago, she’d been terrified she’d get this wrong.

That she’d be too sharp. Too impatient. Too… her.

Now, in the glow of a February lamp at two in the morning, with Mason crouched beside her like a worshipper and their daughter slowly surrendering to sleep, she felt something steadier than fear.

She felt anchored.

When Mason tucked himself closer, his chin near her shoulder, Rowan leaned back just slightly into him—subtle, but intentional.

“You’re doing good too,” she murmured.

Her free hand reached down, brushing lightly over his wrist where it rested on her leg.

“You don’t get to just spectate and call me unreal,” she added softly. “You’re in this. You built this with me.”

A beat.

“And for the record,” she continued, eyes still on Lyric’s sleepy face, “if you’ve loved me since sixth grade, that means you knew exactly what you were signing up for.”

Her mouth curved again—tired, affectionate.

“Chaos. Drama. Aggressive swaying.”

Lyric made a small, satisfied sigh.

Rowan pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her daughter’s head, then looked at Mason properly for the first time since he’d walked in.

Her eyes were tired.

But they were bright.

“She’s going to be fine,” Rowan said quietly. “We’re going to be fine.”

Then, softer, teasing threading through it again—

“But if you call me unreal one more time, I’m making you take the 4 a.m. shift. No negotiation.”

Mason’s throat tightened so fast it almost annoyed him.

Because she said it like it was nothing—you’re doing good too—like she hadn’t just reached under his ribs and put a hand on his heart to make sure it stayed put.

He stayed crouched there for a second longer, eyes bouncing between Lyric’s sleepy little face and Rowan’s—tired, bright, dangerous in that quiet way she got when she meant every word and still refused to make a big deal out of it.

“Okay,” he whispered, because if he tried to be funny and honest at the same time, he was going to accidentally cry in his own living room and then he’d never hear the end of it.

His hand tightened on her knee beneath the blanket—just a small squeeze, like a reply.

Then her threat landed.

If you call me unreal one more time…

Mason’s mouth twitched. Of course it did. Of course he was going to poke it.

He lifted his brows at her—very solemn, very sincere, like he was about to testify in court—and leaned in a fraction, voice barely there.

“Noted,” he murmured. “No more compliments. I will simply… stare respectfully.”

He did it. For two seconds. Big, innocent eyes. Completely ridiculous.

Then he ruined it anyway—because it was Rowan, and he was him.

“You’re—” he started, then stopped himself like he’d hit an invisible electric fence. His eyes widened in exaggerated alarm. He held up a finger, pointing at his own mouth like, I almost died.

He leaned closer, cheek brushing her shoulder, and redirected with a whisper that still carried all the meaning.

“You’re steady,” he said instead. “And it’s… it’s hot. Like, profoundly.”

Rowan’s snort threatened the whole operation.

Mason froze, panicked, then looked at Lyric like, please don’t take that personally.

Lyric didn’t. Lyric stayed limp and milk-drunk, little mouth slack for a second, then made a tiny satisfied sound that somehow felt like approval.

Mason let out a careful breath and shifted, keeping his movements slow. He slid his hand from Rowan’s knee to the edge of the blanket and tucked it a little higher around her legs without making a production out of it—just fixing, smoothing, taking care.

Then he tipped his head toward the bottle with a silent question.

Rowan gave him the tiniest nod.

Mason eased his hand up, fingers gentle around the bottle’s base, and waited—because he’d learned fast that everything with Lyric was timing and consent and not acting like you were trying to win a speedrun.

When Lyric finally released with that dramatic little hmph like she’d finished a meeting, Mason took the bottle from Rowan’s hand and set it on the coaster with absurd precision.

“Okay,” he whispered to Lyric, all reverence and theater kid sincerity. “Excellent work tonight. Five stars. Strong latch. Powerful presence.”

He reached for the burp cloth—the holy scripture—and slid it over his shoulder like he was suiting up for battle.

Then he extended his arms to Rowan, palms up, wordless: tag me in.

When she passed Lyric to him, the transfer was careful and practiced now—tiny warm weight, floppy newborn head, the whole universe condensed to eight pounds of milk and opinion.

Mason tucked Lyric against his chest, supporting her neck the way Rowan had—exactly the way he’d watched Rowan do it a hundred times—and started the sway. Slow. Side to side. A little exaggerated, because he couldn’t help it.

He patted her back with feather-light taps.

One.

Two.

Three.

Lyric made a face like she was considering filing a complaint.

Mason whispered, “I know. I know. I’m new here. Be kind.”

He swayed again, a little deeper this time, like he was dancing with her. Like the living room was a stage and he’d been cast in the role of Dad Who Doesn’t Panic and he was trying very hard to hit his mark.

A small burp escaped Lyric—tiny, offended, miraculous.

Mason’s eyes went wide.

He looked at Rowan like he’d just performed open-heart surgery successfully.

Rowan’s expression said: don’t you dare.

He mouthed, I won’t, and immediately failed by whispering to Lyric, “That was iconic.”

Lyric’s eyelids fluttered. Her body melted more fully into him, her fist finally unclenching against his shirt like she’d decided the world could live another day.

Mason’s whole chest softened.

He kept swaying, quieter now, and lowered his voice even more.

“You’re right,” he whispered—aimed at Rowan, even though he didn’t look away from Lyric. “I did know what I was signing up for.”

A beat.

“Chaos,” he said, barely audible. Another sway. “Drama.” Another. “Aggressive swaying.”

His mouth curved—small, tired, stupidly happy.

Then he glanced up at Rowan, eyes warm and wrecked and very, very awake.

“And I’d sign up again,” he added, simple as breath. “Every time.”

He rocked Lyric a little longer until her breathing evened out, until her mouth fell open in that soft, milk-sleep way that made Mason feel like his heart was made of glass.

Then—still careful, still slow—he shifted closer to Rowan on the couch, so his shoulder brushed hers, so they were a single unit again.

He didn’t sit fully. Just leaned in.

His lips found Rowan’s hairline, a quiet kiss that didn’t ask anything.

Just love. Just home.

And when he whispered the last part, it was almost a secret.

“Fine,” he murmured. “No more unreal.”

He paused like he was thinking hard.

“…I’ll say ridiculously competent warrior queen of February instead.”

He waited a beat, then added quickly, “That’s not a compliment. That’s a job title. Completely different.”

Lyric sighed in his arms, asleep and satisfied.

Mason smiled into Rowan’s hair and kept swaying—gentle, steady, proud—like he could do this forever.

Rowan didn’t answer right away.

She didn’t need to.

She watched him instead.

Watched the way his shoulders softened once Lyric settled. The way his whole body seemed to recalibrate around her, like holding their daughter wasn’t something he was doing anymore — it was just something he was. Natural. Instinctive. Unshakable.

It did something quiet and devastating to her.

The way he swayed without thinking.
The way he whispered to Lyric like she understood every word.
The way he looked at Rowan only in flickers now — because he trusted her to still be there when he looked back.

Rowan let out a slow breath, sinking deeper into the couch, the blanket pooling around her legs. Her arms felt strangely empty without Lyric, even though she’d handed her off seconds ago — like muscle memory hadn’t caught up yet.

Her hand drifted, unconsciously, to her stomach.

Flat again.

Different.

Her thumb brushed lightly over the fabric of her shirt, like she was checking something was still there. Like some part of her expected to still feel kicks, still be carrying all that quiet weight.

Her eyes flicked back to Mason, watching him whisper iconic like he’d just witnessed a miracle.

Her mouth curved.

“God, you’re such a nerd,” she whispered, fond and exhausted and entirely gone for him. “She burped and you look like you just discovered fire.”

She shifted, turning just slightly toward him, her shoulder brushing into his side more deliberately now. Close. Anchored.

Her gaze softened as she watched Lyric — tiny, slack-mouthed, impossibly peaceful — tucked against his chest like she belonged there.

Because she did.

Because he did.

Rowan swallowed, something warm catching behind her ribs, but she didn’t let it turn into anything bigger. She kept it light. Always light, when it mattered most.

“You do realize,” she went on quietly, “that if you keep narrating her life like this, she’s gonna expect commentary for everything.”

Her lips twitched.

“First steps? You’re gonna be like, ‘incredible form, ten out of ten, really committed to the bit.’”

She reached out then, fingers brushing lightly over Lyric’s back — just a soft pass, checking, grounding, unable not to touch.

Then her hand slid sideways, hooking loosely into Mason’s shirt near his ribs. Not pulling. Just… there.

“I’m not correcting you,” she added after a beat, softer now. “About signing up again.”

Her thumb shifted, rubbing absently against the fabric beneath her fingers.

“Because yeah. Same.”

Her gaze dropped to Lyric again, then lifted back to him — steady, quiet, certain in a way she didn’t have to perform anymore.

“Even the aggressive swaying,” she muttered.

The corner of her mouth lifted.

Then his lips brushed her hairline.

And that—

That almost undid her.

Rowan went still for half a second, just feeling it. Letting it land. Letting it be what it was without turning it into a joke or deflection or anything sharp-edged.

Just that.

Just him.

She exhaled slowly, leaning into him just a little more, her head tipping until it rested lightly against his shoulder.

“Mm,” she murmured. “Good. Because if you called me unreal again, I was actually gonna throw something at you.”

A beat.

Her eyes slid sideways, a spark returning.

“And not, like, gently. Full aim. No hesitation.”

She watched him for a second, then shook her head faintly, a quiet laugh slipping out.

“Ridiculously competent warrior queen of February?” she repeated under her breath. “Wow. That’s… incredibly specific.”

Her lips twitched.

“I accept.”

Then, softer — almost teasing, but not quite:

“Add it to your document.”

She shifted her weight just enough to settle fully against him, her leg nudging his, her presence fitting into his without effort.

Her voice dropped, lazy with exhaustion now, but still edged with something warm.

“And for the record,” she added, eyes half-lidded as she watched Lyric breathe, “if I’m the warrior queen…”

A small pause.

“…you’re the guy narrating the whole thing like it’s a documentary nobody asked for.”

Her fingers tightened briefly in his shirt.

“But,” she admitted, quieter, “it’s a good one.”

Rowan let the room go quiet around her.

The sway of Mason’s body had become automatic now — slow, even, protective. Lyric’s weight rested against him like she had always belonged there. Like she had always known where to land.

Rowan turned her head just slightly and looked at him.

Really looked.

His hair was messier than it had been in high school. There was something steadier in his posture now. Less performance, more presence. He wasn’t playing at anything. He wasn’t trying to be charming or dramatic or impressive.

He was just holding his daughter.

And not even a year ago, he had just been the boy across the stage from her.

The lead. The one who projected to the back row. The one who waited for her cues with that careful focus like the world depended on it. She had known about the crush. Of course she had. It had lived in the way he lingered after rehearsal, the way his voice shifted when it was just the two of them running lines.

She hadn’t returned it then.

Not really.

Back then, her future had been somewhere else entirely. Packed in a dorm room with Sera. Light pink walls and soft gold accents. Paint samples taped up and arguments about which shade felt “ethereal but not nauseating.” Late-night takeout. Campus noise. Independence that tasted sharp and electric.

She could see it clearly even now — Sera cross-legged on a dorm bed, smearing gold trim a little too thick, laughing at nothing.

That life had been waiting.

College would have been there. The campus would still open its doors. Deadlines could shift. Plans could reroute.

But this?

This exact moment — Mason swaying in lamplight, Lyric’s cheek pressed against his chest, the low hum of winter against the windows — this wouldn’t wait.

Getting married in December hadn’t felt like a detour. It had felt like stepping forward. Signing papers with cold hands and warm certainty. Snow on the ground. Mason’s voice steady when he said her name. Lyric still tucked beneath her ribs then.
College could be deferred.

Marriage couldn’t.

A family couldn’t.

Not this version of it. Not with this exact alignment of timing and courage and choice.

Rowan studied Mason’s profile as he bent his head slightly toward Lyric, like even in sleep she deserved his full attention.

He had loved her first.

She knew that.

And something in her had shifted quietly one night — not dramatic, not fireworks — just a slow realization that the person who stayed, who showed up, who didn’t flinch at her edges… was the person she wanted beside her.

If that shift hadn’t happened, she would be somewhere else right now. Boxes half-unpacked. Walls drying in layers of pink and gold.

Instead, her walls were warm wood and soft light. Her nights were measured in ounces and burps and careful sways.

She didn’t feel trapped.

She felt anchored.

Her hand drifted over the blanket near Mason’s thigh, brushing the fabric absently. Not to get his attention. Just to feel him there. Solid. Real.

Not a stage partner.

Not a high school almost.

Her husband.

The father of her daughter.

The boy who once waited in the wings hoping she’d look at him — now standing in the middle of her life like he had always belonged there.

Rowan exhaled slowly, letting the weight of that settle.

The dorm room would have been pretty.

This was permanent.

Mason didn’t say anything when Rowan went quiet.

He felt it before he saw it—the way her body stopped fidgeting, the way her breath changed, the way her gaze slid past him for a second like she’d opened a door in her head and wandered through it without meaning to.

He’d learned that look.

Rowan could be right there, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with him, and still drift a thousand miles away. Not because she was leaving—never that—but because her mind had this way of replaying and measuring and holding too much at once. Like she was trying to make sure she deserved the softness she was finally letting herself have.

So he didn’t crack a joke.

He didn’t poke the moment.

He just stayed.

He kept swaying with Lyric tucked to his chest, slow and even, his hand supporting that tiny neck like it was the most important job he’d ever been given. Lyric’s cheek was warm against him, her little body heavy with sleep in a way that made his heart do that stupid, helpless thing where it expanded and hurt at the same time.

His eyes flicked down to her instinctively—making sure her mouth was relaxed, that her breath was steady, that the burp cloth was in the right place. His thumb brushed once along her back, barely a touch.

Then his gaze tracked back to Rowan without turning his head too fast, like sudden movements might startle her out of whatever she’d fallen into.

She was looking at him the way she did when she was thinking about the before and the after at the same time.

Mason’s chest tightened—softly, not painfully. Like an ache you didn’t want to fix because it meant something.

He kept his body angled toward her, shoulder still offering the same steady point of contact. His free hand stayed where it was under the blanket, resting against her leg like a quiet reminder: I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.

Rowan’s fingers brushed near his thigh, absent and light. Not asking. Not pulling. Just touching to confirm reality.

Mason let his hand shift under the blanket until his knuckles found her fingertips and curled around them—gentle, careful not to trap her. Just enough pressure to say I feel you.

He watched her face, not trying to read the thoughts—he didn’t need to. He just recognized the shape of them. The way her eyes got shiny without tears. The way her mouth went still like she was holding a sentence behind her teeth.

He swallowed, kept swaying.

Lyric made a tiny sound in her sleep—a little sigh that melted into his shirt—and Mason’s attention dipped immediately, protective and automatic. He adjusted her by an inch, lifting her higher, supporting the base of her head with two fingers. He waited until her breathing smoothed again.

Only then did he look back at Rowan.

Still quiet.

Still there.

His eyes softened. His mouth tried to smile and didn’t quite manage it, because it felt too loud for what was happening.

He leaned in just enough to press his lips to Rowan’s hair again—one slow kiss at her temple. Not a declaration. Not a fix. Just love delivered quietly, like leaving a blanket over someone who fell asleep on the couch.

Then he breathed, barely audible, the simplest thing he could give her without dragging her out of her own head.

“Hey.”

A pause.

“I got you.”

And that was it.

He didn’t add more. Didn’t make it heavier.

He just stayed in the rhythm—sway, breathe, watch. Rowan and Lyric. Lyric and Rowan. The whole room held in this small circle of light and winter hush.

Rowan’s shoulders dropped a fraction, like something inside her had unclenched. She leaned into him more fully, head settling against his shoulder with a kind of surrender that still felt like a choice every time she made it.

Mason’s grip on her fingers tightened once—soft, steady—then loosened again so she could move if she wanted.

She didn’t.

Lyric shifted, heavier now, the kind of deadweight sleep that made Mason’s arms burn in the best way. He adjusted again, careful, and his lips brushed the top of Lyric’s head without him even thinking about it—just instinct, just reverence.

Then, because his brain was his brain and he was still him, even when he was trying to be noble—

He tipped his face toward Rowan’s ear and whispered, like it was a secret only the couch could hear,

“…If you’re doing the whole permanent thing in your head right now, just so you know—”

He swallowed the grin before it could show.

“—I’m still not reading the instructions either. I’m just… holding the manual for moral support.”

His eyes flicked to her, checking for the smile.

Still careful. Still watching both of his girls like the world could freeze outside forever and he’d be fine as long as they were warm in here.

Rowan didn’t laugh right away.

She let the sway settle into her ribs. Let his breath at her temple ground her before she opened her mouth.

Her fingers tightened in his when he said he’d got her.

“I know you do,” she said quietly.

It wasn’t automatic reassurance. It wasn’t deflection.

It was acknowledgment.

When he whispered about the permanent thing and the manual, she exhaled through her nose, the faintest almost-smile pulling at her mouth.

“You’re such an idiot,” she murmured, but there was no bite in it. Just warmth. Just him.

She shifted slightly, turning her face up toward his so she could see him properly. The lamplight caught in his eyes. Lyric’s head was tucked under his chin like she’d chosen that spot on purpose.

“I was thinking about how different everything is,” she admitted.

Her thumb traced slowly along his knuckles under the blanket.

“Last year, this time… I was stressing about auditions and scholarship deadlines. About whether I should major in something practical or something that would make my dad sigh dramatically at Thanksgiving.”

A small huff of breath.

“I was picturing dorm rooms. Studio apartments. Maybe studying abroad if I could swing it.”

She glanced toward the dark window where February pressed cold against the glass.

“I thought my life was going to be loud and fast and somewhere else.”

Her gaze drifted back to Lyric’s sleeping face.

“And instead…”

Her voice softened.

“Instead it’s this.”

Not disappointment. Not regret.

Wonder.

She watched the way Mason adjusted Lyric without even thinking about it. The instinct. The gentleness. The quiet focus.

“I didn’t see this coming,” she said honestly. “Not like this. Not this soon.”

Her mouth curved faintly.

“I didn’t think I’d get married before I even got my first student ID.”

She let the weight of that sit for a second—not heavy, just real.

“But when I picture the other version?” she continued softly. “The dorm room. The pink walls. Me and Sera pretending we’re independent adults who know what we’re doing…”

She shook her head just slightly.

“It feels smaller.”

She leaned in more fully then, pressing her cheek against his shoulder.

“This feels big,” she said. “And full.”

Her fingers laced with his deliberately now.

“I’m tired all the time. I smell like milk. I haven’t had a full night of sleep in weeks.”

A faint breath of laughter.

“But I’ve never felt more… anchored.”

She lifted her head just enough to look at him again.

“I wasn’t spiraling,” she clarified gently. “I was just realizing how much shifted. How fast it did.”

A pause.

“And how I don’t want it back.”

Her eyes flicked down to Lyric again.

“I wouldn’t trade this.”

Then back to him.

“I wouldn’t trade you.”

Her hand squeezed his once—firm, certain.

“My life looks nothing like I planned,” she admitted softly.

Her lips curved.

“But it feels exactly like it’s supposed to.”

She leaned into him again, no hesitation now, letting the sway carry all three of them.

“I’m happy,” she said quietly. “Like… bone-deep.”

Then, because she couldn’t leave it entirely sincere for too long:

“And for the record, if you ever actually read the manual, I will absolutely question everything I know about you.”

Her head rested against his shoulder.

Warm.

Full.

Exactly where she wanted to be.

Mason didn’t answer right away.

He just sat there with Lyric tucked under his chin, warm and asleep, her weight settled into his arms in that way that made his whole body go still—no swaying now, no pacing, just holding. The house was quiet except for the heater and the soft, steady sound of Lyric breathing.

Rowan’s words landed slowly.

Dorm rooms. Deadlines. Study abroad. The other version of her life.

He didn’t flinch at any of it. He didn’t feel threatened by it. He just… pictured it, the way she did, like turning a photograph over in his hands and recognizing the person in it without missing them.

Because the truth was, he’d had a photograph too.

College brochures once. A couple of saved links. A half-serious plan scribbled into the margins of his life like: audition here, apply there, maybe move, maybe figure it out.

He’d talked about it like it was inevitable. Like it was the next act.

And then Rowan had looked at him—eyes wide, voice shaking, brave in that quiet way she got when she was about to say something that changed everything—and told him she was pregnant.

And those plans hadn’t even broken.

They’d just… gone quiet.

Like a stage light clicking off.

He hadn’t mourned them the way he thought he would. He hadn’t paced the room, panicked, tried to bargain for more time.

All he’d been able to think was: Okay. Here. With you.

Now he looked at her—her cheek against his shoulder, her eyes tired but bright, her mouth curving around the kind of happiness she still seemed surprised to feel—and something in his chest eased.

He shifted his hand to cover hers, lacing their fingers more firmly under the blanket like a confirmation. Like: Yes. Me too.

“You know what’s wild?” he said quietly, voice low so he wouldn’t disturb Lyric, but steady enough to hold the room.

He swallowed once, glanced down at their daughter’s sleeping face, and then back to Rowan.

“I thought I was gonna miss it,” he admitted. “The whole… college thing. The version where I’m running around with a backpack and pretending I have my life together because I bought a planner.”

A tiny, crooked smile flickered.

“But the second you told me—” He didn’t even finish the sentence out loud. He didn’t have to. It lived in the air between them.

His thumb brushed across Rowan’s knuckles, slow and grounding.

“I didn’t want anywhere else,” he said, simpler. “I didn’t want a different life. I just wanted you okay. And then I wanted her okay. And somewhere in the middle of that, I realized… this is the only plan that’s ever felt real.”

He held Rowan’s gaze for a beat, letting it land without jokes or deflection.

“You saying you’re happy,” he murmured, “that’s… everything.”

His voice softened, almost reverent.

“Because I love this life,” he said. “The milk smell. The 2 a.m. negotiations. The way you look at her like she’s a miracle and then look at me like I did something right.”

He shifted slightly on the couch—careful, controlled—adjusting Lyric just enough to keep her settled without waking her, then looked back at Rowan.

“And you,” he added, quieter. “You’re still loud and fast. You’re just… loud and fast in here now. With us.”

His eyes flicked to Lyric again, his mouth tugging like he was trying not to smile too big.

“And if I ever read the manual,” he whispered, dead serious, “it’ll be because I’m sleep deprived and hallucinating. So yes. You should question everything.”

Then he leaned in—not to kiss, not to make it heavier—just to press his forehead briefly to Rowan’s temple, a quiet touch that said I’m here, I’m staying, I chose this and I keep choosing it.

When he pulled back, his voice was barely there.

“I don’t want it back either,” he said. “Not for a second.”

And he stayed like that—still, steady, holding their daughter with one arm and Rowan with the other—like the rest of the world could keep its plans.

Rowan listened without interrupting.

She felt the way his voice didn’t crack, didn’t hesitate when he said he didn’t want it back. She felt the steadiness in it. Not defensive. Not convincing himself.

Certain.

When he admitted he thought he’d miss it—the backpack, the planner, the pretending—her mouth curved faintly against his shoulder.

“You would’ve color-coded the hell out of that planner,” she murmured softly.

But she let the joke fall away just as quickly.

Her eyes held his when he said he just wanted her okay.

That part always got her.

The way he didn’t frame it like sacrifice. Didn’t frame it like something lost. Just something shifted.

She swallowed once.

“I remember your face,” she said quietly. “When I told you.”

Her fingers tightened around his hand under the blanket.

“You didn’t look trapped.”

Her voice softened.

“You looked… focused.”

She shifted slightly, brushing her cheek against Lyric’s head before looking back at him.

“I thought you’d panic,” she admitted. “Or at least ask for a minute.”

A small breath of a laugh.

“You just said ‘Okay.’ Like we were deciding what to have for dinner.”

Her gaze searched his face, slower now.

“You choosing it so fast is what made me brave enough to choose it too.”

She let that settle between them.

When he said he loved this life—the milk smell, the 2 a.m. negotiations—her eyes glistened just slightly, but she didn’t let it spill.

“I love it too,” she said. “I love how ordinary it is. How quiet.”

Her thumb brushed his knuckles again.

“I don’t feel like I missed something.”

A beat.

“I feel like I stepped into something.”

She leaned into the press of his forehead against her temple, closing her eyes for a second. Just breathing him in. The weight of Lyric between them. The heater humming.

When he said he didn’t want it back—not for a second—her shoulders dropped the rest of the way.

“Good,” she whispered.

Because she didn’t either.

They stayed like that for another few breaths, the house wrapped around them in soft lamplight and winter hush.

Then Rowan shifted.

Careful.

She untangled her fingers from his slowly, sliding her hand out from under the blanket. She leaned forward, bracing one palm on the couch to stand.

It took a second—her body still not entirely convinced she’d had a baby two months ago and recovered from it—but she made it up without wobbling.

She looked down at him—Lyric tucked against his chest, stubborn and soft and impossibly theirs.

Her head tilted slightly toward the hallway.

“We sleep when she sleeps,” she murmured, already half-turning.

Not dramatic.

Not negotiable.

Just fact.

She reached down and brushed her fingers once through his hair, quick and familiar.

“Bring her,” she added quietly.

Then she padded toward the hallway, glancing back once to make sure he was following—because of course he would.

Permanent didn’t feel heavy anymore.

It felt like going to bed together.

Rowan pulled the blankets back with slow, practiced movements, the kind that didn’t rustle too much.

The bedroom was dim—only the small lamp on her nightstand still on, casting that soft amber glow that made everything feel quieter than it actually was. February pressed cold against the window, but the room was warm. Familiar. Lived in.

She slid into bed first, easing herself down onto her side, adjusting the pillows behind her back. She watched Mason cross the room carefully, Lyric still tucked against his chest like something fragile and priceless.

Her chest did that thing again.

Every time.

He moved like he’d been doing this forever. Like he hadn’t learned it all in a matter of weeks.

When he reached the bed, Rowan lifted the blanket slightly, creating the small, safe space between them.

“Slow,” she whispered automatically, even though he already was.

He lowered Lyric down into the space between them with deliberate precision—one hand supporting her head, the other steady at her back. Rowan slid her palm under Lyric’s tiny body the second she felt the mattress dip, making sure she was centered. Secure.

Lyric stirred for half a second, mouth puckering, fists twitching.

Rowan held her breath.

Mason froze.

Then Lyric exhaled and melted again, cheek turned toward Rowan this time.

Rowan let out a quiet breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

She adjusted the edge of the swaddle, smoothing it gently over Lyric’s chest. Her finger traced once along her daughter’s tiny eyebrow, barely touching.

“There,” she murmured softly.

Satisfied.

She rolled onto her side fully, propping her head on her arm so she could see both of them.

Mason lay on his side too, mirroring her without thinking.

Lyric between them. Warm. Small. Real.

Rowan’s hand rested lightly over Lyric’s stomach, feeling the faint rise and fall of her breathing.

She looked at Mason across their daughter’s tiny form.

No stage lights. No audience. No dorm rooms. No deadlines.

Just this.

Her mouth curved faintly.

“She takes up less space than a backpack,” she whispered, barely audible. “And somehow more than everything.”

Her eyes softened as she watched Lyric’s lips twitch in sleep.

Rowan reached her free hand across the small space and hooked her fingers into Mason’s shirt near his collarbone, grounding herself to him without needing to say it.

“I’m glad it’s this,” she said quietly.

Not wistful.

Not questioning.

Certain.

She leaned forward just enough to press a gentle kiss to Lyric’s hairline, then another across to Mason’s knuckles where his hand rested near theirs.

Then she settled back into the pillow, still facing them both.

“Okay,” she breathed.

Mason didn’t answer right away.

He watched her do it first—the way she moved through the room like she’d done it a hundred times, like the rules of their new life lived in her bones now. We sleep when she sleeps. Not a suggestion. A law.

He followed without question.

Not because he was scared to disobey—because he wasn’t—but because the truth was he trusted her in this way that felt almost feral. Like she could call the play in the dark and he’d hit his mark every time.

He crossed the bedroom with Lyric tucked to his chest, and he could feel Rowan watching him like she always did lately—like she was still surprised by him, still taking inventory of the way he’d changed shape around fatherhood without losing himself.

He didn’t say anything about it.

He just moved carefully.

Slow, like she whispered. Even though he already was.

Lowering Lyric into that warm pocket between them felt like placing something priceless in the center of a small, private universe. His hand stayed under her head longer than necessary. His other palm hovered at her back even after she settled, like he could keep the world from shifting if he held steady enough.

When Lyric stirred, his whole body went still.

Not panicked—just… tuned.

Then she exhaled and melted again, and Mason let out a breath so quiet it barely existed.

Rowan traced Lyric’s eyebrow with that impossibly gentle touch, and something in Mason’s chest softened so hard it almost hurt.

He lay down on his side, mirroring Rowan without thinking, his arm bent under the pillow, his gaze fixed on the little rise and fall of Lyric’s breathing like it was the only clock that mattered.

Rowan whispered that line about the backpack.

Mason’s eyes flicked to her, then back to Lyric, because it was true in a way that made him feel dizzy. Six weeks old and already taking up more space in their lives than anything he’d ever planned for.

Rowan’s fingers hooked into his shirt near his collarbone, grounding herself, and Mason kept still so she wouldn’t lose it—so she could hold on as long as she needed.

She said she was glad it was this.

Mason’s throat tightened, but he didn’t make it a thing. He didn’t reach for a joke or try to soften it with charm. He just let it sit between them, heavy in the best way.

He shifted his hand closer to the center, careful not to touch Lyric’s face, and let his knuckles brush Rowan’s lightly—barely there. A quiet yes.

Then, because he couldn’t let the moment pass without giving her something back—something simple, something true—he whispered, so low it was more breath than sound:

“Me too.”

He watched Rowan kiss Lyric’s hairline, then his knuckles, and it hit him again—how ordinary this looked from the outside. Two kids in a dim room. A lamp. A heater. A baby between them.

And how completely it wasn’t ordinary at all.

He’d had plans once. He could still remember the vague outlines—brochures, auditions, the idea of somewhere else. But those memories felt like a different person’s life now. Not sad. Not stolen. Just… irrelevant.

This—Lyric’s tiny body, Rowan’s hand in his shirt, the quiet certainty of going to sleep together—this was what mattered.

Mason’s gaze moved from Rowan to Lyric and back again, holding them both in the same breath like he was afraid the world might try to take the moment away.

It didn’t.

Rowan exhaled an “Okay,” like she was closing a door gently.

Mason nodded once, almost imperceptible, like he was answering her without needing words.

Then he stilled completely—no swaying, no moving, just present—listening to the shared, soft rhythm of their breathing until the room felt like it had finally settled around them.

Home.

Rowan didn’t close her eyes when he said me too.

She watched him instead.

The way he went still once Lyric settled. The way his gaze tracked every breath like he was memorizing it. The way he didn’t fill the quiet just to fill it.

Six months ago he would’ve.

Now he let it stretch.

Her hand stayed resting lightly over Lyric’s stomach for a moment longer before she slowly slid it away, careful not to disturb her. She shifted closer, inching her shoulder toward his until their foreheads were almost aligned across the tiny rise of their daughter between them.

Her other hand slipped under her pillow.

She didn’t grab his hand outright. Didn’t lace fingers.

She searched.

Found.

His ring finger.

The cool band there.

Her thumb brushed over it once. Then again. Slow. Thoughtful. She twisted it gently around his finger, back and forth, the metal catching faintly in the lamplight.

She hadn’t meant to start doing that.

It had just happened one night—weeks ago—when she’d woken up and needed proof. Proof that the December air and the vows and the way his voice had sounded saying her name hadn’t been something she’d imagined.

She twisted it again now, grounding herself.

“You know what’s still weird?” she whispered, voice low enough that it barely crossed the space between them.

Her eyes stayed on the ring.

“That we’re married.”

Not dramatic. Just factual.

Her thumb rolled the band slowly over his knuckle.

“I still expect someone to walk in and tell us it didn’t count because we’re eighteen.”

A faint breath of a smile ghosted across her mouth.

“Like it was a rehearsal.”

She twisted it again.

It had been December 6th. Cold. Sharp air. Her hands shaking even though she hadn’t been nervous about him—just about the size of the choice. The weight of it. The way it changed everything without asking permission.

She looked up at him now.

“I keep thinking about how fast it happened,” she murmured. “Senior year. A play. A secret crush I pretended not to see. Two pink lines.”

Her fingers paused on the ring.

“And now she’s here.”

Lyric made a tiny snuffling sound in her sleep. Rowan’s eyes flicked down immediately, instinctive. Her palm hovered for half a second before she relaxed again when the baby settled.

She found his ring again under the pillow.

Twisted.

“I don’t regret it,” she added softly. “Not a second. I just…”

She exhaled.

“…can’t believe we did it.”

Her thumb smoothed over the band, almost reverent.

“December 6th,” she whispered. “Lyric on the 24th.”

She looked at him fully now.

“That’s insane.”

Her mouth curved faintly.

“I was supposed to be arguing with Sera about dorm décor and instead I was learning how to file a marriage license.”

She twisted the ring again, slower now.

“But when I think about it,” she continued, voice barely there, “I don’t feel like I lost something.”

Her gaze softened.

“I feel like I skipped to the part most people don’t get to until they’re older and tired of pretending.”

Her fingers slowed their movement.

“You’re my husband,” she said quietly, like she was still testing the word. Not doubting it. Just… feeling it.

Her thumb rolled the ring once more.

“I like that.”

Lyric’s breathing deepened between them. The heater clicked softly.

Rowan shifted closer still, her knee brushing his lightly beneath the blankets.

“I’m not asleep yet,” she murmured, almost teasing, but gentle.

Her thumb kept moving over the band.

“I’m just… making sure this is real.”

And she stayed there, eyes open, tracing the circle of gold like it was proof she could hold.

Rowan kept twisting the ring.

Slow. Thoughtful. The faint scrape of metal against skin almost rhythmic now.

She watched his face while she did it, like she was measuring something only she could see.

Then her expression softened in a different way.

“You know,” she murmured, voice still low so it didn’t disturb the steady rise and fall between them, “we wouldn’t be here like this without them.”

Her thumb paused on the band, pressing it lightly against his knuckle.

“My parents.”

There was no tension in her tone. No resentment. Just clarity.

“I keep thinking about that night,” she went on quietly. “When I told them.”

Her eyes drifted toward the ceiling for a second, remembering it in flashes—her mom’s stillness, her dad’s jaw tightening before he forced it to unclench. The silence that felt like it might split her in half.

“I thought they were going to be disappointed in me forever,” she admitted. “I thought they’d see me as… reckless. Like I’d thrown something away.”

Her thumb resumed its gentle rotation of his ring.

“They didn’t.”

Her voice thinned slightly, but not with sadness. With gratitude.

“They were scared,” she said. “But they didn’t shut the door. They didn’t make it harder than it already was.”

She swallowed.

“They gave us space. They gave us help. They didn’t try to make you the villain.”

Her eyes flicked to him deliberately when she said that.

“They treated you like you belonged here.”

That mattered more than she’d ever said out loud.

She traced the edge of his ring again, slower now.

“If they hadn’t let us stay,” she whispered, “if they hadn’t trusted us enough to let us figure it out under their roof…”

Her gaze dropped to Lyric.

“We wouldn’t have this quiet.”

The heater hummed. Lyric sighed in her sleep.

Rowan’s fingers tightened slightly around his ring finger, not possessive—anchoring.

“I think about how easy it would’ve been for them to panic. To push. To control it.”

A small breath left her.

“They didn’t.”

Her voice softened further.

“They chose to support us instead of punish us.”

She shifted closer to him again, her knee pressing more firmly against his beneath the blankets.

“That’s why I can lie here like this,” she said quietly. “Not scrambling. Not hiding.”

Her thumb made one last slow circle around the band.

“They gave us room to become this.”

Her gaze moved from his hand to his face again.

“And I don’t think I’ve thanked them properly for that.”

Lyric made another tiny noise and settled deeper between them.

Rowan leaned forward slightly, brushing her lips to Lyric’s forehead, then back again.

“I want her to feel that,” she murmured. “That kind of backing. That kind of grace.”

Her fingers stilled finally, resting over his ring without twisting it.

“We got lucky,” she said softly. “With each other. With them.”

She exhaled slowly, her voice quieter now.

“I don’t take that lightly.”

And she stayed there, not asleep, just resting in the fullness of it.

Mason stayed still while she talked.

Not because he was afraid to move—because he wasn’t—but because he knew this version of Rowan. The one who got quiet and precise, like she was laying something fragile on the table and trusting him not to drop it.

Her thumb kept turning his ring like it was a worry stone. Proof. Anchor. Spell.

It did something to him every time she did it.

He let his attention settle on her face instead of Lyric’s breathing now, because Lyric was safe—warm between them, steady as a metronome. Rowan wasn’t unsafe, either, but she was… open. And that always felt rarer. Like it deserved his full focus.

He watched her eyes track memories he couldn’t see. December air. Paperwork. The way a whole life rerouted in a matter of weeks.

When she whispered we’re married, his mouth twitched—not into a joke, not yet. Just that soft, helpless little smile that showed up when his heart got too full and didn’t know where to put it.

“I know,” he murmured back, voice low enough to stay inside the blankets. “It’s… insane.”

Then she started talking about her parents.

Mason didn’t interrupt.

He felt his chest tighten at the part where she said they didn’t make him the villain. He remembered that night too—not every word, but the weight of it. The way her dad had looked at him like he was trying to decide what kind of man he was, and the way her mom had reached for Rowan’s hand like she was choosing her even in shock.

He hadn’t been sure he’d earned any of it.

He still wasn’t, if he was being honest.

Rowan’s thumb paused on the ring, pressing it against his knuckle, and Mason’s throat worked around something tender.

He shifted his hand under the pillow just enough to cover hers—slow, careful—so she could feel the answer without him needing to build a speech around it.

“I think about that too,” he whispered.

His fingers curled lightly over her hand, not stopping her from touching the ring, just joining her there. Meeting her in the proof.

“They didn’t have to,” he said, meaning it. “They could’ve made it… harder. They could’ve made you feel like you owed them for breathing.”

He swallowed, glanced down briefly at Lyric’s tiny nose and slack mouth, then back to Rowan.

“But they didn’t,” he repeated, softer. “They gave us a place to land.”

His thumb brushed the side of Rowan’s hand—one slow stroke, like punctuation.

“And you’re right,” he added. “We haven’t thanked them the way we should.”

A beat.

Then, because he was still Mason and he couldn’t live in sincerity without offering a little light, his mouth tipped into a small grin.

“I mean, I have thanked your mom approximately one thousand times,” he whispered. “But she keeps telling me to stop looking like I’m about to cry and eat the lasagna.”

The grin faded into something warmer.

“We can do it properly,” he said. “Not as, like, a big dramatic speech. Just… show it. Keep showing up. Keep taking care of what they trusted us with.”

His gaze flicked to Lyric again—just a quick check-in—then returned to Rowan like he couldn’t help it.

“You already do that,” he said quietly. “With her. With me.”

He let that sit, then shifted a fraction closer so their foreheads could almost touch across Lyric’s tiny body. The movement was careful, protective by instinct, like his whole life had become a series of gentles.

“You know what I thought when your dad didn’t shut the door on me?” he murmured.

He didn’t wait for her to answer.

“I thought—okay. If they’re letting me stay, then I don’t get to be a kid about this. I don’t get to treat it like a temporary miracle.”

His thumb brushed her ring finger now, mirroring what she’d been doing to him—quietly, reverently.

“I get to be the man who deserved the grace they gave you,” he finished, voice rough but steady. “And I’m trying. Every day.”

His eyes stayed on hers.

No performative vow. No grand speech.

Just honesty.

Then he leaned in—slow, careful not to jostle Lyric—and pressed a kiss to Rowan’s forehead. Not a distraction. A promise.

When he pulled back, the smile returned—small, charming, a little sleepy.

“And for the record,” he whispered, “I still can’t believe you’re my wife. Like… legally. Government involved. Paperwork. You signed a form that said ‘yes, this dramatic theater kid is my problem now.’”

He let the joke land softly, then added, quieter, meant only for her:

“I’m really glad you did.”

His hand stayed over hers on the ring, holding her there—not trapping, not possessive. Just present.

Rowan listened to him the way he’d listened to her.

Still. Attentive. Like nothing else in the room outranked this.

When he said it was insane, her mouth curved faintly.

“It is,” she breathed. “In the best way.”

Her thumb kept turning his ring while he talked about her parents, about staying, about deserving the grace they’d given. When he said he didn’t get to treat it like a temporary miracle, something in her chest pulled tight.

“You never did,” she whispered. “You didn’t treat it like temporary. Not once.”

Her eyes softened when he said he was trying every day.

“I know you are,” she murmured.

She meant it without embellishment. She saw it in the 3 a.m. bottle runs. In the way he hovered without hovering. In how he never acted like he’d been forced into something.

When he kissed her forehead, she closed her eyes for half a second, letting it settle.

Then he made the government joke, and she huffed softly through her nose.

“Legally binding,” she whispered back. “Very serious.”

Her fingers tightened slightly around his hand.

“I did sign that,” she added, teasing but soft. “Fully aware of the dramatic theater kid clause.”

She let the smile fade into something more thoughtful.

Her thumb slowed on his ring.

“You know we won’t stay here forever,” she said quietly.

Not restless.

Just certain.

She shifted slightly, careful not to disturb Lyric, and looked at him more directly across the small space between them.

“I love my parents. I’m grateful for this. But eventually… I want our place.”

She rolled the ring once more.

“An apartment that smells like us. Not my mom’s laundry detergent.”

A faint smile flickered.

“Somewhere with thin walls and terrible plumbing and a window that looks out at something loud.”

Her gaze held his.

“And then maybe not so terrible plumbing.”

A beat.

“New York,” she said softly.

Not dreamy. Not far-off fantasy.

Measured.

She traced the edge of his ring with her thumb again.

“You’re going to end up on Broadway,” she continued quietly. “One way or another.”

There was no question in it. No doubt.

“I’ve known that since senior year,” she said. “Since you stopped pretending you weren’t the best one on stage.”

Her voice lowered.

“You’re built for it.”

Lyric shifted slightly between them, and Rowan’s hand automatically smoothed down the blanket.

“I don’t know what I want yet,” she admitted, eyes flicking back to his. “Not fully.”

Her thumb stilled on his ring.

“I don’t know if I want school later. Or something creative. Or something practical. Or something completely different.”

She exhaled softly.

“But I know you.”

Her hand slid from twisting the band to resting flat over his hand.

“You’re not done with the stage.”

It wasn’t pressure. It wasn’t expectation.

It was recognition.

“And wherever that takes you,” she said quietly, “I’ll go.”

Her voice didn’t waver.

“If that’s New York. If that’s touring. If that’s some tiny apartment over a deli that smells like garlic forever.”

A faint, warm smile.

“I’ll follow.”

She leaned closer, careful of Lyric, until their foreheads almost touched again.

“Not because I don’t have my own path,” she added softly. “But because I want to build mine next to yours.”

Her fingers slid back to his ring again, twisting it gently like she needed the anchor.

“You’re destined for the stage,” she murmured. “I’ve always known that.”

Her eyes searched his face.

“And I’m not scared of it.”

A small pause.

“I’m excited.”

Then quieter still:

“We’ll figure out the rest.”

Lyric’s breathing stayed steady between them.

Rowan let her hand remain on his, not twisting now. Just holding.

Fully awake.

Fully choosing.

Mason didn’t answer right away.

Because the second she said New York—not like a daydream, not like a dare, but like a plan she’d already made room for—something in him went so still it almost scared him.

Not fear, exactly.

More like the feeling of standing at the edge of a stage right before the lights come up. That split second where everything in you goes quiet because you know what you want. You know who you are.

And she was looking at him like she knew it too.

He kept his hand under hers, their fingers warm around his ring, and let his eyes stay on her face. Rowan was tired. Awake. Real. Brave in that way that didn’t ask for applause.

“You’ve known,” he whispered, a little stunned by it. “Since senior year.”

He let out a small breath—almost a laugh, but softer. “Of course you have.”

Because Rowan Starling always saw things before he admitted them to himself.

Broadway.

It was the ultimate dream. It always had been. The kind of dream you didn’t say out loud too often because saying it made it vulnerable to reality.

But hearing her say it like it wasn’t ridiculous—like it was inevitable—made his chest ache in a way he didn’t have a word for.

He glanced down at Lyric between them, just to check. Still asleep. Still safe. Still their whole world in miniature.

Then he looked back at Rowan.

“I want that,” he admitted quietly. Honest. No performance. “Broadway. The lights, the orchestra, the whole stupid, impossible thing.”

His mouth twitched. “I want to be on a stage so big it scares me.”

A beat.

Then he softened, because the truth had more layers than the dream.

“But,” he added, voice gentler, “I’d also take community theater. I’d take a weird little black box in a town we’ve never heard of. I’d take playing a tree in Into the Woods if it meant I get to come home to you and her.”

He let the words settle, his thumb brushing once over the side of her hand.

“I don’t want the dream if it costs me my life,” he said simply. “And you two are my life.”

His gaze flicked toward the dark window, the winter pressed against it, and then back to her.

“A place of our own,” he murmured, tasting it. “An apartment that smells like us.”

He smiled—small, warm. “And not your mom’s detergent that somehow makes everything smell like… responsible adulthood.”

He squeezed her hand gently.

“We can start there,” he said. “A tiny place. Thin walls. Terrible plumbing. You yelling at a leaky faucet, me pretending I know what I’m doing, Lyric judging us from her bouncer like she pays rent.”

He paused, eyes softening again.

“And then we’ll go wherever it takes us.”

Not wherever it takes me.

Us.

He leaned closer, careful, so he didn’t disturb Lyric, and pressed his forehead lightly toward Rowan’s—hovering close without forcing the contact, letting her decide.

“I love that you’re excited,” he whispered. “Because I think… I think I was holding my breath about it. Like wanting too much would jinx us.”

His mouth curved, boyish and a little wrecked.

“But you don’t make it feel like a jinx,” he said. “You make it feel like… okay. Like we’re allowed to have more than one dream.”

He glanced down at his ring where her fingers rested.

“And I’m not scared,” he added, echoing her. “Not if you’re with me.”

Then, because he couldn’t help being himself—even in a moment that felt holy—he murmured, “Also, if we end up over a deli that smells like garlic forever? That’s just… immersive theater. Very method. Very New York.”

He watched her mouth twitch, that almost-smile she tried to hide.

And he softened completely.

“Row,” he said quietly, “I’ll follow you too.”

A beat.

“Not because you need me,” he added, voice steady, “but because I want my path braided with yours. Whatever you decide—school, something creative, something practical, something completely unhinged—I’m in. I’m your husband. That’s the job.”

He didn’t say it like a weight.

He said it like a gift.

Then he leaned in and kissed her—slow and careful, barely there, a promise pressed into the quiet.

When he pulled back, he stayed close.

“Let’s start with a place,” he whispered. “Ours.”

His eyes flicked once more to Lyric’s sleeping face.

“And then,” he added, smiling softly, “we’ll go chase the big lights. Together.”

Rowan felt it the second she said New York.

The stillness in him.

Not resistance.

Recognition.

When he whispered, You’ve known, her mouth curved gently.

“Of course I’ve known,” she murmured back. “You light up differently when you’re on stage. It’s not subtle.”

Her thumb rolled his ring once more, slower now.

“You stopped pretending halfway through senior year,” she added softly. “When you realized you didn’t have to shrink it to make it safer.”

She held his gaze when he admitted he wanted it—the lights, the orchestra, the big, terrifying stage.

Her eyes warmed, not surprised.

“I know you do,” she said quietly. “And you should.”

When he softened it—community theater, black boxes, playing a tree—she let out the faintest breath of a laugh.

“You’d be a very committed tree,” she whispered.

But when he said he didn’t want the dream if it cost him his life—if it cost them—her expression changed.

Steadier.

“You don’t have to choose like that,” she said gently. “It’s not either/or.”

Her fingers slid from twisting his ring to resting flat against his hand.

“We build it together. That’s the point.”

When he echoed her—an apartment that smells like us—she smiled properly this time.

“Exactly.”

At the detergent comment, she rolled her eyes softly.

“Don’t insult the detergent,” she murmured. “It raised us.”

Her knee brushed his under the blankets.

“I can see it,” she continued, voice low and sure. “Tiny kitchen. You dramatically diagnosing plumbing issues you googled five minutes ago. Me pretending I don’t care about aesthetics while secretly painting one wall something stupid and bold.”

Her gaze dipped to Lyric between them.

“And her growing up knowing we built it from scratch.”

When he said wherever it takes us, she felt the way he corrected himself without saying it.

Us.

She nodded once.

“Yes,” she whispered.

She leaned into the almost-touch of his forehead, closing the space herself.

When he admitted he’d been holding his breath about it—about wanting too much—her hand tightened slightly on his.

“You’re allowed to want it,” she said firmly, but softly. “You don’t jinx a dream by naming it.”

Her thumb brushed his ring again.

“You jinx it by being afraid of it.”

Her eyes searched his face.

“I’m not afraid of New York,” she said. “I’m not afraid of auditions. Or rejections. Or small apartments.”

A small pause.

“I’m only afraid of shrinking.”

She let that hang there.

When he said he wasn’t scared if she was with him, something quiet and proud settled in her chest.

“Good,” she whispered. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

The garlic joke pulled a smile from her before she could stop it.

“You’d absolutely call it immersive theater,” she murmured. “You’d romanticize the garbage truck schedule.”

But when he said he’d follow her too—path braided with hers—her teasing expression softened completely.

“That’s the only way it works,” she said. “Braided.”

Not leading. Not trailing.

Together.

She let him kiss her, slow and careful over Lyric’s sleeping form, and when he pulled back she stayed close—close enough to feel his breath.

“Our place first,” she agreed.

Her hand slid from his ring to rest against his chest now, over his heart.

“Then the big lights.”

Her gaze flicked to Lyric one more time.

“And she’ll think it’s normal,” she added softly. “Her dad on stage. Her mom figuring it out as she goes.”

Her mouth curved faintly.

“That’s the life I want.”

She leaned her forehead fully against his this time, no hovering.

“Start small,” she murmured. “Dream big.”

Her thumb pressed once more against the ring, grounding herself.

“And we don’t let go of either.”

She didn’t close her eyes yet.

She just stayed there—awake, certain, choosing the future out loud with him in the dark.

Mason took that in like he was learning a new language.

Not the words—he got the words.

The certainty behind them.

Rowan didn’t say it like a pep talk. She said it like a rule of physics: you don’t jinx a dream by naming it. You jinx it by shrinking.

And he felt something unclench in his chest that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding tight since before Lyric was born. Since before the test. Since before December. Since before the idea of Broadway ever felt like something he was allowed to want without being punished for it.

He kept his forehead against hers, breathing slow, letting her hand on his heart do what it always did—make him feel anchored, even when his mind tried to fly.

“Okay,” he whispered, and it came out a little rough. Not a joke. Not a dodge. Just… acceptance. Like he was letting her hand him the truth and deciding, finally, to hold it without flinching.

He glanced down at Lyric between them—tiny and steady, the soft rise and fall like a metronome—and then back to Rowan’s eyes.

“I hear you,” he said quietly. “No shrinking.”

A beat.

And then, because he was still Mason and he couldn’t stand inside something sacred without adding a little warmth to it, his mouth tugged.

“Also,” he murmured, “I would absolutely romanticize the garbage truck schedule. I’d be like, ‘babe, listen—Tuesday mornings are the heartbeat of this city.’”

The smile in Rowan’s eyes hit him like relief.

Mason exhaled—half laugh, half surrender—and let his hand slide up, gentle, to cup the side of her face. Thumb near her cheekbone, like he was trying to memorize her in the dark.

“Braided,” he repeated, softer. He liked the word. He liked what it promised. No one dragging, no one abandoning, no one pretending they didn’t need the other.

Just together.

He swallowed, and his voice dropped even lower, honest without being heavy.

“I think… I think I needed you to say it like that,” he admitted. “Because in my head, it’s always been this huge thing. Broadway was like… either I made it or I didn’t. Either I got there or I failed. And then Lyric happened and it just—”

He paused, careful not to wake her, not to turn the room loud.

“It didn’t feel worth risking anything for,” he finished quietly. “Not you. Not her.”

He held Rowan’s gaze like he wasn’t going to look away from it.

“But you’re right,” he said. “It’s not either/or. It’s not dream or life. It’s… we build the life so the dream has somewhere safe to land.”

His thumb brushed once along her cheek, slow and steady.

“And I want her to think it’s normal,” he added, glancing down at Lyric again. “Not because it’s easy. But because she grows up watching us try. Watching us keep going. Watching you figure it out out loud without apologizing.”

His voice softened further, almost a whisper.

“Watching you not shrink.”

He let that sit for a second, then gave her the smallest, crooked smile.

“And if you paint one wall something stupid and bold,” he murmured, “I’m going to pretend to be horrified and then secretly love it forever. Just so you know.”

His hand drifted down, finding her fingers again near his ring—not twisting now, just holding.

“Our place first,” he said, steady. “A place that smells like us.”

Then he leaned in and kissed her again—slow, careful over Lyric, the kind of kiss that wasn’t a spark, it was a vow.

When he pulled back, he stayed close.

“Then the big lights,” he whispered. “And if the big lights take time… we do the small lights. We do whatever stage exists. Community theater, black box, church basement with folding chairs—”

His eyes warmed, that Milo-bright sincerity sneaking in.

“—as long as I get to look out and know you’re there. Even if you’re in the back with a diaper bag and a death glare for anyone who coughs during my monologue.”

He breathed out a laugh, then quieted again, voice simple.

“We don’t let go,” he repeated, echoing her. “Of either.”

And then he stayed there with her—forehead pressed, Lyric asleep between them, winter on the windows—feeling, for once, like wanting the future didn’t mean losing the present.

It meant choosing it. Out loud. Together.

Rowan watched him absorb it.

Not defensively. Not flippantly.

Like he was actually rearranging something inside himself to make room for it. She could see it in the way his jaw shifted slightly, in the way his eyes didn’t dart away from hers this time. He wasn’t performing agreement. He was letting it settle.

When he said Okay—rough and real—her hand pressed a little more firmly against his chest, feeling the steady rhythm beneath her palm. His heartbeat was warm and constant under the thin cotton of his T-shirt. Solid.

“No shrinking,” she echoed softly.

The garbage truck comment earned him a quiet breath of a laugh, the sound barely stirring the air between them.

“You would absolutely narrate sanitation schedules like they’re poetry,” she murmured. “Very gritty urban romance.”

Her lips curved, but her gaze stayed serious.

But her expression softened again when he said he’d needed her to say it like that.

She held his gaze, steady. Unblinking. Making sure he knew she wasn’t just reassuring him to make him feel better.

“I know you did,” she said gently.

When he admitted that Broadway had felt like a pass/fail, like something that could cost too much, her chest tightened. She felt it in the way her ribs expanded a little slower.

“I don’t want you to trade it for us,” she said quietly. “I want you to carry it with us.”

Her thumb brushed the edge of his ring again, slower now, the gold cool against her fingertip.

“You don’t get punished for wanting something big.”

Her voice lowered, almost protective.

“And Lyric didn’t erase who you were before she got here.”

She glanced down at their daughter briefly—tiny mouth parted, lashes resting against flushed cheeks. The faint milk-sweet scent of her lingered between them.

“She added to it.”

When he said it’s not dream or life—it’s building the life so the dream has somewhere safe to land—her breath caught just slightly. The words felt right in her bones.

“That,” she whispered. “That’s it.”

She let that settle in the quiet room, the heater clicking faintly as it adjusted.

When he said he wanted Lyric to grow up watching them try—watching her not shrink—Rowan’s eyes flicked down instinctively, then back up. A faint crease formed between her brows.

Her jaw shifted slightly.

“I don’t always know what I’m doing,” she admitted quietly.

Not dramatic. Not self-pitying.

Just true.

“I didn’t know what I was doing when I applied to colleges. I didn’t know what I was doing when I said yes to you. I definitely didn’t know what I was doing when I took that test.”

Her thumb paused on his ring, resting there like she needed the contact.

“And sometimes I still don’t.”

Her voice softened further, the edges of it worn and honest.

“I don’t have some clear five-year plan in my head. I don’t know what I’m majoring in. Or if I’m majoring in anything.”

She swallowed once, throat moving under the dim light.

“I don’t always know where I’m going.”

Her gaze lifted fully to his, searching but not uncertain.

“But I know I’m not walking into the unknown alone anymore.”

Her fingers slid from twisting his ring to threading loosely between his, not gripping—just resting there, palm to palm beneath the pillow.

“And that matters more than I expected it to.”

She exhaled slowly, feeling the warmth of him, the weight of Lyric between them.

“Having you,” she continued, voice barely above a whisper. “And now her.”

Her eyes flicked down at Lyric again, lingering this time on the tiny rise and fall of her chest.

“It gives me… something.”

She hesitated slightly, like she didn’t love the word she was about to use.

“Purpose,” she said anyway.

Her nose wrinkled faintly, almost annoyed with herself.

“I hate explaining it that way. It makes it sound like I needed a husband and a baby to feel valid.”

She shook her head once, small but firm.

“That’s not what I mean.”

Her thumb brushed his hand lightly, grounding.

“I just mean… the ground doesn’t feel as unstable.”

A quiet pause.

“When I didn’t know what I wanted before, it felt like I was drifting.”

She could remember that feeling—late nights staring at college websites, feeling both excited and untethered.

She looked at him again, open and steady.

“Now when I don’t know what I want, it just feels like… figuring it out.”

Her mouth curved faintly, almost shy.

“With backup.”

She leaned closer, careful of Lyric, their foreheads touching again fully. The warmth of his skin against hers steadied her even more.

“I don’t need all the answers yet,” she murmured. “I just need to know we’re moving.”

Her hand pressed lightly over his heart once more, feeling the beat beneath her palm.

“And I need to know you’re still dreaming.”

Her thumb traced a slow circle over his shirt, absent and intimate.

“Because if you stop dreaming, I will absolutely drag you to auditions myself.”

A faint, warm smile tugged at her lips.

“I’m serious.”

She softened again almost immediately, her voice thinning into something quieter.

“You and her make the unknown feel… less sharp.”

Her voice dropped.

“That’s not weakness. That’s partnership.”

She brushed her nose lightly against his, barely there, careful not to jostle the sleeping weight between them.

“I don’t know exactly where I’m going,” she whispered.

“But I know who I’m going with.”

And she stayed there—awake, steady, fingers warm against his, listening to the three of them breathe in the dim February dark.

Mason didn’t interrupt.

He just listened—really listened—the way he’d learned to, the way Rowan deserved. Like her words weren’t something to fix or answer, but something to hold carefully in both hands.

When she said purpose and then immediately flinched from the word, he felt his chest tighten.

Not because he misunderstood her.

Because he understood her exactly.

He shifted his hand under the pillow until his thumb could brush her knuckles again—slow, grounding, a quiet I’m here—and kept his eyes on hers.

“You don’t need us to be valid,” he said softly, steady. “You were you before me. Before her. You’d still be… you.”

His mouth tugged faintly, that Milo-soft charm sneaking in like it always did when he was trying to make something heavy feel survivable.

“You’d just be yelling at college websites alone,” he whispered. “And I’d be dramatically spiraling in a rehearsal room alone. Which sounds… bleak, honestly.”

He let her breathe, let the joke land gently, then softened again.

“But I know what you mean,” he said. “It’s not about being saved. It’s about… not free-falling.”

His gaze flicked down to Lyric’s sleeping face, then back to Rowan.

“And I like being your backup,” he admitted, like it was the easiest truth in the world. “Not because you can’t do it. Because you can. Because you always have.”

He swallowed, his voice quiet but sure.

“I like that you don’t have to do it alone anymore.”

Rowan’s forehead stayed against his, and Mason held that contact like a promise he could physically feel.

When she said she needed to know he was still dreaming, his breath hitched—tiny, honest.

“I am,” he whispered. “I swear I am.”

He smiled a little, almost embarrassed by how true it was.

“Even on the nights my dream is literally just… four consecutive hours of sleep,” he added, barely loud enough to be a joke.

Then, softer—because this mattered more—

“I’m still dreaming,” he repeated. “Broadway. Or whatever version of it exists for us. A stage. A life where I get to do what I love and still come home to you.”

His thumb traced one slow line over the back of her hand.

“And if I ever start shrinking,” he murmured, “you have full permission to drag me to auditions. I’ll go. I’ll complain theatrically. I’ll pretend I’m being kidnapped. But I’ll go.”

He let his gaze warm—fond, a little wrecked.

“Just… don’t make me do early call times without coffee. That’s where I draw the line as a husband.”

He watched her eyes soften, and something in him settled deeper.

Rowan didn’t need a five-year plan. Neither did he.

They needed motion. They needed each other. They needed the courage to keep saying yes to the next small step.

He lifted his free hand—careful over Lyric—and brushed Rowan’s cheek with his knuckles, like he couldn’t help it.

“I like who you are when you’re figuring it out,” he said quietly. “You’re still you. Just… less sharp around the edges, because you’re not alone in the dark anymore.”

He paused, then added, voice gentle and sure:

“We’ll take it one decision at a time,” he murmured. “Not because we’re afraid, but because we’re allowed to build this slow. You don’t have to know the whole map tonight.”

Lyric sighed in her sleep, a tiny sound, and Mason’s eyes dipped to her automatically—checking, protective—before returning to Rowan.

He smiled softly, then let his forehead rest against Rowan’s again, just for a beat—warm, steady, present.

“And whatever comes next,” he whispered, “we do it the same way we’re doing this. Together. No shrinking. No letting go.”

His hand squeezed hers once under the pillow, quiet punctuation on the promise.

Rowan didn’t rush to answer.

She let his words settle the way he’d let hers settle—without scrambling to correct or soften or reframe them. The room felt smaller somehow, warmer, the lamplight low and honeyed against the wall. February pressed cold against the windowpane, but under the blankets everything was quiet and insulated.

When he said she didn’t need them to be valid, her eyes flickered slightly. Not defensive. Just absorbing the care in it.

“I know,” she said quietly. “I know that.”

Her thumb brushed once over his knuckles under the pillow, tracing the familiar shape of his hand like she was mapping it from memory.

“But knowing it and feeling it aren’t always the same thing.”

The college websites comment pulled a faint breath of laughter from her, softer this time—less spark, more warmth.

“I would’ve absolutely been yelling at a laptop,” she murmured. “Very dramatic. Probably at 2 a.m.”

Her gaze softened, drifting for a second like she could almost see that version of herself.

“And you would’ve been spiraling in a rehearsal room pretending you weren’t.”

Her voice was slower now. Less edged. The energy she’d been holding all evening easing down.

“That’s what I mean,” she said gently. “We would’ve been fine. Just… alone in it.”

When he said it wasn’t about being saved—it was about not free-falling—her eyelids lowered halfway, lashes brushing her cheeks.

“Yes,” she whispered. “That.”

Lyric shifted faintly between them, a tiny snuffle, and Rowan’s hand drifted down automatically. Her palm rested lightly over their daughter’s chest, feeling the small, steady rhythm beneath the swaddle. She counted two breaths without realizing she was doing it.

When Mason said he liked being her backup, she shook her head slightly against the pillow, the movement slow and heavy with sleep creeping in.

“You’re not backup,” she murmured.

Her fingers shifted under the pillow, finding his again by instinct now rather than intention.

“You’re beside me.”

Her voice was quieter. Thinner at the edges.

When he promised he was still dreaming, she didn’t fully open her eyes to answer. She trusted the tone more than the words.

“I believe you,” she breathed.

The four-hours-of-sleep comment earned him the faintest hum of amusement, almost just air leaving her lungs.

“That one… feels achievable,” she murmured, lips barely curving.

She leaned in again, brushing the corner of his mouth with hers—soft, slow, less a kiss and more a sleepy confirmation.

“No shrinking,” she repeated softly, the words blurring at the ends.

Her thumb traced a slow, absent circle over his knuckles, but the movement was less precise now. Slower. The kind of motion that continued even as her body began surrendering to rest.

When he said they didn’t need the whole map tonight, she nodded once—barely perceptible, her forehead brushing his.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Her hand slipped from lacing with his to resting loosely between their palms under the pillow. Fingers not gripping. Just touching skin to skin.

“I like this version of us,” she murmured again, voice trailing.

“Not perfect. Just… honest.”

Her breathing shifted—longer inhales, slower exhales. The weight of the day settling into her muscles. The kind of exhaustion that came from loving hard and thinking deeply and getting up every two hours without complaint.

“We don’t have to figure it all out,” she said, the sentence thinning into a whisper. “Just… keep choosing…”

Her hand drifted once more to Lyric, fingertips brushing the soft cotton over her daughter’s chest. A final check. A final anchor.

“And we are,” she finished, barely audible.

Her thumb stilled where it rested near his hand.

Her forehead remained against his, but the subtle tension left her face completely now. Her mouth parted slightly in sleep. Her shoulders softened deeper into the mattress.

Her breathing evened out to match Lyric’s.

Mason didn’t move for a few seconds after Rowan’s breathing changed.

He could tell the exact moment it happened—the tiny shift from awake-but-tired to gone. The way her forehead stayed against his, but the tension drained out of her face like someone had finally turned the volume down inside her head. Her hand went slack under the pillow, still touching his, but not holding on like she was bracing.

She was just… resting.

Safe.

Mason’s mouth softened into a smile he didn’t even try to hide.

He leaned in and kissed her forehead—slow, careful, the kind of kiss that felt like placing something back where it belonged. He held it there for a beat longer than necessary, because he could, because no one was rushing him, because the quiet was theirs.

Then he shifted—small, deliberate movements. He slid his arm a little lower under the pillow so his shoulder wouldn’t go numb. He tucked the blanket edge up by Rowan’s collarbone so the February air couldn’t sneak in. He adjusted Lyric’s swaddle by a fraction, smoothing the fabric flat across her chest and checking her tiny nose was clear, her chin tipped the right way.

Not paranoid. Not frantic.

Just… Dad.

He settled again on his side, closer, until he could feel the warm little weight of Lyric between them and Rowan’s steady presence right in front of him. He kept one hand near Lyric—not on her, just close enough to reassure his own brain that he’d feel it if anything changed. The other stayed under the pillow where Rowan’s fingers still touched his.

He stared for a second.

Two sleeping faces in amber lamplight. Rowan’s lashes dark against her cheek. Lyric’s tiny mouth slightly open, soft and milk-drunk even in sleep. The heater hummed. The room held.

Mason felt happy in a way that didn’t spike or ache—just settled. Confident. Content. Like something in him finally understood what “enough” looked like.

And of course his brain still wouldn’t shut up.

It pinged around like a bored stage manager.

They’re sleeping. Don’t move. Breathe quieter. Did you lock the front door? You did. Right? The bottle parts are in the sink. You’ll wash them in the morning. Or in ten minutes because you’ll convince yourself you forgot.

He stared at the ceiling for half a second, then back at them.

His girls.

He couldn’t believe he got to think that and not feel like he was borrowing someone else’s life.

He watched Lyric’s chest rise and fall, counted three breaths without meaning to, then forced himself to stop. He watched Rowan’s mouth part slightly as she exhaled, the tiniest sigh like her body had finally decided it could put the world down for a while.

Mason’s eyes burned a little—not with tears, exactly. Just with feeling too much and being too tired to pack it away.

He didn’t reach for a joke. Not out loud.

He just let the thought exist: This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

He shifted again—barely—tilting the lamp down a notch so the room dimmed further. Then he lay perfectly still and tried to follow Rowan’s breathing pattern, like if he matched it, his own mind would get the hint.

In. Out. Slow.

His gaze drifted between them, protective without being tense.

He checked Lyric’s swaddle again with his eyes. Fine. He checked the space between Rowan and Lyric. Safe. He checked Rowan’s blanket. Tucked.

Okay.

He closed his eyes.

Immediately, his brain tried to start a list.

Apartment. Our place. Thin walls. Bad plumbing. Broadway. Or a black box. Or community theatre. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter.

He opened his eyes again and looked at them—like seeing them was the only thing that made the spinning slow down.

He exhaled through his nose, quiet.

“Okay,” he whispered, not to wake anyone—just to anchor himself.

Then he kissed Rowan’s forehead one more time, softer than before, and let his cheek rest into the pillow.

He stayed awake for a while after that.

Watching.

Listening.

Letting his mind run in circles until it finally got tired of itself.

And somewhere between one heater click and the next, with Lyric breathing steady and Rowan asleep against him, Mason’s eyes finally closed for good—still smiling, even as he drifted.

April had softened everything—except the cold.

Outside, the rest of the country was pretending it was spring. Sun, open windows, seventy degrees and people forgetting jackets.

Here, it still bit.

Not harsh. Just enough to keep the fireplace going at night.

Rowan had one leg tucked under her, the other stretched out across the couch, sock brushing lightly against Mason’s thigh. The TV played low in the background—some show neither of them were really watching, just noise filling the quiet in a house that finally, finally had a sleeping baby in it.

Lyric was out.

Completely out.

Bassinet pulled close to the couch, blanket tucked just right, her tiny chest rising and falling in that steady, hypnotic rhythm that had become the center of everything.

Rowan glanced over once—quick, automatic—then back.

“Okay,” she said, shifting toward Mason with purpose.

She reached behind her and tugged her hair over one shoulder, already half-loosening it with practiced fingers.

“Pay attention.”

Her tone wasn’t sharp. Just… focused. Like this mattered.

Because to her, it did.

She split her hair into three sections without looking down, hands moving like muscle memory.

“Three pieces,” she said. “Not two. Not four. Three. If you mess that up, we’re done here.”

A beat.

Her eyes flicked to him.

“I’m serious.”

But there was a hint of a smile sitting underneath it.

She started the braid slowly, exaggerating the movement just enough so he could follow.

“Right over middle,” she murmured, crossing the strand cleanly. “Then left over middle.”

Her fingers were quick but controlled, weaving it down, then pausing halfway.

“Now you.”

She turned slightly, shifting closer so her shoulder pressed into his, offering the unfinished braid like it was a test.

“Don’t overthink it,” she added. “It’s literally just… pattern recognition.”

She watched his hands move—hesitant at first, then trying—and her expression softened in that quiet, almost proud way she didn’t make a big deal out of.

“Your job,” she continued, voice lower now so it wouldn’t carry, “is to not be the dad who says ‘your mom can do it’ and walks away.”

Her gaze flicked to the bassinet.

“She’s gonna have hair. Probably thick. Probably a mess.”

Back to him.

“And I’m not doing every single braid for the next ten years.”

There it was. The real reason.

She leaned her head briefly against his shoulder as he worked through the next cross.

“Mine never learned,” she said, quieter now. “He just… didn’t try.”

A small pause.

“I don’t want that for her.”

Not elaborate.

Not emotional.

Just… different.

She straightened again, nudging his hand slightly when he hesitated.

“No—keep going. You had it.”

Her fingers brushed his lightly, guiding the strand into place.

“Right over middle,” she repeated. “Then left.”

The fire crackled softly behind them. The TV flickered across their faces.

Lyric slept.

And Rowan sat there, teaching her husband something small that somehow felt like it mattered a lot.

Mason’s first thought was that hair had no business being this complicated.

His second thought was that Rowan’s hair felt softer than anything he was emotionally equipped to handle at this hour.

He sat very still beside her, one knee bent on the couch, socked foot braced against the cushion, his whole body angled toward her like this was not a casual lesson but a sacred transfer of knowledge. The fire snapped quietly behind them. The TV flashed blue across the room. Lyric slept in the bassinet, tiny and impossible and already the reason the entire house seemed to breathe differently.

And Rowan was trusting him with this.

Not just her hair.

The why behind it.

Mason looked down at the half-finished braid between his fingers, trying to keep the three sections separate while his chest did something embarrassingly tender.

Right over middle.

Left over middle.

Okay.

He could do that.

Probably.

His fingers moved slowly, clumsier than hers, the strands slipping once before he caught them again. His brow furrowed with the kind of concentration he usually reserved for opening night cues and trying to decipher whether a baby noise meant hunger, gas, or tiny existential crisis.

“Okay,” he whispered, mostly to himself. “Right over middle. Left over middle. This is choreography. It’s just… scalp choreography.”

Rowan’s shoulder shook against him in silent amusement, but she didn’t interrupt.

That made it worse, somehow. Better. Bigger.

Because he knew what she was doing. She wasn’t just teaching him how to braid. She was handing him a piece of her childhood and saying, please don’t leave this undone for her too.

And God, Mason wanted to be worthy of that.

He glanced toward the bassinet. Lyric’s little mouth was parted, her hands tucked near her face beneath the blanket, lashes resting against cheeks that still looked too small to be real. She had no idea yet. No idea how loved she was. No idea that her mother was sitting beside a fire in April, teaching her father how to braid hair because love meant trying before anyone had to ask twice.

Mason swallowed.

Then he looked back down and crossed the next strand.

It was not beautiful.

It was, honestly, kind of tragic.

But it held.

A slow grin tugged at his mouth.

“Not to be dramatic,” he murmured, voice low so he wouldn’t wake Lyric, “but I think I’m becoming a girl dad in real time.”

Rowan’s hand brushed his wrist, guiding the tension without taking over. He loved that about her. The way she let him try. The way she corrected him without making him feel stupid. The way she always made room for him to become better.

He crossed another section. Then another.

His confidence grew by approximately six percent.

“Okay, wait,” he whispered, leaning closer to inspect his work. “This is either a braid or a tiny rope bridge for fairies. But structurally? I’m proud.”

He felt Rowan lean into him again, brief and warm, and the joke faded from his face before he could stop it.

Her father hadn’t learned.

Mason couldn’t stop thinking about that.

Not with Rowan sitting right here, older now but still carrying the shape of that small disappointment. Not dramatic enough to be called neglect. Not cruel enough to turn into a family legend. Just one of those quiet things. One of those he didn’t try things that stayed with a person longer than anyone realized.

Mason looked at the braid in his hands and understood, suddenly and completely, that fatherhood was probably going to be made of a thousand moments exactly like this.

Small chances to try.

Small chances to stay.

Small chances to say without saying: You matter enough for me to learn.

His voice came softer when he spoke again.

“I’m gonna learn,” he said.

No flourish. No bit.

Just the truth.

His thumb smoothed carefully over the section he’d just crossed, keeping the pattern intact.

“I don’t want to be that guy either,” he added, eyes still on her hair because if he looked directly at her, he might say too much and wake the baby with the sheer force of his feelings. “The one who taps out because something looks hard. Or because I’m bad at it the first time.”

A beat.

Then, because he was still him, his mouth curved faintly.

“Which is unfortunate, because I am very bad at this the first time.”

Rowan huffed softly, and the sound went straight through him.

Mason kept going.

Right over middle. Left over middle.

The braid tightened slowly beneath his hands, uneven but recognizable. The end of it rested against her shoulder, glossy and soft in the firelight, and Mason felt a ridiculous surge of pride.

The same kind he’d felt when Lyric burped for him the first time.

The same kind he’d felt when he figured out how to fold the stroller without nearly losing a finger.

The same kind he imagined he’d feel someday when Lyric stood between his knees with tangled hair and absolute faith that he could fix it.

That thought nearly took him out.

He blinked once and cleared his throat quietly.

“Someday,” he whispered toward the bassinet, “when you’re late for school and demanding two braids, matching ribbons, and emotional support cereal, just know I trained for this.”

Lyric slept on, unimpressed.

Mason nodded solemnly. “Tough crowd.”

He reached the end of Rowan’s hair and froze.

“Uh.”

He looked at the tiny elastic on the couch cushion like it was the final boss.

Then, carefully—absurdly carefully—he wrapped it around the end once. Twice. Three times. It snapped lightly against his finger, and he flinched like he’d been wounded in battle.

But the braid stayed.

Crooked.

Loose in one spot.

A little weird near the top.

Still a braid.

Mason stared at it.

Then looked at Rowan with the slow, dawning pride of a man who had just returned from war holding a flag.

“I did it,” he whispered.

His grin broke through fully then—bright, boyish, completely helpless.

“I mean, don’t put it on a wedding Pinterest board or anything, but I did it.”

He lifted the braid gently, reverently, then let it rest back against her shoulder. His fingers lingered for one second longer than necessary, brushing the ends before his hand dropped to her knee.

The room had gone quieter somehow. Or maybe he had.

He leaned in and kissed the side of Rowan’s head, just above her temple.

“Thank you for teaching me,” he murmured.

Then, after a pause, even softer:

“And for trusting me to try.”

He stayed close after that, shoulder pressed to hers, eyes drifting back to the bassinet.

Lyric breathed steadily.

Rowan’s braid sat slightly crooked over her shoulder.

The fire burned low.

And Mason Hayes—former theater kid, current husband, brand-new father, and apparently apprentice hair stylist—felt something settle deep in his chest.

Not triumph.

Not even pride.

Something quieter.

A promise taking root.

He would learn the braids. The bottles. The bedtime songs. The favorite snacks. The hard questions. The things Rowan’s father hadn’t known to try and the things Mason himself would mess up before getting right.

He would learn all of it.

Because Lyric deserved a father who tried.

Because Rowan deserved a partner who stayed.

Because this life—sleeping baby, cold April night, firelight, crooked braid and all—was the best role he’d ever been given.

And he intended to show up for every scene.

Rowan didn’t move right away.

Not when he said it. Not when the words settled into the quiet between them, softer than the fire, heavier than anything he’d said all night.

I’m gonna learn.

It didn’t land like a promise people say when they’re trying to sound good. It didn’t feel like something he’d forget in the morning. It felt… rooted. Like something that had already decided to stay.

Her fingers tightened slightly in her lap before she even realized she was doing it.

She could feel the braid resting against her shoulder—uneven, a little loose near the top, tighter toward the bottom where he’d figured it out. She didn’t fix it. Didn’t reach up and smooth it or redo it out of habit.

She just let it sit there.

Because he’d done that.

Because he’d stayed with it.

Because he didn’t hand it back the second it got frustrating.

Her throat pulled tight in that quiet, inconvenient way she hated—no warning, no drama, just a sudden fullness that made everything feel closer to the surface than she preferred.

Her hand came up slowly, not to correct him, not to check the braid—but to rest lightly over his where it had settled on her knee. Warm. Slightly rough from nothing in particular. Familiar already in a way that still caught her off guard sometimes.

“You don’t have to get it perfect,” she murmured, voice low, steady, shaped more by instinct than intention. “Not tonight. Not next week.”

Her thumb brushed once over his knuckles, small and grounding.

“She doesn’t even have hair yet.”

A breath slipped out of her, quieter this time, almost a ghost of a laugh.

“But she will,” she added, softer now. “And she’s gonna wake up one morning and decide she wants something complicated. Something specific. Something that makes absolutely no sense at six in the morning.”

Her eyes flicked toward the bassinet without turning her head fully, just enough to catch the shape of Lyric in the dim light. Tiny. Still. Completely unaware of the weight of all this.

“And I won’t always be here for it,” Rowan continued, the words coming easier once she let them. “There’s gonna be a day I’m out, or running late, or just… not in the room. And she’s gonna look at you like you’re the answer anyway.”

Her gaze came back to him then, not dramatic, not searching—just there.

“And I don’t want you to have to tell her no,” she said simply.

There was no accusation in it. No edge. Just truth.

Her hand shifted slightly, fingers curling more deliberately over his now, not guiding, not correcting—just holding.

“You don’t have to be good at it right away,” she added, softer. “You just have to try. You already are.”

Her eyes dropped briefly to the braid again, the corner of her mouth lifting—not because it was neat, but because it existed at all.

Because he’d made it exist.

And God, that did something to her.

She leaned into him without thinking about it, shoulder fitting against his like it had learned the shape already. The fire cracked behind them, low and steady, and she let herself settle there for a second longer than she usually would.

“I love watching you do this,” she admitted, quieter now, the words almost tucked into the space between them. “All of it.”

Her head tilted just slightly, enough that her temple brushed closer to his.

“Not just this,” she added, a small exhale following it. “But you with her. You figuring it out. You not backing off when it’s new or weird or… not yours yet.”

Her fingers shifted again, absent this time, tracing lightly along his hand like she was memorizing something she hadn’t expected to have.

“You’re already really good at it,” she said, almost like she didn’t want to make a big thing out of it. “Being her dad.”

That one sat differently.

Heavier. Truer.

She let it linger, then eased back just enough to breathe again, her mind catching on something softer, easier—something that didn’t feel like it might break if she held it too tight.

Mother’s Day.

It slipped in gently, almost out of place in the weight of everything else, but she followed it anyway. Let it lighten the edges.

Her fingers stilled over his for a second before she spoke again, voice shifting—still soft, but less heavy now. More… curious.

“Did you already make plans for Sunday?” she asked, glancing at him without fully turning her head, watching his reaction more than waiting for the answer.

There was a pause—just long enough for the thought to settle.

“And if you didn’t…” her mouth curved slightly, something a little more her slipping back in, “I might have an idea.”

She didn’t rush it. Didn’t pitch it yet.

Just let it sit there between them—like everything else had tonight.

Offered. Not forced.

Her shoulder pressed back into his again, steadier this time, like she’d decided she was staying exactly where she was.

Firelight flickering.

Baby breathing soft and even.

A crooked braid resting against her collarbone.

And for once, she didn’t feel the need to fix anything.

Mason forgot the braid for a second.

Forgot the fire. Forgot the half-watched show murmuring from the TV. Forgot the fact that his leg had started to go a little numb beneath him and that Lyric’s bassinet was close enough for him to count every tiny rise and fall of her chest if his brain decided to get dramatic again.

Because Rowan had just said he was good at being her dad.

Not trying.

Not learning.

Good.

And Mason Hayes, who had once convinced himself he could handle applause without it going to his head, discovered very quickly that praise from Rowan Starling was an entirely different category of ruin.

His throat tightened. Fast.

He looked down at her hand over his, the gentle weight of it, the way her thumb kept making these small, absent movements like she didn’t even realize she was grounding him too. The braid sat crooked over her shoulder, imperfect and loose and somehow one of the proudest things he had ever made.

She hadn’t fixed it.

God. That got him too.

He stared at it for half a second too long, then swallowed and looked toward the bassinet, where Lyric slept like she hadn’t just become the center of a promise she was too small to understand.

“I don’t want to tell her no,” he said quietly.

His voice was soft, but it came out steadier than he expected. Maybe because it was true in the easiest way. Maybe because the second Rowan said it, he could picture it: Lyric at six years old in pajamas and one sock, hair a disaster, demanding something with braids and ribbons and absolutely no patience for a father who hadn’t bothered to learn.

He wanted to be ready.

Not perfect.

Ready.

“I mean, I’m definitely going to tell her no when she tries to eat glitter or join a baby fight club,” he added, because he was still him and the emotion in his chest needed somewhere to go before it took him out completely. “But hair? Yeah. I can learn hair.”

His fingers turned beneath Rowan’s, palm up now, so he could hold her hand properly.

“I’ll learn all of it,” he murmured. “Braids. Ponytails. Whatever terrifying thing happens with bows. The one where people twist hair into, like, a cinnamon roll shape? I’ll figure that out too.”

His mouth curved faintly.

“And if she asks for something complicated at six in the morning, I’ll panic internally like a professional and then tell her, ‘Absolutely, small queen, your stylist is emotionally prepared.’”

He felt Rowan lean into him again, and something in him settled.

The thing was, she was right. It wouldn’t always be her in the room. It wouldn’t always be Rowan catching every need first, solving every tiny disaster with those careful, capable hands. There would be mornings that belonged to him. Bedtimes. Sick days. Rushed school drop-offs. Questions he didn’t know how to answer until he tried.

He wanted them.

Every messy, underprepared second.

When Rowan asked about Sunday, he went still in a different way.

Not caught.

Not guilty.

Just very suddenly aware that the tiny plan he had been building in secret—mostly in notes app bullet points and one whispered phone call to her mom—was not nearly as smooth as he had imagined it would be.

His eyes slid toward her.

“Define plans,” he said carefully.

He tried for casual. Failed immediately.

Because Rowan knew him. She had married him, which meant she had unfortunately been granted full access to his face when he was lying badly.

He sighed, shoulders dropping with theatrical defeat.

“Okay, yes. I have plans. Or… plan-adjacent materials.”

He glanced once at Lyric, then back at Rowan, voice still low.

“Nothing huge. I know it’s your first Mother’s Day, and I didn’t want to make it weird or overwhelming or accidentally turn it into a production where I cry into pancakes and give a speech while holding a baby footprint craft.”

A beat.

His expression shifted.

“There may still be a baby footprint craft.”

He gave her a look, half-apology, half-pride.

“But I wanted it to feel like you,” he admitted. “Not what people think a first Mother’s Day is supposed to be. Just… yours.”

His thumb brushed along her palm.

“Because you are really good at this too,” he said, quieter now. “Even when you’re tired. Even when you don’t feel like yourself. Even when you’re sitting here acting like teaching me a braid isn’t one of the most romantic things anyone’s ever done.”

He leaned in and kissed the side of her head, just above the crooked braid.

Then he stayed there for a second, lips near her hair, breathing in the warm, familiar scent of her.

“So yes,” he murmured. “I made plans.”

He pulled back just enough to look at her properly.

“But if you have an idea, I want that more.”

His smile turned soft, all boyish devotion and quiet certainty.

“Tell me what you want, Ro. First Mother’s Day. Your rules. I’m just the husband with the questionable braid technique and a baby footprint craft hidden somewhere in this house.”

She didn’t answer right away.

Not because she didn’t have something to say—but because the way he said it, the way he shifted when he admitted he had plans but still wanted to hear hers… it caught her off guard in that quiet, disarming way he had. Like he was handing her space and trust at the same time and expecting her to actually take it.

Her mouth curved before she could stop it—small, almost private, the kind of smile that started in her chest and worked its way up slowly.

Of course he had plans.

Of course he did.

He always did it like that—like dreaming wasn’t something loud or performative, just something he carried around in his back pocket and only pulled out when it mattered.

Her fingers found the edge of the table between them, tracing a faint groove in the wood, grounding herself for a second before she looked up at him fully. Really looked.

There was something in her chest that felt… steady. Not rushed. Not spiraling. Just… ready.

“I’ve been keeping up with it,” she said, voice quieter than she expected, but sure. “Since we talked about New York.”

Her gaze flicked to his face, watching for the shift, the way his eyes would focus in when something actually mattered to him.

“Broadway stuff,” she added, like it wasn’t a big deal. Like she hadn’t been checking it almost daily. “Casting calls. Open runs. Who’s doing what.”

Her fingers stilled, then pressed flat against the surface.

“There’s a three-month stint this summer,” she said, more deliberate now. “Little Shop of Horrors. Open casting.”

She let that sit for half a second, watching him—not pushing, not selling it. Just placing it between them.

“I want to go,” she said simply.

Not dramatic. Not tentative.

“I want to see you audition.”

Her shoulders shifted, a small adjustment, like she was settling into the truth of it as she spoke it out loud.

“And if you get it…” She exhaled, soft, thinking as she went. “I’ve got the college fund. I can use it—for a bit. Just while I figure things out there. Find a job. Get settled while you’re in rehearsals and doing…” Her lips twitched faintly, almost amused. “Whatever else theater people do besides dramatically suffer and memorize lines.”

Her eyes dropped for a second, then came back to him, steadier.

“If we’re good—if it works—we stay.” A small shrug, like it didn’t need dressing up. “And if it doesn’t, we don’t pretend it did. We come back. Save. Try again later.”

There was no panic in it. No edge.

Just… options.

Just movement.

Her thumb brushed lightly along the table again, but this time it wasn’t nervous—it was absent, thoughtful.

“I remember seeing you in it,” she said, softer now, something shifting underneath the words. “At school.”

Her nose scrunched slightly, a hint of self-awareness slipping through.

“I didn’t even want to go. It was for a drama credit, and I thought it was gonna be… bad.” A breath of a laugh, quiet, almost embarrassed. “Like—painfully bad.”

Her gaze lifted again, catching his, holding it this time.

“But it wasn’t.”

There it was—that moment. Still clear. Still sharp.

“That was the first time I realized you weren’t just… some theater kid.”

Her voice didn’t soften—it steadied.

“You had range,” she said. “You had control. You knew what you were doing.”

A beat.

“And I don’t think you’ve fully seen that yet.”

Her head tilted slightly, studying him in that way she did—like she was lining something up in her mind and waiting for it to click into place for him too.

“I want you to,” she added, quieter.

Then, almost as an afterthought—but not really—

“Auditions are Saturday.”

She leaned back just a fraction, like she’d finally said the part she’d been holding.

“Flight leaves Friday. We come back Monday.”

A small pause.

“We can sightsee too,” she said, the faintest hint of a smile returning, softer now. “Make it… not just that.”

Her fingers moved, brushing against his hand briefly—not grabbing, not holding, just enough contact to anchor the moment in something real.

Then she stilled again.

Let it sit.

Let him meet her there.

Mason didn’t understand what she was saying at first.

Not because the words were complicated. They weren’t. Casting calls. Open runs. Three-month stint. Saturday. Flight Friday.

Simple words.

Easy words.

But they entered his chest all wrong—too big for the space they were given, too bright in the low light of the kitchen. For a second, all he could do was stare at her hand on the table, her thumb tracing that faint groove in the wood like she wasn’t actively setting a match to the quiet, carefully folded part of him that still kept Broadway stored away as a someday.

A someday dream.

A not-now dream.

A maybe-when-we’re-stable dream.

And Rowan had just placed it between them like it belonged on the table with everything else.

Like groceries. Like bills. Like Lyric’s burp cloths.

Like it was real.

His mouth parted, but nothing came out.

Because she had been looking. Since New York. Since that conversation in the dark with Lyric asleep between them. She had taken the dream he’d admitted in a whisper and gone searching for a door.

His throat tightened so hard it almost hurt.

He looked up at her then, really looked, and there she was—steady, open, not selling him on it, not trying to make it sound easier than it was. That was the thing that got him. She wasn’t pretending it was simple. She wasn’t wrapping it in glitter and telling him they’d figure out the details because love conquered airfare and childcare and rent.

She was giving him options.

Movement.

A chance.

His eyes burned, and he blinked once, fast, because absolutely not. Not over Little Shop of Horrors. Not in front of the woman who would never let him live down crying over a man-eating plant musical.

But then she said she remembered seeing him in it.

At school.

And the room went very still.

He could see it suddenly—the old auditorium, the heat of the stage lights, the dusty curtains, the fake plant that had never opened right on cue. He could feel the nerves from that night like they’d been waiting under his skin all this time. He remembered looking past the first few rows and finding her in the dim, arms crossed, face unreadable.

He’d thought she was bored.

Of course he had. Rowan Starling had made unimpressed look like an art form.

But she’d seen him.

Not the loud version. Not the class-clown-theater-kid version. Not the boy who threw himself into everything because if he was entertaining enough maybe no one would notice how badly he wanted to matter.

She’d seen the work.

The control.

The part of him that wasn’t a bit.

Mason’s hand shifted on the table, his fingers flexing once before he caught the place where hers had brushed his. He didn’t grab. Not yet. He just let his knuckles rest close enough to feel the warmth she left behind.

“You’ve been checking casting calls,” he said quietly.

It came out like he was confirming something impossible.

His gaze dropped for half a second, not away from her exactly, but down to the table between them, to the ordinary wood holding the extraordinary thing she’d just offered.

Then he laughed once under his breath—small, stunned, not really amused.

“Ro.”

That was all he managed at first.

Just her name.

Because anything more felt like it might come out too big.

He looked back at her, and this time he didn’t bother hiding what it did to him. The awe. The fear. The sudden pulse of want so sharp it almost scared him.

“You want to spend your first Mother’s Day weekend watching me audition for a musical about a homicidal plant.”

His voice was soft, but there was that flicker in it—the Mason part, the part that still reached for humor when his heart was halfway out of his chest.

His mouth curved, uneven.

“That is either the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me, or definitive proof that sleep deprivation has fully taken you.”

But the joke didn’t hold long.

Not with her looking at him like that. Not with all that certainty in her face. Not with the knowledge that she’d looked at his dream, measured the risk, and still said I want to go.

His fingers finally moved, sliding over hers on the table. Slow. Careful. Like he was afraid if he touched the moment too hard, it might vanish.

“You remember that show?” he asked, quieter now.

He already knew she did. She had just told him. But part of him needed to hear the shape of it again, needed to stand inside the fact that she had been carrying that memory all this time.

His thumb brushed lightly against her knuckle.

“I thought you hated it,” he admitted. “I thought you were sitting there doing that thing with your face where you look like you’re mentally writing a complaint letter to the universe.”

There it was. The corner of her mouth. Almost a smile.

It steadied him.

He breathed out slowly, then shook his head, gaze dropping for a second as the reality of Saturday circled back and hit him all over again.

An audition.

New York.

Her beside him.

Lyric, somehow part of it too—whether with them or waiting safely at home with grandparents who would probably cry over the logistics and pack six extra onesies.

He wanted it.

God, he wanted it.

The wanting moved through him before he could soften it into something reasonable. It was bright and embarrassing and alive. He wanted to stand in a room and sing until his lungs shook. Wanted to be scared for the right reasons. Wanted to walk down a New York street with Rowan’s hand in his and know they had chosen the leap together.

But he also saw everything else. The plane. The money. The baby. Rowan’s body still recovering in ways she didn’t always say out loud. The pressure he refused to place on her, even accidentally.

His hand tightened slightly over hers.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Not because he doubted her.

Because he loved her too much not to ask.

His eyes held hers, steady now.

“I need you to know that I want this. Like—” He stopped, swallowed, tried again. “I want it so badly I’m trying very hard not to stand up and do something humiliating with jazz hands.”

A breath of a laugh left him, but his face stayed open.

“But not if it turns your first Mother’s Day into me spiraling about sheet music while you’re juggling bottles in an airport bathroom.”

He leaned forward a fraction, his voice lowering.

“I don’t want the dream if you become the cost of it.”

There.

The thing under the thing.

The fear he hadn’t wanted to name because naming it made it seem noble, and he didn’t want to be noble. He wanted to be honest.

His thumb moved over her hand again, tracing the same small rhythm she’d made against the table.

“But if you mean it,” he said, softer, “if this is something you actually want with me—not for me, with me—then…”

He exhaled, and the smile came back, helpless this time. Younger. Brighter.

“Then yeah.”

The words landed in him as he said them.

Yeah.

He felt the room tilt—not in panic, not in pressure, but in possibility.

“Yeah,” he said again, a little steadier. “Let’s go.”

His grin broke wider before he could stop it, the kind that always got him in trouble because it showed too much. Too much hope. Too much Rowan. Too much of the boy who still lived somewhere in him, staring at Broadway marquees online and pretending it was research.

He turned her hand over and pressed a kiss to the center of her palm.

Not dramatic.

Not polished.

Just because he needed to.

Then he rested their joined hands back on the table and looked at her like she had just opened a door in the middle of their kitchen.

“You’re really dangerous, you know that?” he murmured, eyes bright. “Not in the scary way. In the ‘quietly rearranges my entire future while looking calm and hot at the table’ way.”

He shook his head, still smiling, still a little wrecked.

“And for the record, theater people also panic quietly in hallways, overuse throat coat tea, and pretend they’re not superstitious while absolutely being superstitious.”

A beat.

“So we’ll need tea.”

Another beat.

“And probably snacks.”

His expression softened again, all the charm giving way to something warmer and more rooted.

“But mostly,” he said, “I need you there.”

His voice dropped.

“Not because I can’t do it without you. I can.”

He looked at her fully.

“But because I don’t want to. I want to look out after and see you. Win, lose, humiliating dance call, whatever happens—I want you there.”

The words made his chest ache, but he didn’t pull them back.

He couldn’t.

Because this was what she had offered him. Not just a trip. Not just an audition.

A version of the future where wanting didn’t mean leaving them behind.

His eyes flicked briefly toward the baby monitor on the counter—habit, instinct, fatherhood stitched into the edges of everything now—then came back to Rowan.

“And if it doesn’t work,” he said, repeating her logic because he needed her to know he’d heard it, “we come home. We save. We try again.”

His mouth curved.

“And if it does work…”

He paused there, letting the possibility breathe.

A tiny apartment. Thin walls. Bad plumbing. Her painting one wall something stupid and bold. Lyric learning to sleep through sirens. Him coming home from rehearsal exhausted and euphoric to find Rowan on the floor with takeout containers and a baby toy in her hair.

His whole life, terrifying and shining.

“If it works,” he said quietly, “then we stay long enough to find out who we become there.”

He squeezed her hand once.

Then, because the feeling in the room was getting too big and his heart needed a pressure valve, he sat back slightly and pointed at her with mock severity.

“But you understand what you’ve done, right? I now have approximately forty-eight hours to become emotionally stable enough to audition for Little Shop in New York City.”

His eyes widened.

“That is not enough time. I’m going to need vocal warmups, a playlist, three emotional support bagels, and at least one moment where I stare out a plane window like I’m in the opening credits of my own coming-of-age film.”

He paused, softer now.

“And you.”

His thumb brushed her knuckles again.

“Always you.”

Rowan felt it the moment his expression shifted—before he said anything, before his hand moved, before the words even had time to settle between them.

It was in his eyes first.

That quiet, startled brightness.

Like something inside him had been touched too gently to defend against.

Her chest tightened around it.

She hadn’t expected that part to hit so hard.

She’d planned this carefully—kept it practical, grounded, wrapped in just enough realism that he wouldn’t dismiss it outright. She hadn’t come to the table with fantasy. She’d come with logistics. With options. With something he could hold without it slipping through his fingers.

But she hadn’t prepared for the way he would look at her.

Like she’d handed him something fragile and holy at the same time.

Rowan held his gaze anyway, even as something in her instinctively wanted to retreat from the intensity of it—to deflect, to roll her eyes, to soften the moment into something easier to stand inside.

She didn’t.

Not this time.

Her fingers stilled against the table when his hand edged closer, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him without contact. It was such a small thing, but it made her pulse shift, made her hyper-aware of the space between them—how deliberate it was, how careful he was being with it.

With her.

Her throat moved slightly when he said her name.

Just that.

Soft.

Like it carried too much weight to dress up into anything else.

Rowan’s gaze flickered over his face—the uneven curve of his mouth, the way he tried to tuck everything he was feeling behind something lighter and almost managed it. Almost.

She knew that version of him.

The one that reached for humor when something real got too close to the surface.

Her lips parted, but nothing came out yet.

Not because she didn’t have something to say.

Because she was watching him.

Feeling him.

Letting herself understand exactly what this meant to him before she spoke into it.

When his fingers finally slid over hers, slow and tentative, her breath caught—just a fraction—but enough that she felt it all the way down. Her hand didn’t pull back. It turned, almost instinctively, fitting into his like it had always known where to go.

That small, grounding contact settled something in her and unraveled something else at the same time.

She let him talk.

Let him circle it.

Let him say all the things he needed to say—fear wrapped in jokes, want softened into caution, hope trying very hard not to become something reckless.

And God, she could feel the want in him.

It wasn’t subtle.

It never had been, not when it came to things that mattered.

It lived in the way his voice shifted, in the way his hand tightened just slightly over hers, in the way he couldn’t quite sit still inside his own body when the possibility of it got too real.

Rowan swallowed, her gaze dropping briefly to where their hands were joined.

His thumb moving over her knuckle.

Mirroring the exact rhythm she’d been tracing into the table before he’d even understood what she was offering.

That hit her harder than it should have.

The quiet way he met her where she was without even realizing it.

Her chest pulled tight again.

When he asked if she was sure, she didn’t answer right away.

Not out of hesitation.

Out of care.

She lifted her eyes back to his, really looked at him this time—the openness, the restraint, the way he was trying so hard to hold both things at once. What he wanted. What he refused to risk losing.

Her free hand came up slowly, almost unconsciously, brushing along his wrist where it rested against hers. Not stopping him. Not grounding him.

Just there.

A quiet acknowledgment.

“You don’t get to decide for me what I can handle,” she said softly, her voice steady but not sharp.

There was no edge to it.

Just truth.

Her thumb pressed lightly against his pulse point, feeling it there—fast, alive, matching the way her own had started to race without her permission.

“I know what this is,” she went on, quieter now. “I know what it costs.”

A small breath.

Not heavy.

Not dramatic.

Just real.

“And I still want it.”

Her gaze didn’t waver.

Not when she said it.

Not when it settled between them.

There was something almost stubborn in the way she held it there—like she was bracing for him to try and soften it again, to turn it into something smaller, safer.

She wouldn’t let him.

Not this.

Her fingers shifted in his, tightening just slightly, enough to make the contact intentional.

“You think I didn’t think about the airport?” she added, a faint, almost dry note threading through her voice. “Or the bottles. Or the fact that I’ll probably be half-asleep and wearing something with spit-up on it while you’re having a life-changing moment?”

A flicker of something—amusement, maybe—touched the corner of her mouth, but it didn’t fully form.

“Of course I did.”

Her expression softened after that.

Not weaker.

Just… more open.

“I just didn’t think any of that was a reason not to go.”

The honesty of it sat there, unpolished.

Unprotected.

Rowan shifted slightly in her chair, leaning forward just enough to close the space he’d created earlier, her shoulder brushing his arm. The contact was deliberate this time.

Grounded.

“I’m not doing this for you,” she said, quieter still, her voice dipping into something that felt closer to confession than conversation. “I’m doing it because I want to be there.”

Her eyes searched his—not for permission, not for approval.

Just for understanding.

“I want to see it happen,” she added. “Whatever ‘it’ ends up being.”

Her gaze flicked down briefly, to his mouth, then back up again, something softer slipping through the edges of her composure before she caught it.

“And if it’s a disaster,” she murmured, “then we get bagels after and pretend it wasn’t.”

A beat.

Barely a second.

“But I don’t think it will be.”

That part came out quieter.

More certain.

Like something she hadn’t meant to say out loud but didn’t take back.

When he said yes—really said it, not hedged, not softened—she felt it in her body before her mind had time to process it.

A shift.

A release.

Something in her chest loosening and tightening at the same time.

Her breath left her in a slow exhale she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

And then he was smiling like that.

Too bright.

Too open.

Too much of the version of him that had always undone her a little without her permission.

Rowan huffed a quiet breath through her nose, something almost like a laugh threatening at the edges as she shook her head slightly.

“God, you’re dramatic,” she murmured, but there was no bite to it.

None at all.

Her fingers flexed in his when he turned her hand over, when his mouth pressed against her palm. The contact sent a sharp, unexpected warmth up her arm, settling somewhere low and steady in her chest.

She didn’t pull away.

Didn’t even pretend to.

Instead, her fingers curled slightly when he set her hand back down, like she was holding onto something that hadn’t quite left her skin yet.

Her eyes stayed on him.

On the way he looked at her now.

Like she’d shifted something fundamental.

That should’ve made her uncomfortable.

It didn’t.

It just made her quieter.

More aware.

More careful with what she did next.

When he called her dangerous, her brow lifted just slightly, a faint, unimpressed expression flickering across her face out of habit—but it didn’t fully land. There was too much warmth sitting underneath it.

“Please,” she muttered, softer than usual. “You were already halfway there.”

But her thumb moved over his knuckles again as she said it, betraying her.

When he kept going—tea, snacks, nerves dressed up like jokes—she watched him with something that had softened past defense entirely.

Past teasing.

Into something steadier.

Something that stayed.

Her hand shifted again, sliding more fully into his, anchoring there.

When he said he needed her there—

That he wanted her there—

It landed differently.

Not as pressure.

Not as expectation.

As choice.

Her gaze dropped for a second, just long enough to steady herself, before lifting back to his.

“I’ll be there,” she said.

Simple.

No decoration.

No performance.

Just a promise.

Her voice didn’t waver.

Her hand tightened once more in his, grounding the words into something physical.

Real.

Her eyes followed his brief glance toward the monitor, instinct pulling her attention there too, a flicker of something softer moving through her at the reminder of the life sitting just a few feet away.

Then she looked back at him.

At everything he was holding.

At everything they were about to step into.

Together.

When he painted the future—small, imperfect, alive—something in her chest shifted again, quieter this time.

Not fear.

Not even hope, exactly.

Something steadier.

Something she could stand on.

Her lips pressed together briefly, like she was holding back more than she was saying.

Then she leaned in.

Not far.

Just enough that her forehead brushed his temple, her voice dropping into something softer, closer.

“You’re going to be insufferable for the next forty-eight hours,” she murmured.

A beat.

“And I’m going to let you.”

Her hand slid up from his, fingertips brushing lightly along his jaw—not dramatic, not lingering—just a quiet, grounding touch before settling back between them.

Her gaze held his again.

Steady.

Certain.

“Start with the playlist,” she added, softer now. “I’ll handle the snacks.”

A flicker of something warmer passed through her expression.

“And the bagels.”

Then, after a moment—quieter still—

“Always the bagels.”

Mason went quiet in a way that felt different from hesitation.

It was the quiet of being corrected and realizing the correction had been deserved—not cruelly, not sharply, but clearly enough that it found the exact place it needed to land.

He had been trying to protect her from the cost of his dream.

She had just reminded him she was not something fragile he got to protect by deciding the shape of her life for her.

His fingers tightened around hers once before loosening again, an instinctive apology made with touch instead of words. Her thumb at his pulse point made it impossible to pretend she hadn’t felt how fast his heart had been going, how badly he wanted this, how afraid he’d been to want it too loudly in front of her.

He swallowed, eyes staying on her face.

The steadiness in her voice did something to him. It didn’t make the fear vanish. It gave it edges. Made it something he could hold without letting it spill over everything else.

She wanted it.

Not as charity. Not as sacrifice. Not as the selfless wife handing him a dream while she stood off to the side and carried the weight.

She wanted to be there.

That was the part that kept echoing.

Mason looked at her hand in his, at the way her fingers had slid more fully into place, at the slight warmth her palm left behind when she shifted closer. Her shoulder brushed his arm, deliberate and grounding, and it sent a quiet spark through him—not heat exactly, though there was always that too with Rowan, but recognition.

She wasn’t stepping away from the possibility.

She was leaning into it.

He dragged in a slow breath through his nose, careful to keep it quiet. The house had that late-night texture to it now, fire low behind them, television flickering forgotten color across the walls, Lyric asleep in the bassinet nearby with one tiny fist curled beside her cheek. Everything felt held together by soft noises: the heater, the baby’s breathing, the almost-silence after Rowan’s last words.

Start with the playlist.

I’ll handle the snacks.

Always the bagels.

God.

Of course bagels were what nearly took him out.

Not the audition. Not New York. Not the fact that his wife had been tracking Broadway casting calls like a covert agent with postpartum exhaustion and a fully operational snack strategy.

Bagels.

Because that was them. That was the shape of it. Big dream, practical carbs. Broadway, bottles, airport bathrooms, throat coat tea, and Rowan sitting across from him like the whole thing could be terrifying and still worth doing.

He let out a breath that almost became a laugh but didn’t quite make it there.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

One word first. Because anything else needed a second to gather.

His eyes flicked once toward the bassinet, automatic now. Lyric was still out, her chest moving in that tiny even rhythm that had become the metronome of his life. Safe. Sleeping. Completely unaware that her parents were whispering a future into existence a few feet away.

Then he looked back at Rowan.

Really looked.

At the calm she was holding. At the warmth under the almost-dry humor. At the soft set of her mouth after she’d touched his jaw and pulled away before it became too much. Rowan had always known exactly how to leave him wanting more without making him feel abandoned. A graze. A look. A promise made in the space before contact ended.

His voice came lower when he spoke again.

“You’re right.”

It cost him a little to say—not because he didn’t believe it, but because the words opened something in him he hadn’t realized he’d been keeping braced shut.

“I don’t get to decide what you can handle.”

He held her gaze, not flinching from it.

“And I’m sorry if that’s what it sounded like. I wasn’t trying to make you smaller. I just…” His mouth pulled to one side, not quite a smile. “I panicked because I love you, which is very noble in theory and very annoying in practice.”

There it was. A little bit of him. The theater-boy reflex. The soft landing.

But he didn’t hide behind it.

His thumb brushed along the side of her hand, slow enough to feel each knuckle.

“I know you thought about it,” he said. “The bottles. The airport. The spit-up outfit. The part where I’m pretending I’m not losing my mind while absolutely losing my mind.”

His mouth curved faintly.

“And the fact that you still want to go after factoring in all of that is… kind of the hottest logistical decision anyone’s ever made.”

The joke came out softer than usual, warmed through with gratitude.

Then the smile faded into something more serious, more open.

“I want you there,” he said again, because the first time had been true, but this time it felt rooted. “Not as backup. Not as proof I’m worth watching. Just because when something big happens, you’re the person I look for.”

His fingers shifted, sliding between hers more securely.

“And if it’s good, I want to see your face after. If it’s humiliating, I want to see your face after. If I accidentally sing the wrong sixteen bars and have to flee into the street and become a mysterious bagel vendor under a new identity—”

Her mouth twitched.

He loved that twitch. Lived for it, honestly.

“—I still want you there.”

He leaned in a fraction, not enough to crowd her, just enough that the warmth between them changed. The fire snapped softly behind him, and the scent of smoke and baby lotion and Rowan’s shampoo sat in the air like memory.

“You saying you’ll be there,” he murmured, “that does something to me.”

He didn’t dress it up. Didn’t make it pretty.

His throat tightened, and he let it.

“It makes it feel real. Like I’m allowed to go want it with my whole chest because I’m not leaving my life behind to do it. I’m bringing my life with me.”

His gaze dropped briefly to their joined hands, then lifted back to hers.

“And that’s you,” he said. “And her.”

His eyes cut toward Lyric again, softer this time, a small helpless smile touching his face before he came back to Rowan.

“And bagels, apparently. Foundational element.”

He could feel the energy starting to rise in his body now—the audition beginning to become a living thing in the room. Saturday. Flight Friday. Three-month stint. Little Shop of Horrors. He could already hear the first notes in his head, could already imagine the wrong shoes, the wrong cut, the fluorescent hallway, the clipboard, the nerves.

His knee bounced once under the table before he forced it still.

Rowan would notice. Rowan always noticed.

He exhaled, then gave up and let the grin break through.

“Playlist first,” he agreed.

He reached for his phone with the hand not holding hers, moving carefully, like sudden motion might wake Lyric or spook the fragile thing they’d just built between them. The screen lit his face blue for a second. He squinted at it, still smiling like an idiot, and opened his music app with the focus of a man preparing for battle and/or opening night.

“What are we calling it?” he whispered. “Because my instinct is something subtle and mature, like Mason’s Absolutely Chill New York Audition Playlist Where Nobody Cries at the Gate.”

He glanced up at her.

“Too long?”

Her look answered him, and he huffed a silent laugh, shoulders loosening.

“Fine. Working title.”

He typed anyway. Slowly. Dramatically. Knowing she was watching his thumbs move like he was committing a crime.

Then he paused, phone still in hand, and his expression softened again.

“Thank you,” he said.

The words were quiet. Not tossed in. Not casual.

Thank you for looking.
Thank you for believing.
Thank you for wanting to be there.
Thank you for making wanting feel safe.

He didn’t say all of that. He didn’t need to cram the room full of words until the moment buckled under them.

He just looked at her and let the rest show.

Then, because the emotion in his chest was getting dangerously close to becoming visible in a way Rowan would absolutely clock and probably be gentle about, which would only make it worse, he looked down at the phone again.

“Okay,” he murmured. “We need warmups. Something dramatic. Something calming. Something that makes me feel like I have cheekbones and purpose.”

A beat.

“And absolutely no songs that make me think about you too hard or I’ll show up to the audition emotionally compromised and accidentally propose again.”

He glanced at her from under his lashes, all crooked grin and barely contained wonder.

“Which would be awkward. Since we’re already married.”

His thumb hovered over the first song.

The future didn’t feel distant now.

It felt like a screen glowing between them, a sleeping baby nearby, Rowan’s hand in his, and the first note of something they hadn’t heard yet waiting to be pressed play.

Rowan felt the shift in him before he ever said a word.

It was in the way his fingers tightened and then eased, like he’d caught himself holding on too hard and didn’t want to make it feel like pressure. It was in the quiet that settled around him—not empty, not uncertain, but full. Full of something landing. Full of something rearranging.

She didn’t move her hand away.

If anything, her grip softened into him instead of out of him, her thumb staying where it rested against his pulse, feeling the rhythm there—fast, alive, honest in a way he didn’t always let himself be. It grounded her as much as it did him. Reminded her that this wasn’t theoretical. This wasn’t some distant version of their life they were trying on for size.

This was happening right here. In their living room. With the fire low and the TV flickering shadows against the walls and their daughter breathing softly a few feet away.

Her chest tightened at the thought of Lyric—at the way his eyes flicked there, instinctive, protective, the way his whole body seemed to check in with her without even thinking. Rowan followed the glance without turning her head, just listening for that small, steady breath that had already rewired something in her permanently.

Safe.

Okay.

She let herself exhale.

When he looked back at her, really looked, something in her stomach dipped—not nerves, not fear, but that quiet, familiar awareness of being seen by him in a way that didn’t let her hide behind ease or humor or deflection.

She held his gaze anyway.

Because this mattered.

Because he mattered.

Because she had meant every word she’d said, even if some part of her still felt the tremor of it underneath.

Her lips pressed together for a second when he admitted it—when he owned the part where he’d tried to make the decision for her. Not in a way that pushed him away, but in a way that let the truth sit between them without softening it too quickly.

She felt it land.

Felt the apology in the space between his words, in the way his voice dipped, in the way his thumb traced along her hand like he needed to stay anchored to her while he said it.

And something in her loosened.

Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just… enough.

Her shoulders dropped a fraction, tension she hadn’t realized she was holding easing out through her breath. Her eyes flicked briefly to his mouth when it pulled to the side like that, that almost-smile that always meant he was trying to thread sincerity through something lighter without losing either.

God, she knew him.

Knew the reflex. Knew the instinct to soften the edges before they got too sharp.

But he didn’t hide this time.

That was what caught her.

He stayed there. Stayed open. Stayed in it.

Rowan’s throat tightened unexpectedly when he started listing it—the bottles, the airport, the spit-up, the chaos of it—and she felt a small, almost incredulous huff of breath leave her at the accuracy of it. At the fact that he had seen it too. Not just the dream. Not just the stage and the lights and the possibility.

All of it.

Her gaze dropped to their hands for a second, watching the way his fingers slid more securely between hers, the weight of it settling into something steadier. Warmer.

“You think I didn’t factor in the spit-up outfit?” she murmured, her voice soft but threaded with that dry edge he knew so well. “Please. I already picked which one you’re embarrassing yourself in.”

But the humor didn’t fully take.

Not this time.

Because when he said he wanted her there—really said it, stripped of everything else—it hit somewhere deeper than she’d been braced for.

Her breath caught, just slightly, just enough that she felt it in her chest before she could smooth it out. Her eyes lifted back to his, and for a second she didn’t have anything to say.

Not because there was nothing there.

Because there was too much.

The way he framed it—not as support, not as obligation, but as instinct. As something he needed, not because he couldn’t stand on his own, but because she was part of what standing looked like for him.

It settled into her bones in a way that was almost overwhelming.

Her fingers curled tighter around his without thinking, anchoring herself in the contact.

“You don’t have to earn me being there,” she said quietly.

The words came out softer than she intended, but she didn’t pull them back.

Her thumb moved against his hand again, a small, absent motion that betrayed more than she would’ve said outright.

“I’m not… showing up because you’re doing something impressive.” Her mouth twitched faintly, but her eyes stayed steady. “I’m showing up because it’s you.”

There it was.

Simple. Bare. True.

Her chest rose slowly with her next breath as she let that sit between them, didn’t rush to cover it with something easier. The fire cracked behind him, a small, sharp sound that seemed louder in the quiet, and she became acutely aware of everything at once—the warmth of his knee brushing hers, the faint glow of his phone lighting his face, the soft, rhythmic inhale of their daughter in the bassinet.

Their life.

Right here.

Not something he was leaving.

Something he was carrying.

Her gaze softened when his did—when it flicked toward Lyric again, that helpless, almost disbelieving warmth in his expression that she was still getting used to seeing. It did something to her every time. Something deep and quiet and fiercely protective.

She followed the look this time, letting herself actually turn her head just enough to see their daughter, small and impossibly still, her tiny hand curled near her cheek like she’d decided the world could wait a few hours.

Rowan’s chest tightened again.

Then she looked back at him.

“And her,” she echoed softly.

Her voice held something different now. Something fuller.

Then, because the moment had stretched just enough that she could feel it tipping toward too much—too heavy, too exposed—she let the corner of her mouth lift.

“Yeah,” she added, glancing briefly at their hands again. “Bagels really pulled it all together.”

Her shoulder nudged his lightly, deliberate, grounding, just enough to bring them back into something that felt like them without losing what had just passed between them.

She watched the way his energy shifted after that—the subtle bounce in his leg, the barely-contained anticipation building under his skin—and it made something warm bloom in her chest, something that felt dangerously close to excitement.

Not just for him.

With him.

Her eyes tracked his hand as he reached for his phone, the glow lighting his face, catching in his expression in a way that made him look younger for a second. Or maybe just more open.

She leaned slightly into him without thinking about it, her head angling just enough that she could see the screen, her hair brushing faintly against his shoulder.

“What are we calling it?” he asked.

Rowan’s brow lifted slowly as she looked at him, then at the screen, then back at him again—an entire answer in the look alone.

Her lips pressed together, fighting the smile for exactly half a second before it slipped through anyway.

“Absolutely not,” she whispered.

There was no hesitation in it. No debate.

Her fingers tightened briefly around his hand, like she was physically vetoing the idea.

“Keep typing that and I’m taking the phone.”

Her voice stayed low, careful not to carry, but the threat in it was softened by the warmth underneath.

She watched him type anyway—of course he did—and the sight of it, the quiet normalcy of him being ridiculous in the middle of something that felt this big, made her chest ache in a way she couldn’t quite name.

When he paused—when his expression shifted again, softer, quieter—she felt it before he spoke.

And when he said thank you, something in her stilled.

Completely.

Her breath caught again, sharper this time, and she held his gaze without moving, without filling the space, letting the weight of it land exactly as he meant it.

She didn’t deflect it.

Didn’t brush it off.

Didn’t turn it into a joke.

Her free hand lifted almost without her deciding to move it, fingers coming up to rest briefly against his jaw, her thumb brushing just once along the edge of it—a mirror of what she’d done earlier, but slower this time. More deliberate.

“You don’t have to thank me for that either,” she said quietly.

Her voice was steady, but there was something softer underneath it now, something that didn’t quite hide.

“I’m already in it.”

Her hand lingered for a second longer before she let it fall back to her lap, not pulling away entirely but giving the moment just enough space to breathe.

Then she tilted her head slightly, eyes flicking back to the phone, to the blank beginning of something that suddenly didn’t feel abstract at all.

“Okay,” she murmured, voice shifting again—lighter, but still anchored in everything that had just been said. “Warmups first. And if you put anything on there that makes you spiral, I’m skipping it.”

Her gaze slid sideways to him, a hint of challenge in it now.

“I mean it. No dramatic ‘I was born to suffer for my art’ energy until at least the second round.”

Her shoulder pressed into his again, a quiet, steady contact.

“And for the record,” she added, softer, her eyes flicking up to his face, catching that crooked grin, that barely-contained wonder he hadn’t quite managed to hide, “if you propose again at the audition…”

A beat.

Her mouth curved.

“I’m saying yes again. But I am judging your timing.”

The words hung there, warm and easy and threaded through with something deeper that neither of them had to say out loud.

The future didn’t feel far away to her either.

It felt like this.

His hand in hers. His phone lighting the space between them. Their daughter breathing softly nearby.

And the quiet, certain knowledge that whatever came next—

They were already in it together.

Rowan watched his thumb hover, watched the way he lingered over the blank space like the right first note might decide everything that came after it.

It was endearing.

It was also very him—overthinking the entry point to something he already knew how to do.

Her mouth curved before she could stop it, something softer than amusement settling in her chest as she shifted just a little closer, her shoulder pressing more fully into his arm. The warmth of him was steady, grounding, familiar in a way that made everything else feel quieter by comparison.

“Okay, give me that,” she murmured, low enough not to carry past the small bubble of space they’d built.

She didn’t wait for him to argue.

Her fingers slipped easily from his, only to replace the contact a second later when she reached across and gently—but decisively—plucked the phone from his hand. Not abrupt. Not sharp. Just… certain. Like she already knew he’d let her.

Her thumb brushed briefly against his knuckles in the process, a small, unconscious reassurance that she wasn’t pulling away—just taking over.

For a second, the absence of his hand in hers registered more than she expected. A faint echo. So she compensated without thinking, her knee nudging more firmly against his, her hip angling closer so the contact stayed.

Always balancing.

Always staying connected.

Rowan tilted the phone slightly, the glow lighting her face now, catching in her eyes as her expression shifted—focus settling in, the same quiet competence she slipped into when she had something to do.

“Playlist comes after source material,” she said, almost to herself, though she knew he’d hear it.

Her thumb moved across the screen with easy familiarity, navigating without hesitation. Search. Tap. Scroll.

There was no dramatics to it.

No overthinking.

Just intention.

The faintest crease formed between her brows as she typed, her lips pressing together in concentration, the firelight flickering against the side of her face while the cooler blue from the phone softened the rest. It gave her that split-light look he always stared at too long—half warm, half shadowed, fully hers.

“Little Shop…” she muttered under her breath, finishing the search with a small, decisive tap.

A list populated.

She scanned it quickly, not rushing, but not lingering either—eyes moving with quiet precision until she found the one she wanted. Original cast. Clean. Reliable. No weird covers. No distractions.

“There,” she said softly.

Not triumphantly. Just… found.

Her thumb hovered for a second before she tapped into it, the track list opening up in a neat column of titles that felt suddenly heavier than just songs. Her gaze lingered there a moment longer than necessary, something in her chest tightening—not with doubt, but with the weight of what this actually meant.

This was real.

Saturday.

Flight Friday.

Three months.

Her fingers stilled on the screen for just a breath.

Then she exhaled slowly through her nose, steadying herself the same way she’d steadied him earlier.

And moved forward.

“We start here,” she decided quietly, glancing sideways at him—not fully turning her head, just enough that her eyes caught his, checking in without making it a question.

Her thumb tapped the first track.

The opening notes slipped into the room—soft at first, almost tentative, like the music itself was aware of the hour, of the sleeping baby nearby, of the fact that this moment didn’t need volume to matter.

Rowan adjusted the volume instinctively, lowering it just enough so it sat under everything else instead of over it.

Background.

Foundation.

Her head tilted slightly as she listened, her body already responding in small ways—subtle shifts in posture, a faint rhythm settling somewhere in her shoulders. Not performance. Not yet.

Just… familiarity.

She handed the phone back to him then, but not all the way.

Her fingers lingered on it, brushing his again as she passed it over, her touch deliberate this time. Grounding. A quiet echo of earlier.

“You don’t get to spiral about it like it’s some abstract thing now,” she said softly, her voice warm but edged with intention. “It’s just music.”

Her eyes held his for a second longer, something steady and unwavering in them.

“You know how to do this.”

The words weren’t big.

They didn’t need to be.

Her hand slipped back into his after that, like it had never left, her fingers threading through his with quiet certainty. She leaned into him again, her shoulder settling against his arm, her head tipping just slightly in his direction as the music continued to play low in the background.

For a moment, she let herself just listen.

To the track.

To his breathing.

To the soft, even rhythm of Lyric across the room.

Her thumb moved absently against his hand again, a slow, grounding motion that matched the pace of everything else.

Then, after a beat, her mouth curved faintly.

“Also,” she added under her breath, almost like an afterthought, though it wasn’t, “if you try to skip ahead to the song you think you’ll sound best in before actually warming up…”

A small pause.

Her fingers squeezed his once.

“I’m revoking bagel privileges.”