There’s no hesitation from him, and I nibble my bottom lip, letting the silence ebb in again. It feels full, though. Full of unsaid things. Full of a hundred futures we’re not ready to predict yet.
“I want to keep this private,” I say softly after a beat. “At least for a while.”
“Okay.”
“I just… need space to figure out what I want this to look like, and how we tell people.”
“Okay,” he says again, as if it’s so simple, I don’t need to explain.
“And I don’t want to rush into logistics, or… co-parenting structures or expectations. I’m not ready.”
“I didn’t expect you to be.”
I pause, picking at my nail.
“You’re really okay with all that?”
He leans in, pressing a kiss to my temple, my cheekbone, my nose. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
It’s such a Reid answer. Blunt, almost dry, but somehow, it curls warmly in my chest anyway.
“And if I freak out again tomorrow?” I ask, eyes darting back to the window, searching the sky.
“Then I’ll be here tomorrow,” he says. “And the next day, and the one after that.”
He doesn’t frame it like a vow, but it still hits like one. Before I can reply, he shifts, tugging the throw blanket from the back of the couch and tucking it gently around my shoulders, as though keeping me warm is a responsibility he’s already claimed.
“I’ve never been good at letting people help,” I admit, throat tightening.
He nods. “I’ve noticed.”
“I’m not trying to be difficult. I just—”
“I know,” he says. “You’re used to being the one who fixes and controls things.”
“And you’re used to doing everything alone.”
Humming through his nose, he reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Guess we’re a great pair of emotionally repressed geniuses.”
I snort as he tugs me back against him. “Speak for yourself. I’m a functional emotional disaster, thank you.”
He rests his chin against the top of my head. “That’s fair.”
I don’t know how long we sit there silently for, but when I register time again, the sun’s climbed higher, and the light has changed to something warmer and sharper.
I should probably get up, brush my teeth, start my day, and make use of the next twenty-four hours I have off. But I stay, because he’s here, and I don’t want to move.
A little later, I gingerly shift until I’m angled toward him and my legs are tucked up, leaning back on the couch cushion.
“Do you have siblings?”
“Nope. Just me,” he says, reaching for one of my legs and tugging my foot gently into his palms. “Unless you count Chase, which… I do not.”
A soft smile twitches my lips as I watch him gently massage the ball of my foot.
“What about your parents?” I ask. “You’ve never really talked about them.”
His thumb runs a pass over my arch. “My mom and dad died when I was seven. Car accident. I lived with my grandparents after that.”
