A rush of sharpness passes through my chest. “I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head. “Harry and Adele were… they saved me, I think.”
“Harry’s your grandpa, right? The one from the photo in your office… standing in front of a treehouse?”
Reid’s mouth tilts as he finds a knot that makes my entire leg jump. “Yeah. We built that when I was a kid. It’s still standing, somehow. Covered in ivy now, and rotted in a couple corners, but solid where it counts.”
“Like you.”
His brow arches. “Are you comparing me to a damp, semi-functional treehouse?”
I lift a shoulder. “If the shoe fits.”
He snorts, leaning in to dot a soft kiss to the curve of my ankle. “You’re lucky I’m already in lov—”
My breath catches, and he goes still. We sit there, staring at each other for a beat, but he doesn’t take it back. Doesn’t flinchor try to pretend he didn’t nearly say it. Just watches me with that unreadable expression of his.
I don’t say anything, and after a moment, he nods to himself, as though he’s tucking it away for later, and goes back to massaging my foot. And I think that might undo me even more than if he’d tried to make it mean something right now.
“My mom wasn’t like your grandparents,” I say, pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “She was… cold. High-achieving. Always had expectations, but never grace. I think I tried to meet them out of habit.”
He’s quiet, listening, but I feel the way his palm pauses, then trails up my calf.
“When she remarried, she got soft again… for my sister, not for me.”
“She ever tell you she’s proud of you?”
I shake my head. “Not in a way that ever meant much.”
He studies me for a moment.
“I am,” he says, holding his gaze. “Of how hard you work, of everything you carry. Of how much you give a shit.”
His words are quiet and simple without fanfare, but they land exactly where my mother’s never did. I lick my lips, and his eyes drop to my mouth for a beat.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He nods, and we fall quiet again as he continues his ministrations, but it’s not empty. It’s full of everything that hasn’t been said, and everything that almost was.
The sunlight has crept across the floor, warming the edge of the couch. Outside, the street has woken fully, bustling now with cars passing, dogs barking, the clatter of bins, and early deliveries.
The rainbow is long gone.
But I remember where it was.
Chapter nineteen
Growing my baby the size of a blueberry
Reid
The arena feels colder in Texas, or maybe it’s just me. Dallas Dragons fans know how to show up, and tonight—on their home ice and with the series on the line—they’re baying for blood.
I go about my pregame crease routine, sliding my skate back and forth through the ice. The overhead lights glare off the rink, making it gleam too bright and look too clean. That won’t last long, though, not once we drop the puck.
The first mark I make is just a shallow groove, enough to feel the edge of it when I plant. The lines are faint, almost invisible unless you know what you’re looking for, but I do. It’s my ritual carved into routine, my own little map of certainty.
I move clockwise, left post to right, four notches in total. Same pattern every time and same breath held in the back of my throat until I finish.
