He catches me staring. “What?”
“Nothing,” I say quietly, sipping my drink again. “Just appreciating the view.”
He huffs, then he nudges his shoulder into mine, and rests a hand over my belly like he can’t help himself.
The baby shifts again, stronger this time, and he smiles before disappearing back into the house, mumbling something about iced tea and the checklist he left on the counter.
He’s been clearing Harry’s house room by room for the past few weeks since the funeral. Quietly and methodically, like he’s preserving and letting go at the same time. I’ve watched the grief shift in him, and it’s not jagged anymore. Still raw, but steadier. Something he’s learning to carry.
And through all of it, through the loss and the noise and the baby kicking my bladder at two a.m., he’s been anchored.
The Storm are on a win streak, and Reid’s stats are through the roof. More saves than anyone else in the league this month, and two shutouts in the last five games.
He’s beautiful like this. Focused and grounded. Absolutely feral about looking after the people he loves.
I’ve never known someone who gives so much without making it feel like I owe him something back. Never known someone so quietly devoted to the daily, unglamorous act of care.
The door creaks again, and I hear him muttering to himself as he sets something down inside the shed.
“Hey,” I call out, angling toward the sun. “You almost done in there?”
“Almost.” There’s a pause. “Harry had six hammers.”
I smile. “Obviously.”
“Three of them were the same.”
“Backup hammers. In case the first two failed.”
Another pause.“Why does that sound like something he’d say?”
Because it is, and we both know it.
A few minutes pass before he emerges again, shirt now completely gone, skin streaked with dirt, and a small scrape on one bicep. He looks like the cover of a firefighter calendar, except the calendar would be entirely made up of images of him loading dishwashers and carrying babies in the crease of his forearm.
He drops beside me again on the step, breathes out hard, eyes scanning the garden.
“Getting there,” he says. “Couple more things to sort.”
I rest my hand on his thigh. “You know, this place doesn’t have to be the end of something.”
He keeps his gaze fixed on the treehouse, where a new spray of ivy is creeping up the far slat.
“I keep thinking about Levi,” I say softly. “About how many families out there are still trying to get access to trials, or specialists, or second opinions. How lucky he was, and how much harder it could’ve been.”
His jaw flexes, but I press gently. “What if you used the sale of Harry’s place as seed money? Start something that actually made it easier for those kids… Something that lasted.”
He’s still quiet, but his thumb grazes my knee, and I take that as permission to keep going.
“You’ve got the platform. The pull. You could get every team in the league involved. Players, foundations, media. Mascots. Hell, Zoe would have the whole thing trending in an hour.”
He huffs a laugh through his nose, then falls quiet again. I let the silence stretch and let him have the time to feel it. To visualize it.
“You have a name for this idea?”
I smile. “Harry’s House.”
He stills, then leans over and presses a kiss to my temple, then another one to my belly, murmuring against the cotton of the hoodie. “Your mom is full of good ideas.”
