He looks at me for a long second, then reaches up and touches my face. “You’re here, that’s good enough for me,” he says quietly.
“So you’re okay with me turning you down right now?”
“Of course,” he says
I laugh weakly. “You are not supposed to be reasonable right now. It’s very unsettling.”
That does get a small smile out of him. Brief, but real.
I step into him then, because I can’t stand the distance after all that, and press my forehead to his chest. “I’m not turning you down because I don’t want you,” I murmur.
His hand comes to the back of my head immediately. “I know.”
“I’m turning you down because I do.”
He’s quiet for a second. Then I hear it. A soft exhale. Almost a laugh. “That is deeply inconvenient.”
I smile against his shirt. “For once, yes.”
He tilts my face up and kisses me. Not like the hallway. Not like the bed. Just slow and tired and full of things that no longer need to be forced into the wrong shape.
When he pulls back, he says, “I’ll ask again.”
I believe him completely. “I know,” I say.
And strangely, instead of terrifying me, that feels like relief.
Behind us, in the bassinet, our son makes a tiny cranky sound like he already disapproves of how much time we’re spending on each other instead of him.
We both look over at once.
Aleksei lets out a low breath through his nose. “He’s loud.”
“He’s your son.”
That earns me a look.
Then, finally, he takes my hand and says, “Come on. Let’s survive the first night home before we make any more life decisions.”
That, for once, sounds exactly right.
There are things no one really explains about having a baby.
Not the practical things. People love explaining those. They’ll tell you about feeding schedules and burping and sleep regression and diaper brands like they’re briefing you before war.
They do not explain how intimate exhaustion becomes.
How love starts looking like very boring things.
Aleksei warming bottles at three in the morning with his hair sticking up and his shirt buttoned wrong.
Me half-asleep on the nursery floor because I sat down “for one second” after a feeding and never made it back to bed.
The two of us learning our son’s different cries the way other people learn languages.
His hungry cry. His angry cry. His dramatic fake cry, which he already uses when he feels neglected for more than ten seconds.
He’s a very good father. That still catches me off guard sometimes.
