A job.
A responsibility.
Something I could control.
I didn’t expect her to change everything.
Didn’t expect to find something in her that made me…different.
Better.
I slide my hand a little higher, my palm flattening over her stomach, feeling the slow shift beneath it.
She stills.
“Did you feel that?” she asks, her voice softer now.
“Yeah.”
The word comes out quiet.
Certain.
It always does with her.
She turns her head, looking up at me, and there’s something in her expression that still hits just as hard as it did the first time I saw it.
Trust.
Not blind.
Not easy.
Earned.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“You going to stop?”
“No.”
Her mouth curves, that same almost-smile she’s always had.
“You’re still obsessed with me.”
“Always.”
The word settles between us, steady and unshakable.
She exhales softly, leaning into me just a little more, her shoulder brushing my chest.
“I didn’t expect this,” she says.
“What.”
“This,” she repeats, gesturing slightly with her free hand toward the kids, the woods, the cabin just beyond the trees. “Any of it.”
