"You were terrified."
"I was." He looks at me. "And then you showed up and made everything manageable."
"I helped with the logistics."
"You did so much more than that, Red. You know that, right?"
I do know. But hearing him say it makes the air catch in my throat anyway.
Harper finally gives in to sleep around eight, and we head back downstairs. The couch has become our default spot—close enough to hear the monitor, comfortable enough to actually relax, and private enough that we can be ourselves.
Tyler sits first, and I settle next to him, close enough that our thighs are touching. His arm comes around my shoulders automatically, and I curl into his side, my hand resting on his chest.
"This is nice," he says quietly.
"It is."
We sit in comfortable silence for a while, existing together. His thumb strokes small circles on my shoulder. My fingers trace absent patterns on his shirt. The yearning is there, constant and insistent, but we've gotten better at living with it.
Or maybe we've just gotten better at pretending we're okay with waiting.
"How much longer do we wait?" The question slips out before I can stop it.
Tyler's hand stills on my shoulder. "For what?"
"For all of it. The story's out; people know we're together. Your team knows. But it still feels like we're hedging." I take a breath. "Like I'm letting people treat me as the situation that came with Harper. The girlfriend, in quotes. I want—I want to stop hedging. I want us to be public the way you're public about Harper. Not careful about it. Not waiting for permission."
"This feels pretty real to me."
"You know what I mean."
He's quiet for a moment, and I can feel the tension in hisbody. "How much longer do you need?" he asks softly. "Because that's what this is really about, isn't it? How long do you need to feel safe?"
"I don't know." My voice comes out small. "I'm scared she'll?—"
"Red." He shifts to look at me. "A month ago, you were terrified Jessica would come back and that our relationship would look bad to a judge. And I agreed to wait—to keep some distance in public, to not lean into it—because you needed that security."
"But?"
"But it's been months. No contact, no custody claim, nothing. Any lawyer would tell us her case gets weaker every day." He tucks my hair behind my ear. "So maybe the question isn't how long do we need to wait, legally. Maybe it's how much longer doyouneed to feel safe?"
The words hit me hard because he's right. This isn't really about Jessica anymore. It's about me being terrified to fully claim something I'm scared to lose.
"What if she shows up?" I whisper.
"Then we deal with it. Together. With evidence that Harper's been in a stable, loving home since she got here. With my paternity established. With a judge who'll see she abandoned her baby." He takes my hand. "But Red, if we wait for absolute certainty, we'll be waiting forever. At some point, we have to take the leap."
"I'm scared."
"I know. But I'm not. Because what we have is real. Harper is ours, and Jessica showing up wouldn't change that." He kisses my knuckles. "So, you tell me. How much longer do you need?"
I'm quiet for a long moment, really thinking about it. Not about what's legally safe, but about what I actually need to feel secure.
"I don't know," I admit. "A few more months? Until it's been a year since she left? That feels... significant somehow."
"A year," he repeats, considering it. "That's June. Harper will be turning one."
"Her first birthday." The idea settles over me, feeling right. "We could fully claim it then. Make it this whole... new chapter thing. Harper's first year, our first year as a family."