Chapter 18 #2
“We can go slow,” he murmurs, so softly I almost miss it.
I nod.
“And we don’t have to have all the answers right now,” he adds. “We’ve got time.”
His other hand finds mine where it’s curled in my lap, and his thumb runs circles across the back of my knuckles. It’s the gentlest thing in the world, but it breaks something open in me all over again.
“I don’t know what we are,” I say quietly. “But I know I don’t want to face this without you.”
“You don’t have to.”
There’s no hesitation from him, and I nibble my bottom lip, letting the silence ebb in again. It feels full, though. Full of unsaid things. Full of a hundred futures we’re not ready to predict yet.
“I want to keep this private,” I say softly after a beat. “At least for a while.”
“Okay.”
“I just… need space to figure out what I want this to look like, and how we tell people.”
“Okay,” he says again, as if it’s so simple, I don’t need to explain.
“And I don’t want to rush into logistics, or… co-parenting structures or expectations. I’m not ready.”
“I didn’t expect you to be.”
I pause, picking at my nail.
“You’re really okay with all that?”
He leans in, pressing a kiss to my temple, my cheekbone, my nose. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
It’s such a Reid answer. Blunt, almost dry, but somehow, it curls warmly in my chest anyway.
“And if I freak out again tomorrow?” I ask, eyes darting back to the window, searching the sky.
“Then I’ll be here tomorrow,” he says. “And the next day, and the one after that.”
He doesn’t frame it like a vow, but it still hits like one. Before I can reply, he shifts, tugging the throw blanket from the back of the couch and tucking it gently around my shoulders, as though keeping me warm is a responsibility he’s already claimed.
“I’ve never been good at letting people help,” I admit, throat tightening.
He nods. “I’ve noticed.”
“I’m not trying to be difficult. I just—”
“I know,” he says. “You’re used to being the one who fixes and controls things.”
“And you’re used to doing everything alone.”
Humming through his nose, he reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Guess we’re a great pair of emotionally repressed geniuses.”
I snort as he tugs me back against him. “Speak for yourself. I’m a functional emotional disaster, thank you.”
He rests his chin against the top of my head. “That’s fair.”
I don’t know how long we sit there silently for, but when I register time again, the sun’s climbed higher, and the light has changed to something warmer and sharper.
I should probably get up, brush my teeth, start my day, and make use of the next twenty-four hours I have off. But I stay, because he’s here, and I don’t want to move.
A little later, I gingerly shift until I’m angled toward him and my legs are tucked up, leaning back on the couch cushion.
“Do you have siblings?”
“Nope. Just me,” he says, reaching for one of my legs and tugging my foot gently into his palms. “Unless you count Chase, which… I do not.”
A soft smile twitches my lips as I watch him gently massage the ball of my foot.
“What about your parents?” I ask. “You’ve never really talked about them.”
His thumb runs a pass over my arch. “My mom and dad died when I was seven. Car accident. I lived with my grandparents after that.”
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 flinch or 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.