18. Tyler
TYLER
Ihave a rare Wednesday off, and the first thing I think about is taking Nora and Harper to the pumpkin patch.
Not just Harper. Both of them.
That should probably concern me more than it does.
"You want to go where?" Nora asks, when I suggest it over breakfast, Harper is in her high chair between us, smearing puréed sweet potato everywhere.
"Pumpkin patch. It's Harper's first fall. She should experience it." I'm very deliberately not mentioning that I also want to spend the day with them, that the idea of doing something normal and domestic sounds better than anything else I could think of. "Plus, we need pumpkins for the porch."
"We don't have any pumpkins on the porch."
"Exactly. It's mid-October. We're failing at fall."
Nora laughs. "Okay. Pumpkin patch it is."
An hour later, we're pulling into Riverside Pumpkin Farm, and it's packed. Families everywhere, kids running between hay bales, couples holding hands while they browse the pumpkin selection. It's aggressively wholesome, and I'm weirdly into it.
I grab the stroller from the trunk while Nora gets Harper out of her car seat. Harper's bundled in a little jacket that makes her look like a tiny marshmallow, and I take approximately fifty photos before we even make it to the entrance.
"You're going to fill up your phone," Nora says, but she's smiling.
"I'll buy more storage."
The pumpkin patch is massive. Rows and rows of pumpkins in every size, hay bale pyramids for kids to climb, a corn maze in the distance, and a small stand selling cider and donuts.
I'm pushing Harper's stroller along the dirt paths, and Nora's examining pumpkins like she's searching for the perfect one.
"What about this one?" She holds up a small, perfectly round orange pumpkin.
"Too small. We need bigger ones for the porch."
"How many pumpkins are we getting?"
"At least six. Maybe eight. I haven't decided yet."
She laughs again, setting the small pumpkin in the stroller basket. "Eight pumpkins seem excessive."
"You can never have too many pumpkins. That's just science."
We wander through the rows, and I'm hyperaware of how this looks. Young couple, baby in a stroller, picking out pumpkins on a beautiful October afternoon. We look like every other family here, and the scary part is how much I like it.
"Photo op," Nora announces, pointing at a particularly photogenic section where someone's arranged hay bales and pumpkins into an Instagram-worthy display.
I park the stroller and lift Harper out, settling her in the middle of several small pumpkins. She immediately tries to eat one, which is very on brand for her since the tooth came in.
"Don't eat the pumpkin, baby girl." I'm taking photos from every angle while Nora laughs at Harper's determination to consume a gourd. "These are not food."
"Get in the photo," Nora says. "Both of you together."
I sit next to Harper, and Nora takes a bunch of photos of us. Then I insist she get in too, and we manage a few selfies with all three of us before Harper decides she's done and starts fussing.
"Excuse me." An older woman approaches, holding her own phone. "You three are adorable together. Would you like me to take a family photo?"
Family photo.
I should correct her. Should explain that Nora's the nanny, that we're not actually a family in the way she thinks.
"That would be great," I hear myself say instead.
Nora's giving me a look I can't quite read, but she doesn't correct the woman either. We position ourselves so that I’m sitting on a hay bale with Harper on my lap, and Nora is standing behind us with her hand on my shoulder. Close. Intimate. Like we do this all the time.
The woman takes several photos, cooing about how beautiful our daughter is and how perfect we look together. She hands my phone back with a smile. "You're a lovely family."
"Thank you," Nora says quietly, and the woman walks away before either of us can process what just happened.
I look at the photos. We do look like a family. A real one. Harper's grinning at the camera; I'm looking at Harper with obvious adoration, and Nora's hand on my shoulder looks natural. Right.
Like this is exactly where we all belong.
"Tyler." Nora's voice is soft. "We should probably—"
"Pick out more pumpkins?" I stand up quickly, Harper against my chest. "Yeah. Let's find the big ones."
We spend another hour wandering the patch.
Harper starts getting fussy from all the stimulation: the crowds, the noise, and the new environment.
Nora takes her from me without me even having to ask.
Within two minutes, Harper's calm again, tucked against Nora's shoulder with her little fist curled into Nora's jacket.
I watch them together, Nora humming something soft while she rocks Harper gently, and something in me unspools so fast I have to look away.
She's so good with her. So patient and competent and loving, in a way that makes it impossible not to fall for—
No. Not going there.
Not yet.
We end up at the checkout stand with six pumpkins of varying sizes, and the guy who helps us load them into a cart raises his eyebrows. "Someone's ambitious with the decorating."
"It's our first fall in the house," I say, which is technically true. "I want to do it right."
Nora's examining pumpkins, and I move to help her when she tries to lift one of the larger ones. My hands settle on her waist, steadying her, and she makes this small sound that goes straight through me.
"I've got it," she says, but she doesn't pull away immediately.
We're standing too close. My hands still on her hips, her back pressed against my chest, both of us pretending this is normal while everything between us feels charged and dangerous and inevitable.
"Tyler." My name in her voice is basically a prayer.
"I know." I force myself to step back. "Let's get this stuff home."
The drive back is quiet, Harper asleep in her car seat, the trunk full of pumpkins and cider. Nora's looking out the window, and I wonder if she's thinking about the same thing I am—how easy it was to play family today, how natural it felt, and how much I want it to be real.
At home, we unload everything onto the front porch. Harper's still sleeping, so we leave her in the carrier and start arranging pumpkins. Nora's got opinions about placement and symmetry, and I just go along with whatever she suggests because watching her take this seriously is adorable.
"We need to carve at least two," she announces once we've arranged them. "It's not fall without jack-o'-lanterns."
"I'm terrible at carving pumpkins."
"I'll help you."
We spread newspapers on the porch, grab two medium pumpkins, and get to work. Nora's actually looks good, whereas mine looks like a drunk toddler carved it.
"That's supposed to be a smile?" Nora's trying not to laugh.
“It’s… something.”
"It's definitely something."
Harper wakes up around five, and we bring her outside to see the finished porch. Six pumpkins arranged artfully, two jack-o'-lanterns that showcase our vastly different skill levels, and corn stalks leaning against the door that Nora insisted we needed.
"It's perfect," I say, and I mean it. Not because the decorations are particularly impressive, but because we did it together. Because this is what a home looks like—lived in, decorated, cared for.
That night, after Harper is in bed, Nora and I end up on the couch with mugs of hot cider we bought at the pumpkin patch. We're sitting closer than necessary, her legs tucked under her, with my arm stretched along the back of the couch behind her shoulders.
"Today was fun," she says quietly.
"Yeah. It was."
"Tyler." She turns to look at me, and her hazel eyes are serious. "What are we doing?"
The question hangs between us, heavy with everything we're not saying. About what we almost did in the kitchen, and the way people keep assuming we're together. How easy it is to play house when maybe we're not playing anymore.
"I don't know," I admit. "But I know I don't want to stop."
She's quiet for a long moment, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. "This is complicated."
Her eyes search mine, looking for… something. Reassurance, maybe. Or permission to not feel what she's feeling.
"I work for you. I live in your house. Harper needs stability, not—" She gestures between us. "Whatever this is."
"I know."
"Then what do we do?"
I could say we should maintain boundaries and agree that keeping things professional is the smart choice. I could put distance between us and pretend today didn't feel like the most right thing I've felt in months.
But, instead, I shift closer, my hand finding hers on the couch between us.
"I don't know, Red. But I know that today felt like the best day I've had in a long time.
And I know that every time you're not here, the house feels wrong.
And I know that I'm tired of pretending I don't feel whatever this is. "
Her breath catches. "Tyler."
"You feel it too. Don't tell me you don't."
"Of course I feel it." Her voice is barely above a whisper. "That's the problem. I feel it too much, and I can't—I can't do this again. I can't care about someone and lose them. I can't let myself believe in something good when everything good eventually leaves."
There’s pain in her voice. Old grief surfacing, showing me something she hasn’t before. I don’t know what’s underneath it. I just know I want to put myself between her and whatever it is.
"I'm not leaving," I say firmly. "Neither is Harper. We're not going anywhere, Nora."
"You don't know that." Her voice cracks slightly, and she takes a breath that doesn't quite steady it.
"Nobody knows that. My parents didn't. We got in the car, and only one of us came back.
I don't get to—I can't decide to believe people when they tell me they're staying. I learned not to a long time ago."
The words land in the space between us, and for a moment I don't know what to do with them. She just told me her parents are dead. She’s just told me something she has not, in the time she’s been living in my house, said out loud.
I don’t try to fix it. I don’t try to say the right thing because I don’t know what the right thing is, and I’d rather say nothing than say the wrong thing to her right now.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper instead. “I’m so sorry, Red.”
She doesn’t reply. She just looks at me, and I can see her bracing for me to do what people do—fill the silence with something useless, ask the wrong questions, and make it about how it makes me feel.
I don’t. Instead, I just hold her gaze.
“Look. I know that’s not how it works for you,” I say after a moment. “Not after that. I’m not asking you to believe me. I’m asking you to let me show you.”
“Show me what, Tyler? Because I can’t hear, we’re not going anywhere, and let myself believe it. I’m not built for that anymore.”
“I’m not asking you to believe it yet.” I want her to see that I mean what I’m saying. “I can’t make you believe me. Nobody can. What I can do is keep showing up and choosing this. Every day I’m here. That’s what I’ve got. That’s what I can offer you.”
She closes her eyes. When she opens, there are tears pooling in the corners.
“That’s a lot to ask of you.”
“You’re not asking; I’m just telling you what’s on the table.”
She’s looking at me, and I can see her fighting against what she wants versus what she thinks she should do.
"We should be smart about this," she says finally.
"Probably."
"Should maintain boundaries."
"Definitely."
"We should not sit this close on the couch at ten at night when Harper's asleep, and we're both tired and not thinking clearly."
"That would be the responsible choice."
But neither of us moves.
We sit here, hands linked between us on the couch, close enough that I can count the freckles on her nose, watching each other like we're both waiting for someone to make the choice we're too scared to make.
Eventually, Nora pulls her hand away gently. "Goodnight, Ty."
"Night, Red."
She disappears upstairs, and I'm left on the couch with cider that’s now gone cold and the realization that I could get used to this—to days at pumpkin patches, evenings decorating porches and late nights on the couch talking about complicated feelings.
I could get used to Nora in my house, in my life, in every space that used to feel empty.
And that terrifies me more than anything Reaper could do on the ice.
Because wanting something this badly means you can lose it.
And I'm not sure I'd survive losing this.