Page 310 of Borrow My Calm
I kissed his hair. “We’ll keep building them.”
He looked up at me. “You think we’ll be good at this?”
“No.”
His eyebrows shot up.
I touched his face, thumb brushing the edge of his jaw. “I think we’ll be honest when we’re bad at it. I trust that more.”
His expression softened in that unguarded way that still felt like a gift every time I earned it.
Then he rose onto his toes and kissed me in the fading light, in our backyard, with no locked door between us and the world.
Inside, Tiny barked at nothing.
Jace sighed against my mouth. “Our child is awake.”
“Our child ate three burger buns and a napkin. He’s got energy.”
“We’re terrible parents.”
“We’re learning.”
He laughed, took my hand, and pulled me toward the house.
There would be dishes. Work. Seasons. Hard conversations we had not reached yet. Family holidays. Media questions. Bad brain days. Good games. Bad ones. Mornings where Jace lost his keys while holding them. Nights where I tried to carry too much until he called me on it. A future that would not unfold neatly just because we had fought for it.
I followed him anyway.
Gladly.
Jace glanced back at me from the doorway, bright-eyed and tired and happy, his fingers still locked with mine.
“Come on, Coach,” he said. “Five minutes are up.”
I went with him, into the noise, into the mess, into the life we had chosen in full view at last.
