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I smile up at him. “That’s why you hired me.”

Now, please don’t fire me for gawking at you.

“You’re the manual?”

“Sure am.”

He wipes the threatening smirk away from his lips with his thumb. “Thanks for showing up early. I was about five seconds away from hosing her in the yard.”

I wrap Rosie in a towel as she squeals with joy. “She’d probably have loved that.”

He hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “I did my best with her room. I opened the window, but it probably needs to be fumigated.” He leans over and presses a kiss to Rosie’s wet head. “I'd better get going. I’m already late.”

“And you don’t want to be late.” I purse my lips, but the words tumble out. I can’t help it. “That would be shitty.”

He groans. “Too soon.”

Before he returns to his room to hopefully put on a T-shirt, he gives a final look over his shoulder. “Thanks again, Lena.”

My cheeks heat, but I brush it off and force my lips upward. “Yeah, well. Don’t fall in love with me yet, Turner.”

His mouth twitches. “No promises.”

Ah, would you look at that. He makes jokes.

Nine

Two months.

I have officially survived two entire months under Wes Turner’s skeptical, eyebrow-arching supervision and his tiny, adorable, permanently sticky sidekick. It feels simultaneously like it’s been two weeks and two decades, and weirdly, I’m not mad about it.

Life’s found a rhythm. Every morning, Wes hands Rosie over with an expression suggesting he’s debating whether or not to call in sick and stay home. Every evening, Rosie leaps out of my arms to scramble to him.

It works.

She’s growing too. She conquered the couch last week. It was her personal Everest. She finally figured out how to drink from a sippy cup without bathing in apple juice. And the other day, on a walk, she pointed at a scruffy little dog, and I swear she tried to announce “Pup!” in a squeaky voice that nearly made my ovaries explode.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t the whole word, but shemade a “Puh” sound.

Wes missed it. He played it off like it was nothing, but I saw the way his face fell, just a little. So, I recorded Rosie doing it again just to send it to him. His entire response?

Thanks.

Then there’s Ruby—my beloved death trap on wheels. Wes still openly declares it a moving health hazard, but a couple of weeks ago, he appeared at my door lugging a separate car seat.

“So you don’t have to keep moving it between cars,” he muttered, avoiding eye contact.

Translation:“I begrudgingly accept you’ll continue driving this tin can, so let’s at least make it slightly less deadly for Rosie.”

Progress. We call that progress.

Honestly, I love this weird little routine.

I love arriving every morning to Rosie’s adorable, sleepy mop of curls. I love ending my day with Wes rolling his eyes in resignation at me. I love how Rosie claps and squeals when I walk in. And I particularly love that Wes no longer texts me fifteen times a day for detailed status updates. Now it’s just one quick afternoon check-in, usually along the lines of“Alive?”Which, from Wes, is basically a love letter.

So today, I’m mixing things up.

This morning, I stroll into Wes’s kitchen armed with my acoustic guitar slung over one shoulder. Rosie’s already face-deep in mashed bananas because that child never stops eating. Wes, meanwhile, eyes me over his coffee mug.