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“Nerf battle!” Meadow shrieks, launching a foam dart directly into my chest.

I stare at her, betrayed. “I carried you up the stairs when you were three.”

The next fifteen minutes are complete, unmitigated chaos.

Meadow and I barricade ourselves behind the couch with every unicorn-themed cushion she owns. Noah and Chase, armed to the teeth with toy guns and plastic swords, take cover behind the kitchen island.

“We surrender nothing !” Meadow cries, hurling a glitter-covered ball of paper toward them. It lobs ungraciously onto the front of the couch, exploding in a shimmery dust cloud.

“You’re gonna have to vacuum that,” I choke, blinking through the sparkles and lifting my head to glare at Chase.

“Take it up with your four-year-old general!” he calls back.

A dart hits me in the forehead.

“Oh, you wanna go, Walton?”

I leap over the couch, toy gun raised, but Chase is faster.

“Wanna piece of my Nerf gun, Zo?”

I bark out a laugh at the innuendo just as he grabs me around the waist and hauls me clean off the ground like I weigh nothing. I shriek as he spins me, one arm tight around my ribs, the other blocking my pathetic flailing with a Nerf gun pressed to my hip.

“Zoe!” Meadow bellows. “GET HIM!”

Noah collapses in laughter. “GET HER!”

“Release me, you bas— buffoon! ” I gasp, breathless and still laughing, far too aware of every inch of him pressed against me in a way I definitely, definitely shouldn’t be.

“Never,” he murmurs, too close to my ear.

It’s not even sexual, not really. It’s worse.

It’s domestic .

Eventually, we call a truce. Mostly because Meadow is laughing so hard she almost pees herself, and Noah is clutching his stomach, whining about being hungry.

Chase declares himself injured and slumps dramatically onto the couch while the kids immediately begin chanting waffles, waffles, waffles in horrifying unison.

“They’re monsters,” I tell him.

“They’re visionaries,” he replies, already getting up to walk to the pantry.

We find a half-used mix in the pantry, but there’s no measuring cup. I quickly realize the waffle iron may or may not be haunted, because Chase’s first attempt comes out burnt on the outside, raw in the middle, and somehow tastes like cheese.

“I love it,” Meadow says, holding up her floppy, carbonized triangle. “It’s a crunchy pancake with goo inside.”

“I don’t think they’re supposed to bend ,” I mutter.

“I improvised,” Chase says proudly. “They’re fusion.”

“Of what? Breakfast and botulism?”

“I want ketchup on mine,” Noah adds.

I open my mouth to protest, then close it again.

Waffles with raw middles. Ketchup. Glitter in my bra. A crick in my neck from being body-slammed by an NHL player in front of two giggling children. I haven’t thought about how terrified I am for my best friend—who could be giving birth right this very second—for at least two hours.

And that’s kind of a miracle. This chaos is comforting. These kids, this absurd little bubble, is comforting.

Chase is comforting.

Somehow, impossibly, he’s both my storm and safe place. My favorite kind of laugh and the quiet that follows. And I don’t know what to do with that revelation.

So, I do nothing.

There’s no time, because we have bedtime to survive.

Once we lovingly strong-arm them into their pajamas and sing a maniacal, off-key song about brushing teeth for longer than two seconds, Noah and Meadow are bundled up together for a bedtime story.

“Can Chase read it?” Meadow asks as I tuck her in.

“Why me?”

“Because you’re so funny,” she says sweetly.

He puffs up like a peacock. “Well, in that case…”

I roll my eyes as he launches into a story about a dinosaur in the worst Australian accent I’ve ever heard. The kids are howling with laughter, but I’m not. I’m watching him.

Every emotional defense I’ve ever built is trying—and failing—not to buckle under the weight of him reading about dino dance parties while tucking the covers gently up around two very small humans.

Afterward, Noah’s eyes are wide and sleepy as he turns to me, delivering a question that will truly haunt me for at least a week.

“Are you and Uncle Chase gonna get married?”

I feel my soul leave my body, while Chase goes still beside me.

“What? No! No, we’re not—” I stammer, feeling my cheeks burn.

Chase leans back down to Noah’s level, his grin stretching. “What do you think, buddy? Should I marry her?”

Noah considers this for a second before shaking his head. “You don’t kiss enough.”

“Oh my god .” I bury my face in my hands as Chase loses it beside me.

Meadow bolts upright. “OH MY GOD! If you get married, that means you’ll live together forever, and we’ll get to see you all the time, and maybe you’ll have a baby too—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Chase laughs, holding up both hands. “That escalated quickly.”

“Can I be the flower girl?” Meadow pleads, clasping her hands under her chin like a tiny Disney princess.

We look at each other for a split second, his expression all glee, mine pure panic.

“Of course you can, princess,” he says smoothly.

I make a choking noise and mumble a string of incomprehensible syllables that definitely don’t qualify as language.

Chase winks at me. “Don’t worry. I’ll wear a suit.”

And just like that, my brain short-circuits. Because now I’m picturing him at Eli and Tamara’s wedding—loose tie, smirking mouth, that smug little dimple—and how I let him ruin me in a hotel suite twenty minutes later.

“Okay!” I clap my hands a little too loudly. “Time for sleep. No more questions, existential or otherwise.”

As I tuck them in and kiss their heads, Chase whispers behind me, just loud enough for me to hear.

“For the record, I’d totally let you choose the venue.”

I turn slowly. “You’re going to die in your sleep tonight.”

He just grins. “Worth it.”

***

After all the chaos of foam darts, ketchup waffle crimes, and a four-year-old warlord demanding to be carried to bed like royalty, the house has fallen into a blessed silence.

Which is great, apart from the fact I’m now fully aware that we still haven’t heard back from Jake and Charlie.

Something sharp twists in my gut, but I try to ignore it.

I’m curled up on the couch, one leg tucked beneath me, when Chase comes in from the kitchen. He hands me a glass of wine and plops down beside me with a beer in hand.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I murmur, “but you’re weirdly good at this.”

“At babysitting?” He cracks the cap on his beer. “Please. I play professional hockey. I thrive in chaos.”

“Yeah, well, the chaos thinks you’re its king. Meadow told me she’d marry you if I don’t.”

He grins. “I said I’d consider it if she added dental insurance.”

I snort, sipping the wine. “They clearly adore you.”

I adore you, too.

Fuck.

“Don’t worry. I burned the waffles. Balance restored.”

We lapse into a companionable quiet, the kind that only really settles when the noise has been wrung out of a house. My limbs feel heavy, my brain slow.

Then both our phones buzz at once.

Chase glances down. “Storm group chat.”

I unlock mine and see Jake’s message already lighting up the screen.

Jake: Theo James Brooks. 6lb3. Little guy came out screaming like he was late for pre-season.

Attached is a photo of a tiny, squishy, impossibly real baby. Pink and wrinkled. Beautiful.

“Oh, hell yeah,” Chase says, nudging my knee with his. “Look at that guy. He’s got goalie vibes already.”

I don’t respond because Jake didn’t mention Charlie. No “everyone’s fine.” No update, or reassurance. Just a picture of a perfect, wailing newborn and an awful vacuum of silence where her name should be.

I force a smile and nod, locking my phone and reaching for my wine. “He’s cute,” I say lightly. “Definitely going to be a menace.”

Chase glances at me with a frown. “You okay?”

Before I can answer, another buzz lights up the screen.

Jake: Mama and baby are doing great. Charlie’s a superhero. I’ve cried the entirety of the Atlantic already.

This time, the picture is of Charlie in a hospital bed, hair a mess, face flushed, a newborn tucked against her chest. She looks exhausted and radiant, and my throat tightens at the sight.

Chase exhales a sigh. “There she is. God, that’s a good photo.”

But I can’t look at it, not for more than a second, because the relief hits too fast and hard, a rubber band snapping back and catching me square in the chest. It’s whiplash. One minute, I’m wrangling Noah and Meadow, the next I’m choking back tears over a damn text.

A healthy baby boy. Everyone’s fine. But that irrational fear, the one I haven’t ever really talked about, hits me hard and fast.

I blink once. Then again. Trying to hold back my stupid tears, hoping Chase doesn’t see how close I came to falling apart.

But I feel his hand on my shoulder before I even register it. He’d usually tease me, but right now he’s looking at me with a softness that catches me off guard.

“Zo,” he says quietly. “It’s okay to be worried, you know. No one’s gonna think less of you.”

I don’t like how easily he reads me, or how much I need that reassurance right now.

“I’m fine,” I say, forcing a smile as I shove his hand away. I need to get myself together before I end up full-on crying in front of him.

“Yeah, well, just in case you’re not fine,” Chase says, leaning back, still watching me with that calm, steady gaze. “You’re allowed to lose your shit. I won’t tell anyone.”

There’s something about the way he says it—so sincere and non-judgmental—that almost breaks me. I can feel it, the dam cracking.

Rolling my eyes, I reach for a lifeline. “Gonna go check on the kids,” I mutter, pushing to my feet.

I make it three steps before Chase’s voice catches me.

“Zoe.”

My hand lands on the banister, fingers curling tight as I turn slowly. My breathing feels shallow as my ribs close in around the memory I’ve spent years trying to outrun.

Then he’s in front of me. Not touching or speaking, just standing there, waiting for the dam to break.

I try to smile, but it dies on my lips. And then the tears spill before I can stop them. Quiet and hot and so sudden, I barely register as they carve lines down my cheeks.

“I’m fine,” I whisper.

“You’re not.”

I open my mouth to argue, to deflect with something sharp and sarcastic, but the words get caught in my throat.

“Damn it,” I choke out, my shoulders shaking as the tears come.

Before I can think twice, his arms wrap around me. One hand presses to my back, the other slides up to my neck, and I’m pulled into his chest.

All the fear, the stress, the worry about Charlie, about losing her the way I lost my mom and sister, it all comes pouring out.

“She’s all I have,” I croak against his shirt. “She’s my person. She’s my only—”

“I know.” He tightens his arms around me, jaw pressed to the top of my head.

“And I know that makes me sound pathetic—”

“It doesn’t.”

“Jake didn’t mention her at first.” My voice breaks again. “And I knew she was probably fine—I knew that—but I couldn’t stop thinking, what if she wasn’t?”

He doesn’t speak, just traces steady circles between my shoulder blades, drawing the panic out inch by inch.

“I remember being at the hospital,” I say, the words brittle in my throat. “Sitting in this cold plastic chair with my dad. I had a balloon, one of those shiny foil ones with a duck on it.”

I pause, swallowing against the lump in my throat.

“The nurses kept looking everywhere but at me. My sister didn’t make it. And my mom…” I shake my head. “She was just… gone.”

Chase still doesn’t speak, just holds me tighter, steady as a heartbeat.

“I was six, and I didn’t understand all of it, not really. But I remember thinking, I don’t ever want to feel like this again. ”

He exhales, his breath slow and heavy against my hair, gathering every shattered piece of me into his chest to keep it safe.

“I don’t think that’s irrational,” he says quietly. “I think that’s you trying to survive the worst thing a kid can go through.”

I close my eyes and let his words settle into the hollow ache behind my ribs.

“I hate how scared it made me,” I whisper. “The waiting and the not knowing. Charlie’s strong, I know that. But that fear still crawled under my skin.”

Chase breathes with me, slow and steadily in sync.

“The fear’s always loudest when it’s someone you can’t imagine losing.” He pauses, and I feel it before he says the last part.

“That’s love, Zo.”

I don’t respond, but I don’t let go either. Just let his words wash over me. Eventually, I ease back and swipe at my cheeks with the sleeve of my hoodie. His hoodie.

“Sorry,” I mutter. “I’m a fucking mess.”

“Nah,” he says gently. “You’re strong as hell.”

I huff a weak laugh. “Gross.”

Chase smiles, just a flicker at the corner of his mouth, but he doesn’t push.

“I’m gonna…” I gesture toward the stairs and turn, each step slower than the last.

“Zoe.”

I freeze halfway up, my hand tightening on the banister as I glance back over my shoulder. He’s still standing where I left him, hands at his sides, gaze steady.

“She’s not all you have,” he says. “You’ve got me, too. Always have.”

For once, I don’t try to joke, don’t run from it. I just look at him.

“Thanks, Chase.”

His eyes crinkle when I say his name, and I feel it in my chest.

I offer a watery smile, then I turn and keep going. Because I can. Because tonight, he didn’t let me carry it alone.