Liora sighed again, fingers unfurling, curling, unfurling. I slid a finger close; she latched like she already owned me. My lungs stalled. Whatever this was, it wasn’t just love. It was orientation. A new arrow, pointing me home.
Physics could explain it: vectors meeting at an angle, two directions adding into a new one, truer than either linealone. Circuits too: current can’t flow without a return path. Rayna closed mine, I closed hers.
“Quentin?”
Her voice pulled me back. Rayna blinked, heavy-lidded but awake, eyes shining with the soft after of the storm. “She good?” she whispered.
“She’s perfect.” My throat went tight. I nodded toward the bassinet. “She makes this little hnn sound when she settles. Like you do, on the couch.”
Rayna laughed under her breath. “Don’t snitch.” She shifted, winced, then settled again. My body moved before my brain—pillows fixed, water offered, her hand in mine.
“You want me to bring her?” I asked.
“Not yet.” She tugged me closer. I sat on the bed, still angled toward the bassinet. She leaned into my shoulder. “Just stay.”
“I’m here.”
We breathed together. I felt her take stock—pain, pride, awe. I waited. I’d learned to.
“You were patient,” she said finally. “When I doubted. When I made you swear you weren’t proposing ‘cause of the baby.”
“I swore,” I said. “I’d swear again.”
Her lips curved. “I didn’t need the swear. I just needed to see you keep saying it when I got scared.”
“Scared isn’t failure,” I told her. “It’s just data.”
She laughed soft and watery. “God, you’re so you.”
“You love it.”
Her smile said she wouldn’t and couldn’t deny it.
She looked toward the bassinet. “I worked so hard ‘cause I was scared if I slowed down, I’d feel it all. Want it all.”
“Wanting isn’t greedy,” I said. “It’s honest.”
She swallowed, eyes glassing.
The silence stretched sweet. Just our girl’s breaths, the clock, our rhythm.
“Know what I keep thinking?” I asked.
“What?”
“That if we were two lines, tip-to-tail, we’d end in her. Liora. The light we couldn’t make alone.”
Her lips tilted. “Only you could make romance out of tip-to-tail.”
“You love my metaphors.”
“I do,” she murmured. “And your tail.”
I flushed, grinning. “Conservation of energy. Nothing we gave got lost. Your pain became her cry. My fear became focus. Your stubborn became strength. It all turned into this.” I nodded at the bassinet. “Her.”
Liora was a lamp burning bright, and our job was to protect her glow.
She pressed her hand to my chest, right over the beat.
