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He turns toward the hallway, adjusting himself in his jeans as he goes.

I stay in the kitchen a moment longer, listening to my two boys search for a toy like it’s lost treasure. Warmth settles in my heart, and I know without a doubt I am exactly where I’m meant to be.

***

Theo is asleep.

I know because Simon checked on him twice, and I checked once, and then Simon checked again after I pointed out that checking on him every four minutes was probably going to be the thing that woke him up.

Now there’s nothing left to do.

No dinner to clean up. No robot to find. No bath to give. No tiny person wedged between us, filling every potentially awkward silence with questions about dinosaurs or demands for snacks.

Just me and Simon.

In his bedroom.

Which seemed like a very exciting idea approximately three hours ago.

Now I’m standing beside him at the bathroom sink brushing my teeth, staring determinedly at my own reflection because looking at Simon feels weird.

He’s right there.

Close enough that our elbows bump while we brush our teeth, and that shouldn’t feel intimate. We did this for years. I used to pee while he showered. He used to walk into the bathroom while I was shaving my legs and start telling me some random story without even noticing I was half naked.

But that was before.

Simon spits into the sink, rinses his toothbrush, and looks at me through the mirror.

I immediately look down.

Get it together Blaire.

“I'm going to bed,” he says.

“Mhm.”

His brows pull together slightly. “You okay?”

I nod around my toothbrush.

He stares at me another second like he doesn’t believe me, but thankfully doesn't push it. “Okay.”

The second he walks out, I shut the bathroom door.

“Oh my God,” I whisper.

This is ridiculous.

I'm a grown woman hiding in a bathroom because I'm scared my boyfriend might see me change.

My boyfriend who has seen me naked approximately a thousand times.

Except he hasn't seen this version of me naked.

The last time Simon regularly saw my body, I was twenty-two.

Before pregnancy stretched my stomach to an impossible size. Before I breastfed Theo and my boobs spent months being less like boobs and more like an on-demand cafeteria. Before my hips changed and never completely changed back.