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Simon goes to the bedroom door and lifts Theo up into his arms. “C’mere, bud. Uncle Chance is going to knock the door down.” Simon says, heading towards the door.

“Morning.” Simon says cheerfully, letting in my brothers as I round the corner into the living room.

“Don’t ‘morning’ me,” Chance mutters, already scanning the stacks of boxes we need to move today. “You’re late. The truck is running.”

Theo squirms in Simons arms until he’s put down and then pads over and leans into my leg, clingy in a way he usually isn’t after a full night’s sleep. “I’m hungry.”

“Come on baby, I’ll get you cereal.”

The apartment is too small for this many men and this much noise. Chance and Simon fall into the old rhythm of working together they use to have, except now there’s a current under it.

I get Theo onto a chair with a paper bowl and the last of the Cheerios. He mostly just picks at it, looking dazed.

“Hey.” I press the back of my hand to his forehead. “You feel okay? Tummy? Head?”

He shrugs.

My chest goes tight. I glance toward the living room, where Simon is carrying a box labeled HEAVY like it weighs nothing, saying something to Chance about Theo’s dresser.

“Simon?”

He sets the box down and comes over immediately, which does not help the tightness. Sweat already at his temple, shirt tight across his chest. “What’s going on?”

“He’s not being himself.”

Simon feels his forehead too. “He’s not warm.”

“I know, I just—”

“He’s probable just stressed with moving, or hitting a growth spurt. He’ll be okay.” Simon assures me.

I nod because if I talk I’m going to list every single thing that is telling me that my baby boy is not okay.

The way he didn’t fight me on the cereal, just stared at it. The way he hasn’t said a word about dinosaurs or tape or the truck. The way he’s folded in on himself in that chair like the apartment already left him behind. Mother-worry doesn’t care about logic. It never has. It just sits in my throat and tells me I should have noticed sooner, should have cancelled, should have kept him in one place until the world stopped shifting under his feet.

Simon’s hand finds the small of my back, hidden from the living room by the angle of my body. A brief, solid press. I’ve got him. I’ve got you. Then he’s gone again, lifting Theo out of the chair like he weighs nothing.

“Come on, bud. You can be my supervisor. Very important job. You tell Uncle Chance if he scratches the dresser.”

Theo goes without protest, which is worse. He puts his face in Simon’s neck and stays there. Simon carries him into the living room, still talking, low and easy, and Chance takes one look at the two of them and actually lowers his voice.

I stand in the gutted kitchen with a paper bowl of untouched Cheerios and try to remember how to pack a life.

It hits in layers, the way it always does.

We are moving in together after being back together for a week.

A week.

It doesn’t feel like nearly enough time for me to be this accepting of taking Simon back. Especially with everything else going on in my life right now. Midterm prep starts Monday. Essays I haven’t finished writing prompts for. Conferences. The unit I am behind on even teaching because I had to get a sub to deal with my life exploding around me.

I won’t even really get a break after moving in. I have to rush to finish unpacking as soon as we’re there so that the house won’t look like a storage unit for Theo’s birthday party next weekend.

For one tiny second fear settles so deep that I also scream at Carter to drop the box he’s moving because there’s absolutely no way I can do this. What if this is too fast and I’m just too caught up in finally having Simon back to notice? What if I unpacked my whole life into his and it still ends up the way it did the first time?

“Hey, Blaire?”

I blink and find myself looking at Carters concerned face.