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“They’re valid points.”

She was quiet for a long time before making a little grumble. “Not what I thought you were gonna say after telling me you love me.”

“I didn’t say I changed my mind.” I let out one huffy chuckle. “I just don’t want to belittle your anxieties. You brought up valid concerns, but I’d rather address them than take them as a sign we won’t work.”

“You try and make everything work for everyone. You overwork yourself, you tackle racists on the field, you volunteer when you can. You deserve someone who doesn’t make you work for it. And I’m …” She sighed. “I’m a lot of work.”

“And I’m not?” I laughed.

“No,” she answered quickly, squeezing my hand without looking over.

I pushed up and over her, leaning down for a kiss. It was the only thing I could do with all the love burning inside me. Love for her, of course, but also love from her. She might not feel it exactly or be ready to admit it, but that one word, quick response was love. Her worry, her fears, they were coming from a place of love and I was bound and determined to appreciate that no matter the timing.

“Niall,” she grumbled, the sound faltering when I kissed her again and she giggled.

“Love is work, cinn. Some days it’s easy work, some days it’s harder. We’ve barely been liminal dating for two weeks and we’ve had a lot going on. It’s okay that we haven’t figured it out yet.”

She chuckled when I used her dating term and wiped away some tears. “But I feel like I’ve been doing all the easy work and you’ve been doing all the hard work. Like, I had to get over you paying for stuff and you had to deal with me pushing you away for months? That’s not fair.”

“Then I’ll be more difficult from here on out. During the summers, when the baby’s old enough to travel, I’ll demand your presence at every game.”

“Why would you even want me at any game? At best, I’m bad luck. At worst, I’m—”

I interrupted her with a peppering of kissed all over her face, frantic pecks to chase away the anxious thoughts.

“You’re not bad luck,” I assured her and she pushed me away, looking up with one raised eyebrow.

“Can you seriously say that I didn’t have anything to do with your loss today?”

A lie was on the tip of my lips. But I knew better than to sugarcoat things with her.

“I can’t. I spent more time not working the last few weeks than I ever have, especially before a championship game, because I wanted to prove I could be there for you. So sure, technically you had something to do with it. But it’s on me. I didn’t manage my time right and I’ll do better next time. That’s all there is to it.”

“It’s not all on you. I should’ve checked in or like … helped you with whatever the equivalent to studying is. I didn’t even think about how to support you for this game and that was shitty of me.”

“I disagree, but that’s something we can work on. I’m not even sure what kind of support I’d need, so we’ll have to test things out. But now we know letting me ignore work and obsess over you isn’t the solution.”

“How can you be so reasonable?” she huffed. “It’s unfair.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it reasonable. I just stubbornly want us to work and as scared as you are, I think you do too.”

We stared at each other for a long moment, letting that truth hang between us. And then, almost like they were agreeing with me, our baby made a little thunk. Teary eyed, I shuffled my weight onto one hand and placed the other on Leah’s stomach.

“Have they been moving a lot?”

“Mmm, every now and then.” She rested her hand on mine and guided it over a few inches to where our baby was shuffling again.

“I think they agree,” she said, voice small. “I just … you have another tournament in weeks and I feel like finding a balance when you’re never stopping is going to—”

“I’m going to take a break.”

“What?” She shot up and I just barely moved out of the way before her head would have smashed into my nose. “Niall, under no circumstances can you stop playing. You’re amazing. I think. I’ll be honest, I still don’t follow the sport well. But the way you support your teammates on the field? You can’t stop that. If this is like a weird ultimatum thing where you’ll give up soccer for me, then I call a Uno reverse. I won’t date you unless you keep playing.”

“Cinn, cinn.” I took her flailing arms and brought them down, wrapping her in a hug. “I just meant a break like not taking on any additional tournaments until after paternity leave. And I’ll take actual paternity leave with you.”

“You’d do that for me? Mr. Workaholic?”

“Of course.” I laughed. “Also Coach sorta ordered me to. He wants to support us, the whole team does. I’ve … never really leaned on that support. Most of the times I thought it was something I didn’t ‘get’ as captain. My job was to give, not take. But the guys have given it to me without asking. And I know that if I need anything else, they’ll be there. For me and you. We’ve got the support to make it through finding our balance.”