You’re half-asleep on the big leather couch when you feel Nash’s rough, warm hand sweep across your hair. You blink your eyes open in the dim light of the living room, the baby monitor crackling softly on the coffee table.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss your forehead. His scruffy beard tickles your skin, and you smile despite the dull ache in your body.

“I wasn’t really sleeping,” you say, voice hoarse from the last feeding.

Your chest is sore, you’re wearing one of his giant T-shirts because nothing else feels comfortable, and your hair’s a wreck, but he’s looking at you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Liar,” he teases, but he sits down next to you carefully, pulling you against him so your head rests on his shoulder. He smells like engine grease and cedar soap, that mix you’ve grown to love.

You close your eyes, just breathing him in. It feels safe here, the two of you in the big, quiet house you never dreamed you’d have at twenty.

Upstairs, Ellie is sleeping again. She’s only a few days old but already she’s got this little pattern. Eats, squirms, whimpers, conks out. Nash swears she’s an angel. You agree, even though you’re exhausted.

“She went down easy?” you ask, just to hear his voice.

He chuckles. “Like she knows I’m terrified of waking her.”

You snort. “She’s a quiet baby, Nash. You’d have to try really hard.”

He shrugs one shoulder, pulling you tighter. “Still. I don’t wanna mess anything up.”

You tilt your face up to kiss the line of his jaw. “You’re a great dad already.”

He goes quiet for a moment, like he’s really letting himself believe it.

“Can’t believe you’re mine,” he says roughly. “You and Ellie. Hell, I can’t believe this is real.”

You nuzzle his neck. You remember being sixteen in your high school hallway, chatting with Xander about homework, the moment Nash showed up to pick his brother up. Taller, older, broad-shouldered, but so casual and friendly. You’d barely spoken three words before you knew.

It was reckless. Maybe people thought you were too young. But he never made you feel that way. He never rushed you, never made you feel small.

Four years later, here you are. Engaged. Baby in the next room. His last name almost yours.

You shift against him with a wince, feeling the soreness in your hips. He immediately notices.

“Hurting?” he asks gently, smoothing a hand over your leg.

“A bit.”

“I’ll run you a bath,” he says. “Or you want pain meds? Or—hell, just tell me. I’ll do it.”

You laugh softly. “You can just sit with me for now.”

He nods like that’s the easiest request in the world.

Outside the window, the Texas sun is setting slow and gold across the fields. The house is quiet except for the hum of the monitor.