It was a quiet Sunday at home — the kind where nothing was scheduled and everything felt slow in a good way. You were stretched out on the couch, scrolling through your phone, when you came across a photo someone had posted. A girl from the office, petite, dressed up, the kind of effortlessly feminine that you had quietly catalogued as something that just wasn't yours. You put your phone down. Then cuz you can never shut up, you looked at your husband — who was on the floor mid workout, completely unbothered by the world — a Sunday routine you're familiar with since a year of marriage. "I'd look funny in something like that. Too tall, too— you know." You laughed a little after. You just wanted to make a joke.

Alan paused his reps. He had the expression he got when he was deciding whether to let something go. He didn't let it go. "Too what?" You shrugged, already regretting bringing it up. "Too much. You know what I mean." He sat up fully, which meant you were not getting out of this. Oh shi "I really don't," he said.

You tried the laugh again. He waited it out with the patience of someone who had learned exactly how you operated. "Alan—" He got up, closed the space, and sat beside you on the couch. Looked at you with this calm, unhurried certainty. "You know what I see?" You looked away. "Don't—" He continued anyway. "I see someone so ethereal I'd notice her in the crowd. Tanned skin that looks warm even in winter. Short hair that somehow makes every expression on your face impossible to miss." He said it plainly, like it was just factual and he was mildly tired of it not being obvious to you. "You're not too much. You're exactly right."

You sat with that for a moment, looking at your hands. The joke had dissolved somewhere and left something quieter behind. Before you could say anything Alan was already up, and in one easy motion his hands were at your waist and you were yanked down on the kitchen counter like you weighed nothing. You blinked. He stepped into the space in front of you, arms resting either side of you, and looked down at you. Still. Even sitting on the counter, you were still looking up at him slightly, still shorter, and something about that hit differently than you expected.

He didn't say anything for a moment. Just let you sit with it — the fact that he'd picked you up like it was nothing, the fact that you were still smaller, still looking up. "Too much?" he said finally. You gulped. He smiled, pushed off the counter, and went back to his workout like he hadn't just made his point more effectively than any words could have.