Chapter 6
690 Words
Lena’s POV
Mateo had been crying for twenty-three minutes.
I knew because I’d been timing it on my phone, pretending it didn’t feel like a hundred.
“Do you think he’s hungry again?” I asked, not looking up from where I sat cross-legged on the living room rug, surrounded by burp cloths and baby books that were less helpful than I’d hoped.
Ethan leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, his hair a mess and a faint smudge of something (hopefully baby food) on his jaw. “He just ate.”
“Yeah, well, babies cry for other reasons too,” I snapped, standing up too fast. “He could be overtired. Or gassy. Or overstimulated. Or”
“Or maybe he just needs a minute,” he said calmly. “You don’t have to fix it every single time.”
I turned to face him. “So we just… let him scream?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes they cry. It doesn’t mean we’re failing.”
I hated that he said it so casually. Like any of this was casual. Like I wasn’t constantly on edge, terrified of doing something wrong.
“I’m not trying to be perfect,” I muttered.
“I never said you were,” he said. “But you’re wound so tight, it’s like being in a pressure cooker in here.”
That stung.
I folded my arms and looked away, trying not to snap again. We’d been sniping all day more tension than teamwork and honestly, I was too tired to keep up the fight.
Mateo’s cries started to taper, hiccupping into a low whimper. Ethan glanced toward the nursery like he half-expected a miracle.
And then, as if he’d called it, silence.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered. “He stopped?”
Ethan gave a tiny smile. “Told you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not smug about this.”
“Little bit.”
“You didn’t even do anything.”
“I didn’t freak out,” he said, walking past me to the kitchen and pulling open the fridge. “Sometimes that helps.”
I bit my tongue, because okay he wasn’t wrong. But still. The way he said it made me want to throw a burp cloth at his head.
Instead, I followed him. “Did you figure out the grocery budget?”
He shot me a look over his shoulder. “Did you finish the laundry?”
Touché.
We weren’t exactly the dream team. But we were still trying.
Still here.
Still showing up.
And that had to count for something.
Later, after Mateo was asleep (miraculously), I found Ethan in the backyard, sitting on the step with a baby monitor resting beside him. The night was cooler than expected, the stars bright above the townhouse roofs.
I hesitated, then sat beside him, pulling my knees to my chest.
We didn’t talk for a while.
Just breathed.
“I thought I’d be better at this,” I admitted finally.
Ethan didn’t respond right away. “Me too.”
I glanced over.
He looked tired. But real. Stripped of the usual sarcasm and smartass energy.
“I think about his mom sometimes,” I said. “Mateo’s. How she just… left him. And how maybe she thought it was better for him. Safer.”
Ethan nodded, voice low. “And now he’s here. With us.”
We both stared at the monitor like it held answers.
“I want to be good at this,” I whispered. “Even if I suck right now.”
“You don’t suck,” he said, quietly. “You just care too much.”
I turned to him, surprised.
He looked at me then really looked and something in his gaze made my stomach twist. Not in the old, butterflies way. In the slow, confusing, impossible-to-ignore kind of way.
“You care too,” I said.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “Maybe more than I should.”
And just like that, we looked away at the same time. Like whatever that was, we weren’t ready for it. Not yet.
- Writer
