I know what the right answer is. I know I should stay on myend of the couch, maintain the distance, and be the sensible professional person I've been trying very hard to be.
I shift closer.
His arm lifts and comes around my shoulders, drawing me in gently, and I tuck against his side with Harper still between us. He's warm and solid, and his arm settles as it belongs there, like this is where it was always going to end up, and I'm too tired to fight the way it feels.
This crosses a line. I know it does.
I don't move.
We sit here in the dim living room, the lamp in the corner casting soft light, not talking. Harper's breathing slows. Tyler's thumb starts moving in small unconscious circles on my shoulder, back and forth, barely a touch, and every time it moves, I have to think deliberately about breathing normally.
I should say something, create distance. I should be the person I've been trying to be for four weeks.
His arm is warm. The house is quiet. Harper is almost asleep.
My breath catches. Just slightly. Just audibly enough.
Tyler's thumb goes still.
The moment stretches. Both of us are aware of it, yet neither of us moves.
I pull away, getting to my feet with Harper. "I should put her down."
"Yeah." Tyler's voice is slightly off. "Yeah, okay."
I carry Harper to the stairs without looking back. Behind me, I hear him exhale once, slow and deliberate.
"Night, Red," he says softly.
Red. Not Nora. I should correct him. I keep not doing it. I don’t do it this time either.
"Goodnight," I say, and go upstairs.
Harper goes down without a fight, which I’m incredibly thankful for. When I get into my room, I close my door and lean against it.
My shoulder is still warm where his arm was. Not the ambient warmth of the house, but the warmth of contact, of weight, of another person choosing to put themselves there and stay.
I press my fingers against the spot.
Four weeks. Four weeks of living in this house, feeding this baby, sitting across from him, and telling myself it is working, that I am maintaining the distance, that I have it under control.
And then one night, half asleep on the couch with a baby between us, his arm goes around me like it was always going to end up there.
I change into fresh pajamas. Wash my face. Go through the motions of a bedtime routine as though this were a normal night, as though I didn't just sit there and let him hold me and not want it to stop.
I didn't want it to stop.
I get into bed. Pull the covers up. Stare at the ceiling.
Across the hall, I can hear him pacing. Back and forth, soft footsteps on the carpet. He's not sleeping either.
We're both awake in the dark, on either side of a wall, thinking about the same couch.
I touch my shoulder one more time.
He's my employer. I'm his employee. That's the boundary. That's what the wall is for.
But his arm was around me, his thumb making circles; my breath caught, he noticed, and now I'm lying here unable to sleep because the warmth of it won't go away.