Chapter Text
The girls are asleep in the uneven, hard-won way children fall asleep after a long weekday—Grace flat on her back with a book tented over her chest, Lily diagonally across her comforter like she lost a battle mid-dream, Riley sideways at the foot of her toddler bed with one sock missing and her pajama shirt twisted up under her chin. The house has that exhale in it, the one that settles in after baths and negotiations and three separate requests for water. The dishwasher hums. The dryer bumps softly in the hallway closet. Lexi checks the stove knobs without thinking, presses Riley’s door open just enough to see her breathing, then steps out onto the porch where the light over the door throws a soft yellow circle over the steps and the rest of the yard dissolves into dark.
Fez is already there, leaning back against the railing in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, a Black & Mild lit between his fingers. He doesn’t look startled when she opens the door; he always knows when she’s coming. He shifts slightly so the smoke drifts away from her automatically, like it’s muscle memory. “They down?” he asks, voice low so it doesn’t carry back inside.
“Eventually,” she says, pulling her cardigan tighter around herself even though it isn’t that cold. “Riley tried to negotiate for cereal at nine-thirty. Grace pretended she wasn’t tired until she fell asleep mid-sentence. Lily asked me if we could live on a cruise ship.”
He huffs a small laugh, looking out into the yard. “That tracks.”
They stand there for a minute without filling it. The porch boards creak when he shifts his weight. Somewhere down the block a car door slams. The smoke curls up and thins into the dark. Lexi watches the end of it glow when he inhales, then fade. He’s careful with it—never inside, never in the car, never when the girls are awake enough to hover. He’ll wash his hands before he touches anything soft again. She used to catalog it, the ritual of it, wondering if it meant something was wrong. Now she understands it the way she understands her own pacing when she’s thinking. Not everything is a crisis. Some things are just habits you’re still working on.
“You tired?” he asks.
“A normal amount,” she says. “Not a bad amount.”
He nods like that makes sense to him, and it does. Normal tired is different. It doesn’t come with panic attached.
She leans her shoulder against his arm. He angles the cigarette farther away without breaking conversation. “Lily asked me today if we’ve ever been on a boat,” Lexi says, like it’s incidental. “Like a big one.”
“Yeah?” He glances down at her. “You tell her about the ferry that one time?”
“She meant a real one. With balconies. And shows. And characters walking around.” She hesitates just a second, enough that he catches it. “I told her I didn’t know.”
He studies her face for a beat, not suspicious, just curious. “You thinking about something?”
“Maybe.” She watches a moth circle the porch light. “I saw an ad earlier. A Disney Cruise. It looked…manageable. Structured. You unpack once. They feed you. There are activities contained to one place.” She pauses. “We could do a few days at Walt Disney World after. Or before. The girls would lose their minds.”
He doesn’t react immediately, which she appreciates. He flicks ash over the railing and looks out at the yard like the grass might have an opinion. “You wanna go?” he asks finally.
“I don’t know,” she says honestly. “I want them to have things. Not in a spoiled way. Just—memories that aren’t complicated. I keep thinking about Grace getting older. About how fast Lily is already…bigger. Riley won’t always fit on your hip.”
He looks down at his empty arm like he can picture it. “She barely fits now,” he says quietly.
“That’s not the point.”
“I know.” He takes another slow inhale, thinking. “You worried about money?”
“A little.”
“We can look at it,” he says. “Doesn’t mean we gotta book it tonight.”
She nods. This is how they do things. No dramatic gestures. No “we deserve this” speeches. Just logistics and feelings folded together.
“You’d be okay on a boat?” she asks. “With that many people?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Long as I can step away if I need to. Long as I’m not disappearing on you.” There’s no heaviness in it, just fact. He won’t vanish. Not anymore.
“You wouldn’t,” she says, and it isn’t reassurance. It’s certainty.
He glances at her again, softer now. “You wanna see the castle too, huh.”
She exhales a laugh through her nose. “I’m not immune to architecture.”
“Sure, Lex.”
“I’m serious. The design is intentional. It’s theatrical. It’s—”
“Baby.” He bumps his shoulder lightly against hers. “You can just say you wanna go.”
She looks at the yard instead of him. “I want to go,” she says.
He nods once, like that settles it into something real. “Okay.”
“Okay?” she repeats.
“Yeah. We’ll look at dates. Figure it out. Make it work.” He drops the finished cigarillo into the metal tin he keeps by the railing and snaps it closed. “Grace’ll make a spreadsheet.”
“She will,” Lexi says, smiling faintly. “Lily will plan outfits.”
“Riley gonna try to eat sand.”
“There’s no sand on a cruise ship.”
“She’ll find some.”
She laughs, and it feels easy, not forced. He pushes off the railing and opens the porch door for her, catching it before it squeaks too loudly. Inside, the house is warm and dim. He heads straight to the kitchen sink, washing his hands without being asked, scrubbing like he always does, then drying them on the towel by the stove. Lexi watches him for a second—the steadiness of it, the ordinary choreography of their life—and feels something settle in her chest that isn’t fragile.
“We don’t have to tell them yet,” she says. “We can sit with it.”
He nods, turning off the light over the sink. “Yeah. Let it be ours for a minute.”
From down the hall, Riley makes a small restless sound and then goes quiet again. Fez looks toward it automatically. Lexi slips her hand into his, and he squeezes back once, firm and absentminded. The trip isn’t booked. Nothing has been packed. It’s just an idea resting between them, warm and manageable, like everything else they’ve built by talking about it softly first.