[Sophie’s POV]

The new apartment smells like fresh paint and possibility.

We spend the first three days unpacking in chaos—boxes everywhere, furniture in wrong places, disagreements about where things should go that somehow turn into laughter instead of arguments. Cassian wants everything organized by function. Adrian wants everything accessible. I want to not trip over boxes every time I walk to the bathroom.

Compromise, it turns out, is an ongoing negotiation.

“The bookshelf cannot go there,” Cassian says firmly, pointing at Adrian’s proposed location.

“Why not?”

“Because it blocks the natural flow of the room.”

“What natural flow? It’s a living room, not a river.”

“Spatial organization matters for mental well-being.”

“You’re making that up.”

“I am not making it up. There are studies.”

“There are studies about bookshelf placement?”

“There are studies about environmental design affecting cognitive function. The bookshelf is a component of the environment.”

I sit on the floor surrounded by half-unpacked kitchen supplies, watching them debate furniture placement with the intensity of world leaders negotiating treaties. Three months ago, this would have been a real fight—competition disguised as disagreement, each of them trying to win rather than solve the problem.

Now it’s almost affectionate. They’re learning each other’s rhythms, finding ways to push back without drawing blood.

“What if we put it at an angle?” I suggest. “Corner placement. Accessible but not blocking anything.”

They both turn to look at me, then at the corner in question.

“That could work,” Cassian admits.

“I can live with that,” Adrian agrees.

“Excellent. Now can someone help me figure out where we’re putting sixty-four coffee mugs? Because I don’t think we need sixty-four coffee mugs.”

“Some of those are mine,” Adrian says.

“Why do you own thirty coffee mugs?”

“They accumulate.”

“Mugs don’t accumulate. You buy them.”

“Conference swag. Gifts. Impulse purchases.”

“So you have a mug problem.”

“I have a mug collection.”

Cassian snorts. “You have a problem.”

We end up keeping twenty mugs and boxing the rest for donation. The negotiation takes longer than it should, but by the end, we’ve established an important precedent—compromise is possible. We can merge three separate lives into one shared space without anyone losing themselves entirely.

The nursery is the last room we tackle.

It’s small—barely bigger than a closet, really—but it has a window that faces east, letting in soft morning light. We stand in the doorway, looking at the empty space that will eventually hold a crib and a changing table and all the accumulated evidence of the person we’re creating.

“It’s real,” Adrian says quietly. “Somehow, standing here, it finally feels real.”

“It’s been real for weeks,” Cassian points out.

“Real in theory. This is real in practice. This is a room where a baby will sleep. Our baby.”

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