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I don’t even think about it before I say, “Yeah.”

The first couple of times I held Jack, I treated him like something expensive and breakable that I’d somehow been trusted with by mistake. I knew where to put my hands because everybody had shown me, but I still checked his head every thirty seconds and worried I was holding him too tight, too loose, too high, too low.

Now Lachlin lifts him from the bassinet and hands him over without a word. I settle Jack against my chest, one hand supporting his back while the other adjusts the blanket bunched under his chin.

He makes another unhappy little noise.

“Hey, man. What’s the problem?”

“Probably gas,” Lachlin says.

I look at him. “You say that about everything.”

“Because it’s usually gas.”

Jack’s face scrunches, and I start walking before he can work himself into something bigger. I’ve figured out that standing still is unacceptable unless he’s already asleep. Moving buys you time.

I make a slow loop through the living room, then another, and somewhere along the way I start humming.

It’s the same one I hummed to him at the hospital, except it isn’t quite the same anymore. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been messing with it on guitar, moving a few notes around and building something beneath it. It’s worked its way into one of the newer Hollow North songs without me realizing that’s what I was doing.

Jack’s fussing gradually eases until he’s quiet against my chest. I let the last few notes trail off, and when I look up, Lachlin is watching me from across the room.

“That new?”

“Sort of.”

“You writing nursery music now?”

“Keep talking, and I’ll buy him drums for his first birthday.”

“That’s not even remotely funny.”

I grin and keep walking.

Jack’s eyes are still open, but they’re heavy now. His fists have relaxed, and the tiny crease between his eyebrows is disappearing. I keep humming because he seems to like it, and because there’s something weirdly satisfying about a melody that’s been fighting me for two weeks finally working on the smallest audience I’ve ever had.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

I ignore it at first. Jack is settled, and I’m not interested in ruining a good thing by trying to juggle him and my phone at the same time. Then it buzzes again.

Lachlin nods toward me. “You can check it. I’m right here if you want to pass him back.”

“I’m capable of holding a baby and reading a text.”

I shift Jack a little higher against my chest and pull my phone out with one hand.

Ruby’s name is on the screen, along with three photos of her early sketches. The first two are rough, full of shapes, notes, and a broken line cutting through darker forms, but the third catches me immediately. The line could be a road, a soundwave, or both, surrounded by shapes that suggest trees and an open strip of light near the top without turning any of it too literal.

It’s rough as hell, but it’s closer to how I envision the album cover than anything we’ve looked at so far.

I zoom in on the third image and forget Lachlin is in the room until he says, “Ruby?”

I glance up. “How do you know?”

“You’ve been staring at your phone with that stupid smile for the last two minutes.”

“I haven’t been smiling.”