Morning came in through the blinds leaving a shadow of stripes, lying across the bed.
Jeremy woke up first, like always, to the sound of the baby monitors soft static from his son moving around in the crib.
He laid there for a few second, Tee still head lying on his shoulder, her braids spread out across the pillow.
Six years. Ms. Odette's voice was still in his head from the night before.
Real nice. He turned it over.
Tee stirred, cracked one eye open, and immediately narrowed it at him.
"Why you smell like a whole ashtray."
"Good morning to you too."
"I'm serious, Jeremy, you know Mason's got that cough"
"I showered before I laid down, I ain't stupid."
He kissed her forehead before she could say anything else.
"You fell asleep on me last night. Middle of a whole story about your job."
She groaned and pressed her face into the pillow.
"Did I really."
"Snored a little too."
"I do not snore."
"You do, and it's cute, and I will die on that hill."
He got up before she could throw something at him, stretching until he felt his back muscles loosen up and headed down the hall to get Mason before his fussing turned into screaming.
His son was standing up in the crib already, gripping the rail, chewing on his fingers from teething and started grinning the second he saw Jeremy's face that drool-heavy, no-reason-at-all baby grin that had a way of changing Jeremy's whole nervous system every single morning.
"Aye, lil man." He scooped him up, "You let Mama sleep last night. Preciate that."
By the time he got back to the kitchen, Tee was up, hair wrapped, standing at the counter in his old T-shirt pouring milk on her cereal.
She held her arms out for Mason without even looking up, and Jeremy handed him over.
"Ms. Odette said something to me last night," he said, leaning against the counter.
"When you was out there stinking up the porch?"
"Carport."
"Whatever it's called." She glanced up.
"What she say?"
"She said it's rare in this day and time that people stay together this long. Six years."
"Got me thinking."
Tee raised an eyebrow, switching jostling Mason from one hip to the other hip.
"Thinking about what, exactly?
'Cause if this is your way of working up to something, Jeremy, just say it. I got court at eleven for my nursing thing and I ain't got time for you to dance around a whole conversation."
He almost laughed that was Tee, straight to it.
He reached over, took Mason back so she could eat standing still for once, and looked at her over the top of their son's head.
"Just thinking I'm lucky," he said. "That's all. Wasn't building up to nothing. Wanted you to know it, though."
She stopped mid-bite, looked at him a second.
"Yeah, well." She came around the counter, kissed Mason's head, then kissed Jeremy quick on the mouth.
"You're alright too, I guess."
"High praise."
"Don't push it."
Outside, somebody's car alarm chirping off, Ms. Odette's screen door creaking as she came out for her morning coffee.
Just another Tuesday.
But Jeremy stood there in his kitchen with his son on his hip and his girl stealing bites of his cereal instead of hers, and thought that if this was ordinary, he would take ordinary every single day he had left.