A month later

Saturday February 8th 2025

Joe was off today, which was great. Taylor could sleep in because he got up early with Wesley for once. They took a short walk around the block after breakfast and have just been chilling out together. He helped her do some laundry, she hot mopped the kitchen floor while he gave Wesley a bottle. It was definitely a much needed day.

Taylor slowly closed the nursery door, walked into the kitchen and set the monitor on the counter. Joe was making a sandwich for lunch, his back towards her. She waits for him to be done to talk to him.

"Finally down?" Joe asked glancing at the monitor.

"Yeah." She watched him take a bite into the sandwich and then set the plate on the counter beside him.

"Sooo, I got called into my bosses office yesterday…" Taylor says.

"Oh?" Joe isn't sure where this is going and what it means.

"Yeah. They um, they want me to pick up more hours."

"Okay?" He leans back on the counter and crosses his arms, still not sure what this means.

"Like full time, if I can't…they wanna hire someone who can." She adds.

"They wouldn't fire you though."

"No but beings I'm part time I don't have to meet a certain quota so…they'd cut my hours probably even more cause they wouldn't need me…"

"Oh. Well shit."He rubs the back of his neck and thinks.

"They didn't ask you about going full time when you got a raise the other day?" He questioned.

"No. I thought that too, like what the fuck? I don't know what to do. I really like how everything's been working out right now. I don't wanna work full time…" she says.

"I don't want you to either. Let me go sit down and figure some things out, maybe it'll be fine." He said with a shrug.

"How long will that take?" She turned the sink on to start washing some bottles.

"Not long." He continues eating and she lets out a worried sigh.

"Hey, relax. We'll figure it out." He comforts.

"I have a terrible feeling about it, I already changed the office I was at, I don't want to have to do that all again. I'm finally comfortable there. And her daycare…it's so expensive. We can't, we can't have her there anymore then she is." She rambled with uncertainty in her voice.

"Babe, stop, just woah." Joe held his hands out motioning.

"I'm serious! You know I'm right!"

"I will look at some things, alright? Just calm down. Why don't you go take a bath while he's napping." He told her, knowing that's exactly what she needed. She was more then willing.

-

Wesley had woken up less then 10 minutes later, so Joe didn't get very far in running the numbers on their financial situation. He tried to continue with Wesley but he was too fussy. After trying a couple different things nothing worked so, he headed to ask Taylor if it was possible he was still hungry.

When he got in their room he was surprised to see her out already, towel around her as if she'd just finished.

"Oh, you're-" he stopped when he noticed she was standing on the scale they usually had stored under the bed. He's never seen her use it, it was Joes. He liked to check on himself every so often before and after the gym sometimes.

"Baby what are you doin'?" He cocked his head at her.

"Nothing." She lied and jumped off of it as if he didn't already see what she was doing.

"Taylor."

"Why are you even in here, I thought you were looking at money stuff?" She crossed her arms and walked to the other end of the room.

"Wesley's up, I came to see if it's possible that he's hungry still."

"You know if he's hungry that you should just feed him, I'm not strict when it comes to that." She crossed her arms.

"I know, but I wanted to ask."

"Well you don't have to ask."

"Okay, noted. Why are you weighing yourself?" He says glancing back at the scale.

"I'm not." She said not looking at him.

"Oh so is this where we keep that now?" He joked.

"Stop, I just wanted to see how much weight I lost with eating better…"

"And?"

"Huh. I GAINED 5lbs!" She huffed.

"Well so what? It doesn't matter, it's not noticeable if that helps." He tried to tell her.

"It doesn't!" She argued.

"Taylor you just had a baby a couple months ago, It doesn't matter if you weigh 100lbs or 300lbs, I will still always love you." He points to himself.

"I'm just not the same hottie you married."

"Yes you are! Are you kidding?"

"Joe." She cocked her head.

"Baby you're hotter then ever, I love your new body, if you will." He flirts and gets closer, embracing her in a hug.

"You're just saying that."

"No I'm not! And as much as I wish I could stand here and argue about this all day, I gotta go feed Wesley before he explodes." he let go of her and backed out of the room.

Taylor got dressed and when she got out to the living room she was happy to see Joe laying on the couch watching tv with Wesley fast asleep on his chest.

"He drank an ounce and just fell asleep." He told her quietly.

"I wish every Saturday could be like this." She said sighing, so grateful for him being here with them today.

"Me too baby." He smiled and gave her a wink and she sat down on the other couch.

——