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Just as I’m about to close the laptop, he pulls the pacifier from his mouth and asks, “Daddy?”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

His fingers roll the pacifier back and forth. “You know the…”

He stops mid-sentence as his ears turn pink, first at the tips, then all the way down to the lobes.

“The what?”

A little crease forms between his brows. He’s chewing the inside of his cheek; I can see the faint movement of it.

“You know…” he mumbles.

“I know a lot of things.”

“The…” He takes a breath. “The diapers…”

I close the laptop slowly, so the latch doesn’t click.

His eyes flick toward it, then back to me. His fingers have found the hem of his shirt and are rolling it between them.

“What about them?” I ask.

His face gets redder, a flush climbing from his collarbones up his neck. He looks at the wall. Then at the floor. Then, reluctantly, at me. “I was just wondering…”

“About?”

“What they feel like,” he whispers.

I keep my expression neutral. “Okay.”

He fidgets. His knee starts bouncing, a small, restless jolt against mine as we sit hip to hip on the couch.

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to try one?”

His fingers still. The shirt hem drops from his grip. “I think so.”

“You think so, or you do?”

He hates that question.

I can tell by the way his nose scrunches, by how his mouth pulls to one side like he’s tasting something sour.

But he also understands why I ask.

“I do.”

“Alright.”

His eyes widen. He leans back an inch, as if checking whether I mean it. “That’s it?”

“What do you want me to say, baby?” I reach over and run my hand down his thigh, slow enough that he could pull away if he wanted. He doesn’t. His knee stops bouncing.