Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
“Lucas,” she says, and it’s a request and a reward. “I know my body isn’t like it was when we first had sex.”
I shake my head, hating that her mind is going there. “Mel,” I whisper, looking her straight in the eyes. “I want you to believe me when I say this.”
She nods.
“Back when I first met you I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. When we spent that weekend together I thought I was the luckiest man in the world.” I run a hand over her belly. “But now, you’re so much more beautiful than you were that night, and now I know I’m the luckiest fucker in the world.”
“Lucas,” she whispers. “I’m glad my baby is going to have you as its father.”
I kiss her. Slow, steady. I can feel my chest expanding with something I don’t have a better name for yet—a pressure that isn’t panic, a fullness that makes my hands gentler. It’s new. It’s not complicated, and it’s clear. I want her happy. I want her safe. I want to be the quiet in her nervous system and the heat she asks for when the cold sneaks in.
When the temperature edges too high for good sense and doctor’s orders, I ease us back with a kiss that lands like a promise and a breath that says not tonight, not like that. Her smile tells me she heard it, and her hand on my jaw tells me she agrees.
“Thank you,” she whispers, thumb brushing my cheekbone. “For not… rushing this movie.”
“Best movie I’ve ever seen,” I say, pressing my mouth to her palm. “Five stars. Would rewatch.”
She laughs, soft and sleepy, and tucks herself under my arm like she belongs there—which, I realize with bone-deep certainty, she does. I pull the blanket up, switch my brain to the setting where it listens while I rest, and let my hand settle over her stomach again. The baby rolls once, like a satisfied cat. I swallow hard against the ridiculous urge to tell a tiny person I’ll never miss their Tuesday.
“Go to sleep,” she murmurs, eyes already closed, like she can feel the way I’m wired and loves it anyway.
“Working on it,” I say, pressing a kiss to her hairline.
In the quiet that follows, my mind does one last sweep—wedge in place, chain set, phone charged, threat picture clear—and then, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I let it go. Not all the way. Just enough to dream about a tree in a small living room and a woman who leans into me like I’m steady ground.
I promised myself I’d figure this out.
I will.
One slow yes at a time.
14
Melanie
For three days, life feels like the soft-focus montage in the middle of a romcom. Lucas’s toothbrush next to mine. His socks mysteriously migrating under the couch. The tree timer clicking on at dusk like the apartment remembers we’re a team now. He pours my water before bed without asking. The wedge is still at the door—ugly, effective—and I’ve made peace with it the way you make peace with a smoke alarm: annoying, reassuring, essential.
We move around each other like we’ve been practicing forever. Breakfast is a dance—he scrambles eggs, I burn toast, he pretends not to notice. He knows exactly when to put a hand on my lower back so I can stand up without my spine writing a Yelp review. I know exactly when to slide a muffin across the counter because his eyes went pinched in that way that means he hasn’t had sugar in hours. The baby has decided we are a percussion section and keeps time with our routines.
I let myself live there, in that gentle, ridiculous fantasy, right up until reality taps on the glass.
He’s got his jacket on and the radio clipped to his belt. It’s late morning, and the winter light is clear and thin. He’s due to check in with Duke and Gunner, swap notes on Mercer, change a couple of routes. He’s been pushing off the longer stints, hovering close, inventing errands that begin and end at my building. I know he can’t do that forever.
“I’ll be a few hours,” he says, like he’s telling me about the weather. “Back by dinner.”
“Copy,” I say, because I know that’s his language. It still scrapes on the way out.
He reads my face—of course he does—and cups my cheek, thumb tracing the edge of a worry I thought I had hidden. “Amelia’s coming?”
“In an hour,” I nod. “She promised to bring me grapes and the gossip.”
“Good,” he says, shoulders easing a fraction. “Gingerbread if anything feels off. I’ll keep the phone up.”
My fingers hook in his lapel before I think better of it. “Be careful,” I say, because it’s the only thing that fits through my throat.