"You're late," she says.
"Banks was giving me life advice."
"God help us all." She steps back to let me in. "How's Noble?"
"Wise beyond his years. He made some excellent points about overthinking." I hang up my jacket, catching her scent as I brush past her and I greedily suck it down into my lungs.
"Are you going to share these excellent points?" She follows me to the kitchen.
"Later maybe." I drop the shopping bag I grabbed on the way home onto the counter. "I grabbed us dinner."
She peers into the bag. "The Thai place on Morrison?"
"Your favorite."
"My favorite tonight. Next week, it'll be that Hawaiian place on Hawthorne. I can already feel it."
"And I'll go there too," I say, pulling containers from the bag. "Because your weird pregnancy cravings are somehow cute instead of annoying."
“Yeah, right.”
"They are." I set down the pad Thai and meet her gaze. "And you look beautiful, by the way. Just like this, barefoot in my flannel, stealing my food."
"It’s just some mango sticky rice. I think you’ll survive without it," she says, but she's fighting a smile now.
"Whatever. That’s why I got extra, because you’re always taking my food,” I say, pulling another container of rice out of the bag.
I pretend she didn’t just say something that fucks me up a little bit more over her. “Just like you've taken my hoodies, my side of the bed, and most of my sanity."
Her eyes narrow. "You're being weird."
"Am I?"
"You've been weird for weeks. Jumpy. You stare at me when you think I'm not looking. And you've been really helpful lately. Like, suspiciously helpful." She props her hands on her hips, which makes the flannel pull tight against her tits, which have gotten so much bigger these past few months. My mouth waters and not for dinner. "What's going on?"
Before I can answer, she gasps and grabs my arm. "He's kicking."
I drop everything and put my hands on her belly, feeling the movements beneath my palms. "Holy shit.”
"Yeah." Her voice softens. "He gets really active around dinner time. Like clockwork."
We stand there for endless seconds, my hands on her stomach, feeling our son move. The weight of it nearly knocks me on my ass. I take a second to commit every bit of this right here to memory. I never want to forget this feeling.
"We need to talk about names," I say, because suddenly I can't think about anything else.
"Not this again." She groans, but she's leaning into me now.
"We can't keep calling him 'him' forever."
"Why not? It's working so far." She captures my hands, pressing them firmer against her belly. "Feel that? That's his version of disagreeing with you."
"Smart kid." I rest my chin on her shoulder. "What about James?"
"For the baby who's going to be James James?"
"James Kasen James has a nice ring to it. We can call him JJ."
She turns in my arms to face me and glares at me. "Not a chance in hell. And Iwilldie on this hill."
