A dull ache settles into my bones, and we haven’t even left yet, but already I miss.

As I clear the dishes on the final night, balancing several plates along my arm en route to the sink, Robert winks at me, then looks to Debbie. “She’d make a good waitress.”

“Um, thanks,” I say, as I place the dishes in the sink while Trey returns condiments to the fridge. “I’ll take that under advisement as a career path.”

“Actually,” Debbie begins slowly, as she wipes down the table with a cloth, and I grab the remaining glasses, “I thought you could help out from time to time at the café if you want. And then you can let me help you out more than from time to time. We have the duplex, and we can rent it again, or you can come live with us next door, and we can help you with your baby. You can finish school here, and I can help as you take classes, and Trey can get a job. God knows, he already has connections, since he’s been wooing the artists up and down Ocean Beach. And you can raise your baby where all babies should be raised. By the sand and the sun and the beach. And, most of all—by family.”

I freeze. I am a study in stillness, a glass in each hand, immobile, jaw hung open, eyes wide. Call it shock. Call it surprise. Call it wonder.

Maybe it’s all three. I don’t know, but I know this much. There is only one answer.

I unfreeze, set down the glasses, and turn to Trey, who’s standing by the open fridge door. His eyes are lit up, and I know I don’t even have to ask him, but I do anyway. In a whisper bordering on reverence, because this moment feels reverent, I say, “Do you want to move to California?”

He closes the fridge door, walks over to me, and cups my face in his hands. “Do you remember what I said the night I met you?”

I nod. “I would leave New York in a heartbeat. Put me on the next train out of here.”

“Yes. I’d get on a train to Florida. To Virginia. To California. I don’t care. I’d ride it across the country and not look back.”

“I remember that well,” I say, grinning.

“I need to amend it. I’d go anywhere with you and not look back. The answer is yes.”

Then he kisses me in the kitchen, in front of my grandparents, and it’s not a chaste kiss by any stretch of the imagination, but they don’t seem to care because they’re clapping and hooting and hollering.

“When can we move here?” I ask.

“Anytime,” Debbie says.

“I’m done with school. It’s up to you. I’m ready anytime,” Trey says.

“If I can transfer here for the rest of the year, can we come next month?” I ask, and I sound like a little kid pleading for a pony.

Robert reaches for Debbie’s hand. “We would love that.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Trey

Somewhere in the dark corners of my mind, I’m vaguely aware of her kicking off the sheets. Then shifting positions, her bare legs brushing against mine. Her breathing is regular, not the slow peaceful rhythm of someone sleeping.

She’s awake, and something kindles in me too, jolting me up.

“You okay?”

She’s lying on her back, staring at the ceiling with her hands on her stomach. The moon glimmers in the open window, casting shadows across her skin.

She nods, but her lips are pressed tightly together, and something is off. Something’s wrong. I can sense it; I can smell it.

I sit upright. “You’re not okay. What’s going on?”

I survey her quickly, looking for the evidence of something, anything. My eyes are drawn to her hands, splayed across her stomach. Tightly.

A shot of fear hits my heart, and every muscle in my body goes taut, like an electrical line.

“Harley, what’s wrong?” I rasp out.

“The baby’s not moving,” she whispers, and the tremors in her voice sear through me, gripping me.

I lay my hands gently on her stomach, moving them around, feeling the roundness and waiting, waiting, waiting for movement.

None comes, and my entire body goes cold and clammy. No way is this happening. No fucking way.

I lick my lips, and swallow hard. “How long has it been since you felt the baby?”

She shrugs nervously. “A while. I don’t know. Maybe dinnertime?”

“And how often do you usually feel the baby move?”

“I don’t know,” she says, but her shoulders start shaking and she covers her eyes with her hands. “More than this.”

The whole room spins like it’s become a tilt-a-whirl, spiraling out of control. But whatever is happening, I can’t crash with it. I have to be strong for her. I have to take care of her. That’s my job, that’s my mission, that’s my singular focus. And, as the cold loop of memories starts to flicker in my head, I try to swat them away, my brain scrabbling for an answer.

I snap my fingers, landing on an idea. “Didn’t Debbie once tell you to drink a Coke? That a sugary drink would get the baby moving?”

Her eyes widen and shine in the dark. “Yes!”

“Stay here.” I jump out of the bed, race downstairs in my boxer briefs, and yank open the door to the fridge. But the kitchen in this side of the duplex isn’t stocked, and the shelves are empty, so I open the door onto the deck, and quietly slip into Robert and Debbie’s kitchen, praying I’ll find something sugary—and there it is. A gleaming red can. I grab it, and hope it does the trick.

The second I return to our dark bedroom, I crack it open and thrust it at Harley. She’s sitting up, cross-legged on the bed now. She takes a hearty gulp.

“Drink it all,” I tell her, motioning with my hands for her to speed up. I’m racing; my heart is on a freaking speedway.

“I’m drinking it as fast as I can,” she says, in between sips. She downs more of the can, and then sets it on the nightstand. I lean over her, rattle the can. “There’s more left. You need to finish it.”

“Fine,” she says, and then drinks the rest of the can quickly.

When she’s done, her hands return to her stomach, and mine do the same, and now there are four hands keeping watch, and two fearful hearts.

“I’m really fucking scared, Harley,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says.

Then neither one of us speaks for another few minutes. We wait, and I’m aware of everything. The rustle of the curtains. The low hum of the house. The lull of the waves, back and forth on the sand. My own frantic breath. And hers, too.

Please, god, don’t let this be the end. Please, let our baby be safe.

Then I feel it. It’s like a roll against my hands, and she does too. Her eyes light up, and she starts laughing, a long, luxurious laugh full of relief.

I exhale all the breath in the world, and lean my forehead against hers. “God, that freaked me the fuck out,” I say, never taking my hands off her. I’m rewarded with another wave, like the kid is doing somersaults inside her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out,” she says.

“Harley, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“No, I do. I should know better. I got you all worried, and the baby was probably just sleeping. God, I’m an idiot.”

I lift her chin gently with one hand. “Harley, you’ve never been pregnant before. This is all new. It’s okay. You’re not supposed to know all these things yet.”

“I don’t want to scare you, though.”

“I have to learn to deal with it,” I say.

“And you did. You saved the day with a soda. You’re my hero.”

I laugh and kiss her cheek, then her neck, then her belly. And it feels like the baby is kicking me in the nose now. “Now we’ve got him all worked up with sugar,” I say, resting my head in her lap and looking up at her.

“Or her,” she points out.

“You know what I realized when I was racing to the kitchen?”

“What did you realize?”

“That I’m really attached to our kid already,” I tell her, and she smiles so sweetly and so sexily, that I’m a goner.

“Don’t make me fall more in love with you by saying things like that.”