“Slow is the only gear I got left.”
We take the long way to the parking lot under the oaks, the gravel complaining under my sandals. A little girl in a sundress points at my belly and whispers to her mother. The mother smiles at me with that soft, conspiratorial look women give each other when we’re doing something hard and obvious and ordinary.
At the car, he opens the door—old habits die handsome—and says, “Hey, Cheyenne.”
“Hey, Sean,” she says, not moving from her seat as Sean helps me into mine. For a flash of a moment, I realize what that means, that my best friend trusts him enough to stay right where she is and let him handle it. Theitbeing me, but that’s how being pregnant with triplets feels sometimes.
He leans on the frame, eyes on mine. “For the record, I’m proud of you.”
My skin feels itchy, knowing Cheyenne can hear him being so sincere. I laugh out, “Proud of me for what? People do this all the time.”
He leans forward, and I think he might kiss me, but he buckles my seat belt. “I don’t care about them,” he says, closing the door before I can respond.
25
DECLAN
The numbers don’t lie.
I’ve been in medicine long enough to know you can argue with patients, families, even colleagues, but you don’t argue with numbers. Blood pressure creeping upward. Mild edema at the ankles and wrists—pitting, not just heat. A protein level on the last dipstick that makes my gut tighten. Preeclampsia doesn’t announce itself with a crash. It sneaks. It circles.
And it’s circling her.
I let myself into Willow’s house after work, the way I have been lately. She doesn’t jump anymore when she hears my key in the lock. Tonight, she’s stretched out on the couch, one arm draped over her forehead, bare feet propped on a pillow. The blinds are tilted, letting in slices of Charleston’s late sun that stripe across her swollen belly. She looks uncomfortable in every direction, like even stillness is work.
“You’re late,” she murmurs without opening her eyes.
“Rounds,” I answer, tossing my jacket over a chair. “How was the cuff reading?”
She groans. “One forty over ninety. Then one thirty-eight over eighty-eight. I sat still, I promise.”
I press my lips together. Those are not numbers I like. Those are numbers that hum at the back of my skull like a monitor alarm. “That’s creeping higher.”
“I know.” Her voice is small, irritated. “You’ve said that.”
I cross to her and set my bag down. “Because it matters.” I take her wrist gently, feel the faint puff of edema under my fingers. She tenses like she expects me to scold her.
“I’m not sugarcoating this, Willow.” I crouch so my face is level with hers. “The risk is real. Headaches, vision changes, seizures, placental abruption. I need you resting more. No work, no long walks, no late nights at the market. Strict monitoring.”
Her eyes flick open, green and sharp. “So I’m supposed to lie here like an invalid? Wait for my body to betray me?”
“Yes,” I say bluntly. “If that’s what it takes to keep you and those babies safe.”
The silence between us sharpens. She sits up on her elbows, glaring. “You can’t control everything.”
“No,” I admit. “But I can damn well try.”
She shakes her head, frustration coloring her cheeks. “Do you hear yourself? You sound like…like some kind of guard dog.”
“Good,” I snap before I can stop myself. “Because that’s exactly what I am when it comes to you.”
Her lips part, startled by my edge. I take a breath, try to slow the thundering of my chest. Every heartbeat feels like I’m back in the ER bay, adrenaline high, trying to save something already half-gone. As someone who boxes, I’ve been dealt punches to the face that raised my pulse less than this conversation.
Her voice drops. “You really think you can keep something from happening to me just by calculating all the numbers?”
I steady my gaze on hers. “Yes.” It isn’t arrogance, though it could be read that way. It’s conviction, carved into me since I was sixteen and lost people I couldn’t protect.
“And what about luck?”
