Then we step into a nursery setup.
And everything shifts.
I slow down without meaning to. My steps falter as I take it in. Soft neutral colors, a chair in the corner, tiny shelves for tiny shoes. And in the center of it all, a white oak crib in the same finish as the bedroom set I picked out.
Something pulls in my chest. Low and heavy, like something’s missing deep inside of me.
Will comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, his chin dropping to my shoulder.
“You think we should get it?” he murmurs, voice low and careful.
My breath stutters. “Why would we?—”
“Sugar,” he cuts in gently, a little smile curving at the edge of his mouth. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding like I pay way too much attention to you.”
I turn just enough to look at him.
He lifts a brow. “You haven’t had a period since we’ve been together. And you’re not on anything. Not that I’m complaining.”
My pulse thrums.
He’s still holding me.
“And,” he adds, his palm sliding up to cup my breast through my shirt, “these are definitely gettin’ bigger.”
I gasp, half mortified, half frozen. “Will?—”
“I’m just sayin’,” he murmurs, lips brushing my ear now, “you’ve been tired. A little snappier than usual. Not that it’s not hot when you boss me around, but I notice.”
I swallow. “That doesn’t mean?—”
“I know.” He softens, turning me gently in his arms. “I’m not trying to freak you out. I just think we might need to stop by a pharmacy on the way home.”
He looks at me like he already knows the answer. Like it won’t change how he holds me.
“You okay?” he asks softly.
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
But I lean into him anyway. Because even if my whole world is tilting… he isn’t.
We don’t talk much as we leave the nursery section. But he keeps holding my hand. And when we walk into the next part of the store—a mess of lamps and throw pillows and woven blankets I’d normally breeze past—he stops in front of a display.
“What about this one for the couch?” he asks, holding up a pillow.
It’s ugly. Like, real ugly. The kind of mustard yellow that looks like it’s been sun-faded since the ‘70s.
I blink. “You can’t be serious.”
He looks at it. Looks at me. “I mean, it’s got character.”
“It has a vendetta.”
He grins. “You wound me.”
I take the pillow gently from his hands and place it back on the shelf. “Let’s try again.”
We wander a little more, and the next one he points to is not awful. Earth tones. Textured. Cozy.
