“Yeah.” The grin wins. “That’s our baby.”
The laugh that escapes me is nothing I’ve ever let anyone hear. It’s rough and helpless and full of something I didn’t know I could hold. She lets me stumble through it, tears sliding down her own cheeks now. She yelps and then laughs against my throat while I spin her once like a lunatic because if I don’t move I might explode.
“You’re…” I swallow, press my forehead to hers, breathe her and fire and the new gravity of that photo. “You’re pregnant.”
“Six weeks,” she says, palms cupping my jaw. “I was going to tell you at dinner, but I couldn’t keep it inside. Like, physically. My body refused to cooperate with plans.”
“Good. Screw plans.” I kiss her, fierce and reverent, the kind of claiming that’s all hands and restraint at the same time. When I look down again I have to see it one more time. I carry her to the couch with me and we sit, shoulder to shoulder, the ultrasound in my hand tremoring like a third heartbeat.
“That little bean made me throw up in the ambulance bay,” she confesses, cheeks pinking with mortification and joy. “Levi offered me a donut. I told him if he didn’t back away I would teach him about projectile trajectories.”
I bark a laugh I can’t control. “Did you tell Dax?”
“I told no one. Yet.” She nudges me. “You get to tell Captain Cole and the entire firehouse that you did the thing they made too many jokes about.”
“I’m going to have them make us another banner.” I can’t stop looking at the shadows and light on paper. I could countpixels and learn nothing; I could close my eyes and see our entire future. “We’re having a baby.”
“We are,” she says, and it keeps getting bigger.
Silence again, not empty. The fire settles. The river changes key. Savannah lays her head on my shoulder and we stare at the print the way you stare at a fire you built from sparks. When I can speak like a man again, I turn to her.
“Names.”
She snorts, delighted. “Of course you want to name this cloud.”
“Protocol.”
“Protocol,he says.” She taps her finger on the glossy corner, thoughtful mischief sliding across her face. “Okay. Rules. No exes, no villains, no weather events that destroyed towns.”
“Agreed. No household appliances either.”
“No ‘Toaster Brooks-Ramirez’?”
She laughs. “What aboutEver? Like all the time. Like inevitable.”
Her head bumps my shoulder. “I loveEver. Boy or girl.”
“Joy?” I offer, suddenly unashamed of the sweetness of it because I don’t have room for shame tonight.
“Perfect for a middle.” She grins sideways. “Winterfor a December baby.”
“River,” I say, because it made us and keeps making us. “OrRidge. OrHaven.”
She makes a face atRidge.“He’s going to come out with a snowboard and a trust fund.”
“Fine.Haven.”
“Haven is beautiful.” She lifts her head. “Also, for the record, I get one veto.”
“Same.”
She threads her fingers through my hair and squints at the photo again like she can will it to reveal more. “I thought ofLucaif it’s a boy.”
“Luca Ramirez. Not bad.”
“OrMiaif it’s a girl.” She bites her lip. “ButMiamakes me think ofmine, and you already call me that—your menacing possessive tendency is rubbing off.”
“It’s not a tendency.” I drop my mouth to her neck and find the place she keeps just for me. “It’s a policy.”
