“Two months or so.”
He hesitated, and the weight of her words settled between them. “So, that means you’ll be—”
Her features softened, a flicker of contemplation and other emotions crossing her face, too fleeting for Logan to decipher. “Giving birth alone?” she finished with a small smile. “Looks that way.”
“Daisy—”
“Oh, stop,” she cut in, waving a dismissive hand. “Women have been giving birth since the start of time. I’ll be fine.”
But Logan could sense the sadness in her voice. It lingered in the air between them, unspoken but undeniable. He wanted to press her on it and offer something—anything—to comfort her, but she shifted the conversation, and he let it go.
Their conversation circled back towards work, and by the time they finished, two hours had passed, the sky had darkened, and light snow had begun to fall.
“Thank you for this,” Daisy said, fixing her coat. “I needed this.”
He didn’t admit it, but he’d needed it, too. Outside of work, he’d adopted a hermit-like existence, where socialising was limited and sleep had become an indulgence. He knew his doctor would label it depression and would throw some Prozac at the problem, but he believed it would come right; all he needed was time.
They strolled, their footsteps crunching as they made their way down quiet streets in silence. Whether it was nerves or a sense of knowing, Logan walked a step ahead, his hands buried in his coat pockets, occasionally glancing over at her.
Daisy seemed lost in thought, her head low and arms cradling her belly.
“You alright?” he asked her, after they’d walked a block in unbroken silence.
She looked at him then and forced a smile. “Sorry,” she apologised. “I’m just tired, and my feet are killing me.”
“Do you want me to carry you the rest of the way?”
She laughed, and unlike in the cafe, it felt real. “I’ll be fine, but thank you for the offer.”
As they reached the corner where they would part ways, she turned to him, her face dusted with delicate flecks of snow. Without thinking, he reached out and brushed a few flakes offthe tip of her nose, and her breath caught, startled by the sudden intimacy of the moment.
Their eyes locked, and for a second, everything else faded. He wanted to kiss her; God, he wanted to kiss her. And in her eyes, he saw it—the same longing, the same pull towards something they both knew shouldn’t happen. But then, as if waking from a dream, he cleared his throat and took a step back.
“If you need anything, Daisy,” he said, dropping to a whisper. “Please promise you’ll call me.”
She looked down, pinching the skin on the back of her hand in small repetitive motions, almost as if using physical pain to ground herself.
“I will,” she said, bringing her gaze back to him. “I promise.”
XVII
DAISY
Daisy struggled to sleep that night, her mind in a riptide of questionable thoughts. It’s hormones, she told herself, staring at the ceiling tiles, counting them one by one. It had to be.
She didn’t think of herself as neurotic. Or at least, not usually. All this obsessive thinking, picking apart half-truths she wasn’t even sure had been meant that way, it didn’t feel like her.
After tossing and turning for what felt like hours, she stood and waddled to the window. Outside the city, it was alive with the nocturnal souls and anthropoid shadows. She wondered then where Logan was. Was he staring into the distance like her, replaying the moment? She sighed, gripping the windowsilltightly. It was an answer she’d never know and a truth she’d never find.
Callan rang the next day. It had been over a week since Daisy had last spoken to him, and whether it was a by-product of her lingering guilt or something deeper, the way his voice sounded unsettled her. He never shared much about what was happening over there, almost as if keeping things from her was his way of protecting her. She’d heard people talk about it, though—how you can sense it in the silence and find it in words, when something has changed—and after sitting in a period of unnerving silence, she knew it had.
“I miss you,” she managed to croak out, which was met by another long pause.
She lay back on the bed and waited, but instead of echoing her words or asking how she or the baby were doing, his first question was, “What did you eat today?”
She forced herself to laugh, brushing it off at first. “Food,” she replied, attempting to inject some humour into the sterile conversation. “And too much of it.”
“What kind of food?”
