She stepped closer. Her sleeves were pushed up to her elbows, her eyes steady. She reached for my hand, and I let her take it without hesitation. Her fingers curled around mine. There was warmth in her grip, quiet certainty. She guided my hand to her stomach, held it there, and waited.
Then something stirred beneath my palm.
The first flutter was faint, a shift under the skin. I stopped breathing. My heart jumped once, then steadied. The next kick was stronger—a small, insistent pulse pressing against my hand, proof that something real was taking shape beneath the surface.
I brought my other hand up, placing it beside the first. Her skin was warm. Her breathing was shallow. I didn’t move. I couldn’t.
Her eyes found mine, and neither of us looked away. There was no smirk. No shield. No sarcastic remark held at the ready. Only this moment, suspended in stillness, the air thick with questions neither of us knew how to ask.
She kept her hand on mine, light and steady, as the baby moved beneath it. The silence wasn’t awkward or stretched thin. It was full. Her expression softened. Her shoulders dropped. A small curve touched the corner of her mouth, so fleeting I wasn’t sure I hadn’t imagined it.
Then it happened.
Her gaze shot past me, and the color drained from her face. Whatever calm she’d found a moment ago shattered in an instant.
“Oh my god,” she whispered. The sound was softer now, threaded with something wary.
I yanked my hands away and turned toward the hallway, not sure if there was a knife-wielding serial killer on the loose, a ghost materializing from thin air, or, worse, her brother hiding in the shadows, waiting to catch us in the act.
But no. It was far worse.
Nancy Reagan stood frozen at the edge of the carpet. Then, without fanfare or shame, she dropped her rear end to the floor and began scooting across the living room with unhurried determination. That damn dog was dragging her poodle butt across Doyle and Jordan’s snow-white, terrifyingly expensive rug with the slow, methodical grace of a creature who knew exactly what she was doing.
And just like that, the spell was broken.
Chapter Twenty-Three
TALLY
I’dstayedinmyroom long enough.
After one of the most unexpectedly intimate, deeply strange moments of my life, everything had come crashing back to earth thanks to my geriatric poodle dragging her crusty, little ass across the pristine carpet like she was possessed by a demon with a dingleberry.
The two of us, locked in stunned silence, had scrambled to clean it up as fast as humanly possible. Charlie, ever calm in a crisis, muttered about Eunice Wilder—Lee’s mother and savior of antique upholstery—probably having a stain removal spell orknowing a guy. I hadn’t waited for a follow-up. I bolted to my room and leaned against the door.
Hours later, I was still replaying it.
His hand on my belly, the heat sinking through. The air held still, thick with silence that felt holy.
I hadn’t meant to wake him. Hadn’t planned to stand there watching him sleep. But he’d looked so... peaceful. And uncomfortable. And there was this unspoken truth in the room—he’d stayed. He could’ve gone back downstairs, could’ve crashed in the second guest room, could’ve done anything but contort himself like a human pretzel on that tiny love seat.
But he hadn’t.
When I pressed his hand to my stomach, the prickliness he wore like chainmail melted away. It wasn’t the jolt of surprise when the baby kicked, no, but the way his whole body leaned toward mine, drawn to us without even realizing it. It was like some invisible thread was tugging us together. When our foreheads nearly touched, whatever had been brewing between us suddenly felt real.
Now, sitting on the edge of my bed, I pressed a hand to that same spot on my belly, the ghost of his touch still warm against my skin.
It wasn’t the baby fluttering this time.
It was me.
That slow, unmistakable bloom of wanting. Of being seen. Of hoping for that one, unreachable thing you didn’t think you were allowed to have.
The knock at the door sent me practically hurtling across the room like someone had fired a starter pistol.
“Yeah?” I called—too loud, too fast—already halfway there, my bare feet skimming across the polished floor.
Charlie filled the doorway with that impossible stillness of his, like nothing in the entire world could touch him. Like last nighthadn’t happened. Like I hadn’t placed his hand on my stomach and watched his entire face soften in the dark.
