I exhaled. “I know, Cal.”
“I still don’t want you to eat runny egg yolks,” he admitted.
I couldn’t help the smile that curved my lips. “I won’t.” I stood up and went to him, sighing in relief as his hands slid around my thighs. His thumbs brushed the underside of my bottom, and he tilted his head up as I raked my fingers through his hair. He hummed, his eyes fluttering shut, and I knew that no one—not even his beloved sister and niece—got to see him like this.
There was something so beautiful between us, and I was desperate to make it work. I just hoped he would be willing to give me the space I needed for that to happen.
We reached a truce.I went back to the office on a part-time basis and kept working with my own clients during the other regular business hours. I cut down on after-hours work and forced myself to choke down the green smoothies he insisted I consume.
To his credit, Cal stopped pestering me so much. He still scheduled appointments with physiotherapists and personal trainers, doctors and dietitians, but he checked with me first.
It felt good, but it also felt like we were balancing on a knife’s edge. We were tolerating each other’s preferences, testing each other’s boundaries. I’d work until I knew he was vibrating with anxiety for me to rest. He’d send me calendar requests for workouts and other appointments. We circled each other as the weeks passed. My body began to change more rapidly, and the tension between us grew thicker.
We found out we were having a boy. I reeled, everything suddenly feeling that much more real. After that appointment, Cal insisted I set my laptop aside and rest. He watched me eat and reviewed my latest bloodwork until the late hours of the night. I watched him, heart sinking.
Neither of us was getting what we needed, and we both knew we never would. Cal wouldn’t give me the freedom, autonomy, and independence I craved. I wouldn’t give him the doe-eyed submission he needed. We were in stasis.
When I met with Alba on her rooftop veggie garden at the end of July, her eyes slid toward me, and she hummed.
I sat on a bench Vaughn had built for her and rubbed my palms over my face. “You think this is a gigantic red flag, don’t you?”
“I’m just concerned about what will happen when the baby gets here,” she said, voice carefully neutral. “I don’t think seeing a tiny, helpless infant will make him stressless.”
I gulped. “Right.” She was saying my own fears out loud. There was a big ticking bomb above my head—in my womb—and I wasn’t sure Cal’s and my relationship would survive its explosion.
It wasn’t all bad.When I was in my twenty-first week, I felt a flutter. It was late in the evening, when I was in bed next to Cal, and I gasped. I grabbed his hand, and the baby fluttered again.
Wide-eyed, I looked at him. “Did you feel that?”
He focused his gaze on the back of his palm like he’d suddenly developed X-ray vision. “Feel what? Is the baby moving?”
“There! Oh!”
“I can’t feel anything,” he said, pressing a little more firmly on my lower belly.
I laughed. “He’s moving so much! I can’t believe you can’t feel that!”
His eyes were shining as he met my gaze. “I’ll feel it soon. A few more weeks, maybe.” He smiled and leaned over to kiss me. My heart burst with happiness and excitement and fear, conflicting emotions making it hard to figure out what, exactly, was making me so teary-eyed.
Cal held me close, his palm on my belly, his steady heartbeat helping me settle. In moments like this, I wondered why I was so worried about the future. The two of us were clearly meant for each other; we could weather whatever storm would come.
THIRTY-THREE
DEENA
The storms came soonerthan I expected. One of my longtime clients, Mr. Wentworth, connected me with the leader of the sales division of a medical device company. They were aggressively expanding their company, and their travel needs would soon be skyrocketing.
Their first task for me was to fly fifty-one medical professionals to a conference in Houston. The contract was massive; it was a huge bump for my business, and if I made a good impression, they’d likely provide me with a massive amount of work going forward. They flew reps and doctors around the country constantly. It would be steady, long-term work. A goldmine.
I got the contract on a Thursday afternoon and immediately got to work. I settled in one of the living areas in Cal’s penthouse, commandeering a desk and a chair next to a big window. Then I sank into the myriad logistical problems that inevitably came with organizing travel itineraries for so many people.
The sun was hanging low over the horizon when hands on myshoulders made me jump. Cal squeezed gently, leaning down to press a kiss to the side of my head. “Come have dinner,” he commanded.
I patted his hand and smiled up at him, accepting the kiss he pressed to my lips. “I just need fifteen or twenty minutes to finish this up,” I said. The doctor whose itinerary I was organizing was complex for scheduling reasons; she could only make the first day of the conference and had to be back in her home city of San Francisco by sundown. She had a number of travel requirements and wanted to stay at the fully booked hotel where the conference was happening. Possible, but I had to be clever about it.
“Fine,” Cal said. “I’ll tell Xavier to fix you a plate.”
It took me longer than twenty minutes to figure it out. An hour after Cal’s first visit, he came back. This time, he came around to the side of my desk and glowered down at me. “You need to eat,” he informed me.
