“You always do that thing,” he said quietly.
“What thing?”
“You look at people like they’re better than they are. Like you’ve already decided to see the good first.” His thumb brushed over my skin, slow and sure. “It’s in your eyes. Like there’s a whole damn galaxy hiding in there.”
I almost laughed, but it caught somewhere in my throat. “You’re impossible.”
“Maybe.” His mouth curved, soft but certain. “But you are. Always have been.”
“Look at me, Star,” he said.
I did. And for once I didn’t feel like a consolation prize. I felt seen. Not as someone’s almost, not as someone convenient. Just me. Sierra.
The kiss wasn’t planned. It wasn’t careful, either. It was relief, and heat, and a yes I didn’t know I’d been holding in my chest for years. He tasted like rain and mint and something steady. When his hand slid to the back of my neck, I exhaled for the first time all week.
We didn’t rush. We didn’t pretend it was anything but what it was: two people finding a soft place to land when the world felt off. It was tender and hungry, and when it was over, I drifted toward sleep before the quiet could turn into regret.
Knox pulled the blanket higher around my shoulders like he always did when I was younger, his touch gentle, lingering. I felt the faint press of his lips against my temple, the ghost of a breath that might’ve been words.
“I’m not going to be what hurts you,” he murmured, voice rough, meant for no one but the dark.
What he didn’t know is that I wasn’t fully asleep and I heard what he said.
The next day came. And the one after it. And then, weeks later, two pink lines on a stick I bought with my sunglasses on inside a drugstore like that could make me invisible.
I sat on the edge of the tub with my phone in my hand, my head too loud to think, too empty to make sense of any of it.
My first call should’ve been to Knox. He was the obvious reason for the pink lines and it had been almost a month since Jace and I had even touched. Deep down, I already knew the timing didn’t line up the way I wanted it to.
But Knox was never the choice my family would understand. They always thought he was trouble, too many tattoos, too many fights, too many stories that weren’t entirely his fault but stuck to him anyway. Jace was the safe call. The steady one. Theman my mother would welcome at the table without a second thought.
So I called Jace.
“Can you come over?” I asked, and even I could hear the shake in my voice.
He came fast. He always does when someone needs him.
I told him without preamble because I knew if I eased into it, I’d never say it. “I’m pregnant.”
His face went still. Not blank—just still, like he was locking everything in place so nothing would fall. He sat beside me on the couch and took my hand even though mine was cold and damp and didn’t deserve to be held.
“Okay,” he said, voice low, steady. “Okay. We’ll figure it out. You’re not alone.”
They were the right words. They always have been.
I didn’t tell him about Knox. I told myself I didn’t have to—that the math could work, that it wasn’t a lie if I never did it for the purpose of hurting anyone. I told myself a lot of things. About timing. About family. About how my mother would look at Knox across a dinner table and see every story someone else told her about him instead of the man he actually is. About how Griff would go quiet in that way he does when he’s trying not to pick sides and failing.
I told myself Jace was safe. Not in a boring way—in a steady way. The kind that looks like a plan and a mortgage and holidays where no one whispers in the kitchen about your choices.
He squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to be scared.”
“I’m not,” I lied again.
He came with me to the first appointment. He watched the grainy screen and didn’t pretend he knew where to look. He sent me calendar reminders and looked up nursery paint colors on his laptop like we were already there. When he asked me to marry him, he did it in the quiet—just us, no spectacle—because he knew I’d say yes even if my hands were shaking.
And obviously I said yes.
We picked a date and a venue. I picked out a crib and never hit “checkout,” because some part of me still wasn’t sure I deserved to.
