I stood quickly, transferring Noor into her arms. “Everything’s fine. I’m not her doctor, just an OB here. I like spending time with the babies during my breaks.”
“That’s sweet,” she said, cradling her soon-to-be daughter with a gentleness that made my throat tighten. “I’m going to name her Grace.”
I nodded, pushing down the sting in my chest. “That’s a beautiful name.”
And it was.Grace—what I’d spent my whole life chasing without realizing I already had none left to give myself.
MY FIRST THOUGHT WHENI got home was that I’d walked into the wrong apartment. My second was that Khalifa had finally lost it.
There he was, in the middle of the living room, standing over what looked like an indoor picnic. A blanket was spread neatly across the floor with plates and candles flickering like fireflies. He’d even lit the fancy ones—the ones I kept for emergencies, like power outages or breakups.
When he saw me, his shoulders dropped a little. “Hey,” he said. “You’re home. You didn’t answer any of my calls.”
I swallowed, trying not to read too much into the warmth in his voice. “I’m not used to you calling me,” I said, slipping off my shoes. “Thought it was a scam.”
His smiled. “Well, things are different now.”
“Are they?” I asked because it was easier than admitting how my heart had started to misbehave again.
“Yes,” he said simply. “They are. Is everything okay?”
I stared at him, at the open concern in his eyes, and hated that it made me want to cry.
When I didn’t answer, he hesitated, then his face fell. “Oh my God.” His words tumbled over each other. “Did you not want last night to happen? Lillian, I—damn it—I am so sorry—”
“Settle down, Khalifa.” I waved a hand because apparently, deflecting was my love language. “I was obviously a very enthusiastic participant in a way that’s borderline humiliating.”
“It’s not humiliating.”
“Really?” I crossed my arms. “Then what is this? What are we doing?”
“What do you mean?”
I gestured to the picnic, to the soft lighting, to him looking like he’d stepped out of a version of my life I wasn’t ready for. “I mean, what are wedoing, Khalifa? What’s happening here?”
He glanced around, like the answer was hiding somewhere among the candles. “We’re having dinner.”
I laughed, but it came out bitter. “Of course.Of courseyou’d act like this.”
“Act like what?” he asked, genuinely confused. “What’s wrong? Why are you mad?”
“You’re unbelievable, you know that? I’m mad atyou.”
“For what?”
“For existing! For being impossible to categorize. For making me feel things I didn’t sign up for.”
He looked startled, but I was already unraveling.
“I hate you.”
His head jerked slightly. “What?”
“I do. Ihateyou. I hate everything about you.” The words were gushing out before I could stop them, too soft to sound convincing, too raw to take back. “I hate that you only ever send emails as communication. It’s the twenty-first century, Grandpa—get with the times! What if there was an emergency? You’re really going to sit down and craft a draft in MLA format while I go into organ failure?” My voice rose with each word, equal parts fury and sentiment. “I hate that you went your entire life not knowing you were color-blind. How do you even survive day-to-day?”
His lips curved, and it pissed me off even more.
“I hate that you’re shorter than me,” I continued. “And I hate that you don’tcarethat you’re shorter than me, like a normal, insecure man. No, you just own it. You’re confident about it. You know you look good at any height. It’sannoying.”
