I heard footsteps, then the door opened. He was in sweatpants and nothing else, his hair messy from the pillow, and my brain short-circuited for a second because I’d forgotten what he looked like without a shirt. Or maybe I hadn’t forgotten, maybe I’d just been very carefully not thinking about it. The broad shoulders, the chest, the ridged abs that caught the hallway light, the dark trail of hair below his navel disappearing into the waistband. He looked like he’d been carved out of something and then left slightly rumpled.
He looked at me and I watched his face go through concern, then hope, then careful restraint, all in about two seconds. I pulled my eyes back up to his face, which he definitely noticed, and I refused to acknowledge it.
“I don’t want to sleep alone tonight,” I said.
He stepped aside without a word. I walked in. His room smelled like him, clean, warm, that scent underneath that made my whole body relax in a way I couldn’t control. His bed was bigger than mine and the sheets were rumpled on one side because he’d been lying awake too.
I climbed in. He got in beside me, careful, giving me space I didn’t ask for. I rolled onto my side with my back to him, reached behind me, grabbed his arm, and pulled it over my waist.
His chest pressed against my back. His hand settled on my belly and the baby kicked against his palm immediately, hard, like he’d been waiting.
“He knows you’re here,” I said.
“He kicks harder when I’m close.”
“He has opinions.”
“He gets that from you.”
“Everything good about him will be from me. Everything stubborn will be from you.”
“Those are the same thing.”
I almost laughed. His breath was warm on the back of my neck, his hand wide on my belly, and I could feel the tension in his body, the effort of holding still, of not pulling me closer than I’d invited him to be.
Neither of us slept. We talked instead, quiet, his mouth close to my hair. About the baby, about names, about the nursery he wanted to start setting up. About Buddy, who had tried to follow me upstairs and been intercepted by the night staff. About nothing important and everything that mattered, two-in-the-morning talking where the dark makes honesty easier.
Then I asked about something I’d noticed that morning. His jacket was draped over the back of a kitchen chair and a corner of pink paper was sticking out of the pocket. I’d almost pulled it out before catching myself.
“What’s the pink paper in your jacket pocket?”
He was taken aback, his body stiffened for a second before going back to its relaxed state. “A Post-It.”
“What Post-It?”
“The one you left on my coffee mug. ‘Third cup. Don’t push it.’”
I went still against him. That Post-It was from months ago, back when we were still dancing around each other at the office. A joke I’d scrawled in pink ink about his caffeine intake.
“You kept that?”
“It was in my desk drawer the entire time you were gone. I used to take it out and hold it.” He paused. “That sounds insane when I say it out loud.”
“It sounds extremely pathetic.”
“It was extremely pathetic. I was a man running a multi-million dollar company, sitting in the dark holding a sticky note about coffee.”
“In your defense, it was a well-written sticky note.”
“It had five words on it.”
“Quality over quantity.”
I closed my eyes, smiling against the pillow. He’d moved it from his desk drawer to his jacket pocket. He carried it every day, close enough that I’d spotted the pink corner sticking out that morning. A Post-It I’d written in three seconds without thinking, and he’d been holding onto it like a lifeline.
“You carry it everywhere,” I said.
“Every day.”
