“But most things are,” I muttered, tugging her close enough that her hip brushed mine as we walked down the hall. She squeezed my hand, eyes sparkling with interest despite the exhaustion still clinging to her features.
“Take a load off, coach,” she said, closing the bedroom door behind us. A nervous smile tugged at her lips when she handed me a wrapped book before settling onto the bed beside me.
When I opened it, I damn near forgot how to breathe.
It wasn’t just a photo album. It wasourstory, pieced together in her hands.
The first page was the sonogram photo—the one we’d nearly lost to my shortstop’s demon dog—its corners still smudged and torn. It was now pressed flat and safe behind plastic, surrounded by stickers—baby bottles, baseballs, and a jar of pickles—as well as a small, handwritten note in Dani’s loopy scrawl:16 weeks, the size of an avocado.
I kept turning pages, each one punching a hole straight through me. Dani with her bump framed between the dugout rails, her shirt riding up as she leaned on the bench like she owned the whole damn stadium. Dani laughing with her friends at Thorn Tavern, one hand on her belly like she was already protecting what was ours. A series of pregnancy progress shots she must’ve taken every few weeks—her growing stomach framed by the same bathroom mirror, the same cocky tilt to her mouth, like she was daring me not to fall harder.
Each picture came with a message, sticky notes with silly little captions only she could’ve written.I went to field day and all I got was this beachball bellyunder the shot of her stomach painted in stripes, orThe biggest wiener: Coach Daddynext to a particularly incriminating photo from my dadchelor party.
Every page was layered like that—photos, stickers, scraps of our lives woven together like she was building us a scrapbook in real time. It wasn’t neat or polished, like something you mightbuy in a store. Instead, it was messy and funny and so perfectlyher,and it felt so much more likeusbecause of it.
“Dani.” I choked. “I—”
My chest ached, full to bursting as I flipped another page, then another, each one anchoring me deeper to her, to this life we were building. The sonogram, the painted belly, her laughter, my smile—it was all here, proof that we’d lived it, that I hadn’t dreamed her up.
I closed the book gently, laying it on the bed between us. “This is the best thing anyone’s ever given me,” I finally managed, my voice shredded with everything I couldn’t say. I cupped her face between my hands. “You—fuck, Dani—you’rethe best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Her lashes fluttered, her hands curling into my shirt, and for a long, quiet beat, it was just the two of us breathing the same air.
“I just thought one day, our little girl might want to see it all. What it looked like before she was here. And—”
She bit her lip, suddenly shy, like she hadn’t just destroyed me with the most beautiful gift I’d ever been handed.
“—how her mama fell in love with her daddy.”
Her voice was quiet, but it hit me like a fastball to the gut. For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
My head snapped up, eyes locking on hers. She just sat there, staring at me like she’d ripped her chest open and handed me everything inside it.
She loved me. Dani Bernal fucking loved me.
A slow, certain smile pulled at my mouth—no smirk, no front, nothing but the raw truth burning through me. “Say it again,” I rasped, my voice so wrecked I barely recognized it.
“I love you,” she repeated, stronger this time, like she knew I needed to hear it twice just to believe it. “I love you, Brooks.”
That was it. I was gone.
I pulled her over my thighs until she straddled my lap, bracketed her face with my hands, and kissed her like she’d just handed me the greatest victory of my life. Hell, maybe she had. I kissed her until my lips ached, until she was clinging to me like I was the only thing keeping us both upright.
When I finally tore my mouth from hers, I pressed my forehead to hers, breath ragged.
“Kitten,” I growled, rougher than I’d meant to. “You don’t get it. I’vebeenin love with you. Since before the baby. Since before all this shit. You just beat me to saying it out loud.”
Her eyes shimmered. “You mean it?”
I barked out a sharp laugh, the kind that sounded more like disbelief than humor. “Mean it? Dani, I’d etch it into my skin if that’s what it took to make you believe me.”
Her hand slid over my chest, her fingertip finding the spot where, beneath the thin cotton of my shirt, the tattooed kitten marked my heart. She looked up at me through her lashes, a small smile tugging at her mouth. “I think you already did.”
The way she looked at me then—wild and wanting and mine—nearly leveled me. Heat surged through me, a sting pressing behind my eyes, and I couldn’t stop myself. I kissed her again, rough and greedy.
“By the way,” she muttered against my lips. “You missed a few pages.”
“I’ll look at them tomorrow,” I said between kisses, not about to break the spell of her body pressed against mine. Nothing was more important than this,usright now.
