Page 52 of Blueline Baby

“Hey.” Dean’s eyes open. “Slow your roll. You’re not proposing tonight.”

That stops me. “Of course I’m proposing tonight.”

“No.” He sits up and turns to face me. “Tonight you go over there. You hold her. You let her cry. You make sure she knows you’re not going anywhere. That’s the whole job.”

“I can do both.”

“You can’t do both. Because if you put a ring on her hand the same night she told you she’s pregnant, she spends the rest of her life wondering if that’s the only reason you asked.” He holds my eyes and lets that sit.

I look down at the napkin, at HOUSE and NANNY and APRIL. It’s a whole life sketched out and none of it’s worth anything if she spends that life wondering.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Dean says, quieter. “Right?”

I turn and stare at him, because that’s a question he thinks he has to ask out loud.

“No,” I say. “We’re having a baby.”

She pulls her front door open before I can knock, which means she’s been standing there, listening for the elevator.

She looks so small. She’s drowning in a sweatshirt with the sleeves pulled down over her hands, and her face is still blotchy from crying. For a second neither of us moves. She’s searching my face for something, and I watch her brace for whatever she thinks she’ll find there.

Then I close the distance and pull her into me. I wrap one arm around her back and cradle the back of her head with my other hand, her cheek pressed over my heart. She’s stiff for half a breath. Then she melts, her fists curling into the front of my shirt, and I feel the exact moment she starts crying again by the way her shoulders shake under my arm.

“You didn’t have to come straight here,” she says into my chest.

“I was basically on the plane.”

“You know what I mean.”

I do know what she means. I press my lips to the top of her head and keep them there, breathing in her shampoo and laundry soap and the warmth of her.

I should just hold her. Dean said to hold her, let her cry, that’s the whole job. But my brain has never once listened to a plan and I start talking.

“Okay. So I’ve got most of this worked out.”

“Got what worked out?”

“We’re getting our own place. Close to campus, so you’re not trying to study here. And we’ll find someone to watch the baby while you’re in class.”

She goes completely still against my chest. I think she might be holding her breath.

“And I did the math on the plane. April. The baby’s due around April. April’s fine—it’s right before playoffs, so if we make a deep run, I won’t even miss it.”

She pulls back out of my arms and looks up at me, her face isn’t doing anything at all.

I take it for her brain catching up. That’s what I tell myself it is.

“Hey.” I catch both of her hands, sleeves and all, and run my thumbs over her knuckles through the fabric. “It’s going to be okay.”

Her chin starts to tremble.

Whatever plan I had, whatever Dean said, it’s gone.

I go down on one knee, right there in her entryway, still holding both of her hands.

I don’t have a ring. I don’t have a speech either. I spent the whole flight writing on a napkin when I should have been figuring out what to say to her, and now the only thing left in me is the truest thing I know.

Dean’s voice is right there in my head. She’ll spend the rest of her life wondering if that’s the only reason you asked.