“Hey, Foster—you got the sketches for Park and Lee yet?”

I turn to Marshall, but my eyes take longer to come into focus than they should. For the last twenty minutes, my pulse has alternated between racing, and plodding along. The effort of sitting up to pretend I’m fine makes it skip a beat.

“Sorry,” I blink. “What was that?”

“Park and Lee,” he repeats, widening his eyes. “You got the sketches done, right? The team needs them. Now.”

I sift through my desk and hand over the folder. While he checks it out, I look away. This isn’t my best work, and it’s pretty obvious he sees that.

Luckily, Marshall isn’t my boss, no matter how much he wishes he were. “Good enough,” he sighs. “What’s up with you, man?”

If my heart weren’t trying to detonate itself, I’d laugh. Well, my ex is pregnant with my kid, and I’m going to be as terrible a dad as my own father was. No big deal.

It’s official, now: Caitlin-Anne is halfway through her apparently real pregnancy, and the court-ordered paternity test points squarely at me. I handled the news well: getting drunk all night while Mel slept in the next room. Today, I’m paying for it.

“Rough night,” I tell him.

“You’ve got those vacation days built up, you know.”

“I don’t need a vacation. Just some sleep.”

Marshall flips through the folder again, but I can tell it’s just to make himself look busy while he avoids eye contact. “A few days off could do you good, that’s all.”

“If you’ve got something to say to me, say it.” I tap my pen on the desk, like the beat can travel through my arm and reset my heart rate.

“Fine. You look like shit, and your work’s starting to look like shit, too.” He cracks a smile, but I know he’s serious. Marshall’s honest when pressed.

“Thanks. I’ll get on that.” My computer chair pivots back to my screen, telling Marshall the conversation is over. I type until I hear him leave, then put my head in my hands.

My phone pings. It’s a text from Mel.

“Dinner?” She adds a kiss emoji. “You can pick.”

The last two months, she’s been the one bright spot in the mess that is my life. I don’t know what I’m doing with the rest of it, but around her, things make sense. And the stuff that doesn’t, she helps me forget. At least for a little while. Like how, when I text back, “I’ll pick you up at five,” she sends back a string of emojis that make me laugh. Something jostles just right, or sends some chemical to my brain, because my heart finally returns to normal.

For our second date, I surprised her at work with Cats tickets. “And reservations at Canterbury’s, before the show.”

She grinned, trying to hide it. “But you hate Cats.”

“Yeah. But I love you, so.” I looked around the jeans section for anyone resembling a manager before kissing her. She laughed against my mouth.

“I love you, too.” Her blush came on swiftly. “Which…sounds really crazy, when you consider the fact we’ve only been together, like…two days.”

“But not,” I pointed out, “when you consider the fact we’ve known each other forever.” I studied her. “Do you think things are moving too fast, or something?”

“Well…kind of.” She looked at the tickets again. “But how could they not, you know? It’s us.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything crazy, like buy a house.”

“Two bathrooms, don’t forget.” Her fingers ran over the tickets as she thought a moment. “This is going to sound stupid, but I’m really just worried about us missing the beginning. When a relationship is new and fun all the time. Cool dates and staying up all night talking, and…other stuff.”

“I wouldn’t skip over that part for all the two-bathroom houses in the world.” Another cursory sweep of the floor confirmed we were still alone, so I kissed her a second time, much longer. I felt her hands brace against my chest as she leaned close, giving in for a moment.

Since then, I’d done my best to keep things exciting, prolonging that honeymoon stage as long as I could. Fancy restaurants and musicals aside, we usually ended up wherever she picked, places I’d once loved but had forgotten: the go-kart track, the drive-in, and even the mall where she worked, ambling hand-in-hand with milkshakes from the food court.

In the end, I didn’t have to keep things exciting. With her, they just were.

Her birthday fell on our one-month anniversary. She didn’t want to make a big deal out of either, which didn’t stop me from booking her a massage while I was stuck in a meeting, then driving her to Vermont for the weekend.

“Not to sound ungrateful,” she said, when she figured out the surprise, “but you really don’t have to spend all this money on me. I told you, I’m not looking to get ‘spoiled.’”

“So I shouldn’t book you any more massages?”

Her smile twisted as she tried to hide it. “I didn’t say that.”

We wavered like that pretty often. I said I was all about being in charge, but loved when she called me out and gave me a challenge; she insisted against me taking care of her, but realized she enjoyed most of it. Especially in bed.

At 4:54, I gather my stuff as discreetly as possible and duck out. I can hear at least two people call my name before the elevator door closes, but I ignore them. Work hasn’t relaxed me at all, lately—probably because I get ten questions and comments a day about the decline of my performance—so the only late nights I put in, if I get a choice, are when Mel has to work late. Evenings with nothing but my thoughts in an empty apartment are the last thing I need.

I pull up to her house and instantly know something’s wrong.

“Hey.” I kiss her, holding her face in my hands, studying the furrow of her brow for myself. “What’s up?”

She sucks in some air through her teeth. I brace myself.

“My mom,” she says quietly, “is cooking dinner.”

“God, Mel, you scared the hell out of me.” I laugh and shut her car door, which I’d opened for her, locking it while we start across her lawn. “I thought it was something serious.”

“My family basically forcing you to come to dinner is serious. I told her we were going out to eat, but she wouldn’t listen.” Mel has spent two months limiting my contact with her parents to light exchanges on the lawn, whenever I pick her up. She stays at my place most nights to avoid it altogether, which doesn’t stop Mrs. Thatcher’s endless invitations.

“I don’t know why you’re worried. Normal meet-the-boyfriend dinners, I could understand, but I’ve had dinner with your family hundreds of times.”

“Yeah, as my friend.” She drops her register as we step onto the porch. It’s broad, Colonial-style, and still has the six matching rocking chairs and double swings I remember, all in Mrs. Thatcher’s favorite décor colors: tan and blue, which she always dubbed “café au lait” and “Robin’s egg.”

I glance at the windows, then steer her out of view to one of the swings. We sit.

“I’ve never brought a boyfriend here. Ever.” Mel bounces her knee. It makes the swing move unevenly: I pitch forward more than a few times, forced to brace my feet on the floor with audible thumps. Every single one makes us freeze and check the door. Our time for privacy is limited.

“You know my parents,” she goes on. “They’re nosey and…opinionated, and—”

“I do know your parents.” I take her hand again and run my thumb over her knuckles, the way she likes. It seems to calm her down a little. “Trust me, there’s nothing they can ask that will scare me away. If I can survive the abstinence ring party, I can handle anything.”

Despite herself, she laughs. We kind of have to: the story is just that ridiculous. Mel’s parents, assuming Mel and I would suddenly explode in a hurricane of hormones and uncontrollable sex as soon as puberty touched down, schemed with our Sunday school teacher to host a Valentine’s Day party. We were eleven, so the event started small: pink cupcakes, pink lemonade, and games, us and about seventeen other kids crammed into one room of the church.

After an hour or so, things turned. Mel’s mom launched into a speech about love, while her dad and the teacher handed out little plastic rings. Mel and I looked at ours, then at each other, confused.

Each was inscribed the same: TRUE LOVE WAITS, with both T’s as crosses. Mine was green, and hers was pink.

Mrs. Thatcher’s speech veered from the beauty of abstaining until marriage, to the horrible afflictions that could befall anyone who didn’t wait. When her voice broke from its usual sweet, smooth tone, we looked up. She was staring at the two of us.

It wasn’t until we turned thirteen that we realized the point of the party. The Thatchers weren’t concerned with the sexual safety of our Sunday school class. Just ours.

“I can’t believe them,” Mel laughed, the day we found her ring in a drawer while hunting down batteries, and pieced it all together. “They planned an entire party because they were scared you and I would do it.”

Obviously, I didn’t find it as laughable as she did that we’d get together, someday, but we did always get a kick out of the story.

“I’ve still got my ring,” I tell her now. She laughs again and leans into me, calmer.

“Maybe they won’t be too bad,” she says, taking a breath as we stand. “They aren’t as strict as they used to be, now that Josh and I are adults, so…maybe they know some boundaries.”

“I’m sure they do. You’re overthinking it.”

As it turns out, we’re both a little right.

For most of the meal, her parents stay in the bounds of acceptable topics: sympathy about Dad’s death, questions about my job, and many comments about how happy they are Mel and I are talking again.

Then, things go south.

“It’s funny,” Mel’s mom says over dessert, which makes Mel kick me under the table; Mrs. Thatcher only starts inappropriate questions with things like, “It’s funny,” or “Now, correct me if I’m wrong.”

“…but I never did hear what happened with you two, when you lost touch.”

“Yes, you did,” Mel says curtly. “I told you. You just said it. We lost touch.”

I stare into my chocolate cake, mid-bite. The sugar cramps my mouth.

“Well, now, correct me if I’m wrong,” she says, “but weren’t you two best friends? I just find it strange two kids as close as you would stop talking, out of the blue.”

Mr. Thatcher nods along, and Josh, at the far end of the table, can barely contain his laughter.

“I told Mel that I liked her and wanted to date,” I say loudly, over the tiny argument beginning between mother and daughter. “She just wanted to be friends, though, so…I got angry and made her leave.”

Mrs. Thatcher’s eyebrows raise, her mouth open with another question, but silent. Mr. Thatcher nods again, apparently his default mode for the night, and Josh cuts his eyes to Mel.

I look, too, when the conversation finally moves back into safe territory of Josh’s medical school progress. She offers me a small smile, mouthing, “Thank you.”

Under the table, I find her hand and brush my thumb across it again, a simple back-and-forth, until dessert is over.

“Are you two…intimate?”

The sponge falls out of my hand and into the dishwater with a slap. “Thank you,” I say, fighting my instantaneous headache, “for at least waiting until Blake was gone to do this.”

Mom looks bewildered. “It’s just a question, sweetheart.” As she rinses the bundle of silverware I pass her, she mutters, “I suppose your reaction tells me the answer, anyway.”

“Wow. We’re actually still talking about it.”

She laughs and bumps me with her hip. “Come on, I did all right tonight, didn’t I?” I feel her glance at me again. “I know that’s why you didn’t have him over, all these weeks. You were worried I’d embarrass you.”

“Which you did. Which you still are.”

“I’m just happy for you, Mellie. I know you missed having him in your life. I think we all did.”

This softens my anger. I pass her a plate.

I did miss having Blake in my life. Not just part of it, the way I compartmentalized all my boyfriends and flings, but all of it—the way he’d been before. That afternoon when he told me to leave and I listened, when our egos and fear wrecked everything we had and could have had, it really felt like my entire world was broken. The space he left behind was so much bigger than I’d realized.

“Looks like you two are doing well,” she adds, as we finish the last of the dishes. We fling the gloves off our hands. “I’m glad.”

“Thanks, Mom.” They are going well. Not perfect, but nothing is.

As if they heard my thoughts, Josh and Blake are talking about Caitlin-Anne’s pregnancy when I come down the basement stairs. They’re playing video games, something with a lot of firepower and zombies.

“Blake was just telling me about the kid,” Josh says. He’s got his eyes on the screen, but I hear something in his voice: he’s hurt I didn’t tell him, first.

“Oh…yeah.” I sit on the loveseat with Blake and put my feet in his lap. “Five more months, -ish.”

“Nineteen weeks.” Blake gives a strained smile. I mirror it.

We haven’t talked about it as much as I would like. He tends to shut me out, if I bring it up when he’s not in the mood to discuss it. Which is pretty often.

“That must be super awkward and weird for you,” Josh says, while a cluster of zombies explodes on TV, “dating someone who’s having a baby with another woman.”

“For fuck’s sake, Josh,” I snap. I throw a pillow at him and make him miss a shot. He curses when the zombie chomps into his character, blanking his side of the screen.

“Just thinking out loud.”

“Well, apply a filter.” If my parents are clueless, Josh is ruthless. I guess I can’t complain too much, because I’d do the exact same thing to him.

“I was wondering that too, actually.” Blake launches a grenade into an abandoned building before turning to me. “We haven’t really talked about it.”

Of course not, I think. You shut me out, every time I bring it up.

Well. At least he’s talking now. I take a breath and focus my energy on the zipper of the couch cushion, flicking it between my fingers.

“It is weird. But…not necessarily in a bad way. I mean, the baby part is fine. I like babies.”

“But it isn’t yours,” Josh points out. Like I need that reminder.

“No.” I run my tongue along my molars, tasting the cake still there from dessert. “But it’s Blake’s, and I love him, so I’ll care about his child, too.”

“Just that easy,” Josh says distractedly. Even so, the sarcasm comes through loud and clear.

“Not easy,” I correct. “But…necessary.”

“So you’re really okay with it?” Blake asks.

I look at him. He keeps his tunnel vision on the game. “Yeah. I mean, I think so. It’s just hard, knowing Caitlin-Anne will have to be in our lives forever. Nobody wants their boyfriend’s ex in the picture.”

“Trust me, I don’t want her there, either.”

“But she will be.” When his eyes flicker to me, I let my focus wander to my toes. Sometimes, it’s hard to look him in the eyes—like they’re so intense, they can see every thought in my head. “So we should get used to it. Figure out a system, or something.”

“There’s no system.” Blake scoffs through the side of his mouth and goes back to the game. “Caitlin-Anne and I will share custody and split holidays, and we’ll only have to see each other during drop-offs and pick-ups.”

I pull my feet out of his lap. “Do you really think it’ll be that simple?”

“Yes.”

So much for discussing things. Josh exchanges a look with me, then joins in on the undead carnage.

That evening, after a merciless game of Trivial Pursuit on the porch with my parents, I walk Blake to the car.

“You’re not coming to my place tonight?”

“Sorry. I’ve got a really early shift.” I hold his hands and swing them between us. “Thanks, for putting up with them tonight.”

“I don’t consider it ‘putting up with them,’ Mellie. Your family feels like my family.”

Pretty soon, you will have a family, I think. It’s hard to picture how Caitlin-Anne will fit into things, after the baby arrives—but it’s hard to picture how I will, too.

When I was a kid, I’d overhear my Mom tell pregnant women at church that you just couldn’t predict a child’s impact until they arrived. I knew she meant the good parts, laughter and cute clothes and the fun that kids bring, but now I’m realizing it’s true for the other parts, too.

Babies link people forever. They change dynamics. For the parents, especially, they make them look at themselves through a lens they never have before. No matter how much they resist it.

It’s no secret Blake is scared of being a dad. Petrified. I know he must feel pressure to be better than his own father, but, at the same time, doomed to be identical.

So maybe that’s how I fit into this picture: helping him see the person he can become, when the time finally arrives.

I just hope he lets me.