Apparently the world keeps moving. Day and night meld. The time and day on my phone change. Because I’m so numb, there’s no difference between a second and a week.

I’m having a baby.

Tavo told everyone I’m sick, so they keep bringing me soup, broth, agua con gas, weak tea, and crackers. Even María Luisa has felt my head with the back of her hand and shown concern, closing the door behind her quietly.

I barely eat anything and spend the days in bed with my thoughts, shutting out the outside world. Except for the cork oak tree outside my window.

Almost immediately, Tavo stopped any pretense that we aren’t together. He’s practically moved into my room, spending hours lying next to me, brushing my hair with his fingers, singing quietly to me. Sitting at the end of the bed drawing me pictures. We haven’t talked that much. We can’t. But having him here makes me feel secure.

Right now with his solid arms wrapped around me as he spoons me on the bed, I wonder how I lived before him, because I’ve changed so much.

His palms touch my belly with reverence. He’s kissed it so many times, and I can’t help but cuddle my belly.

My baby. Ours.

Am I carrying a little Tavo?

I open my mouth to say something to him, but my words are all crusty and creaky, and I’m still burrowing in my thoughts. Because this pregnancy has brought many things into sharp focus. Like, how did I get to this point?

Before, in Iowa, I went to the school my parents chose and studied the major they selected for me, since I didn’t express a preference. My biggest rebellion was getting a Frappucino and taking a picture of it in front of my weight-obsessed mother. I had a boyfriend who spent time with me and organized my life—but was a friend, not a lover.

But was I happy?

No. I was unconscious. I lived in a cage—an invisible one. Those boundaries on my life delineated places I didn’t go, things I didn’t see, and activities I didn’t do. Me, dye my hair? Never.

The problem was, I didn’t know I lived in a cage because it was so normal. As the Spanish say, regular. I didn’t strain against my restraints because I didn’t know they existed.

To my credit, I must have known something was up, otherwise I would never have bought a bullet vibe. Or come to Andalucía.

In Spain, though, I feel alive, almost too much.

Tavo not only showed me I lived in a cage, he opened the door and melted down the iron bars behind me so I couldn’t retreat back inside it if I got scared.

I snuggle into him, and he kisses my ear.

Could I even go back to Iowa? To the way I was living before I came here?

No. I couldn’t pretend that Spain never happened. Now I’ve become free, anything less is unbearable.

But I’m still not ready to be a mom.

His sweet lips press against my neck. I think back on all his patience with me. How he taught me how to say tacos and how to eat European-style. He never made fun of my Midwest accent or difficulty with Spanish or any of the things that were new to me. He’s unconditionally accepting and embracing of me, both physically and emotionally.

Unlike everyone else in my life, he never demands that I be anything other than who I am. Well, except for role-playing in his bedroom, but that’s a fantasy for both of us.

He’s my lover. In all senses of the word.

I’ve never experienced anything like this. His unconditional love. As his fingers tiptoe down my arm, I know he cherishes every part of me, inside and out.

It’s frightening. Because am I worth it? Is love worth it? I’m so outside my comfort zone, I’m not simply poking a timid toe over the line. I threw my whole body into a new country, unknown and foreign.

I rub my tummy, and he puts his hands over mine, rubbing it, too. I’ve never been so myself. I’ve never been so at peace. Never happier. Never freer.

This is a big step, but am I ready?

I’ll have to be.

As I turn to him and kiss him, I resolve to find a happy medium. I don’t have to throw myself into an entirely different milieu to be myself. I’m not going back to needing a cage. I can be myself right now.

Starting now.

I deepen the kiss. With my tongue searching for his, I feel I’m being fully myself, but a gentler version. Not so extreme that I need to rebel and do everything just because I wasn’t allowed before.

Just. Me.

His hands clasp my hair, and he kisses me back.

I trust my feelings. I trust that Tavo has feelings for me. I trust that everything happens for a reason.

Even if that everything is a baby.

His hands now slip up my torso, pulling my shirt off. He’s kissing, stroking, holding me now. I kiss him back just as thoroughly, just as gently, running my fingers over his strong back, his soft, warm skin, his sinewy muscles. Down into his pants.

He gives me a little smile, gets up, and locks the door.

“Amor,” he says in his bedroom voice, hooks his fingers in my yoga pants, and pulls them down my legs.

After he kisses every part of me, worshiping me, making me gasp, he drops his jeans and enters me.

We don’t need protection from each other. I’m already pregnant. I love feeling him in me, tender. Kind.

He has to know how I feel about him.

Monday is a crisp, mid-November day, cooler than yesterday, and once I step outside in my thin sweater, I realize I’m going to be too cold to handle school all day. The Mediterranean aspect of southern Spain is misleading. You’d think it would be beaches and summer year-round, but it’s not. Snow is starting to appear on the distant Sierra Nevada mountains. It’s not Iowa cold, but it’s colder than I’d expected.

“I think I need my jacket.”

Turning to go back and get it, I stop and look up at him. Tavo pulls my hair back from my face, smiles, and kisses me softly.

With the passage of a week, I’ve become increasingly embarrassed at how I’ve been acting. We were careless. I accept that. I thought we’d fixed it with the pill, and I never thought the results of one night of lax behavior would be so permanent.

Butterflies run in my stomach. “I’m so sorry how I acted last week.”

“You were in shock. We both were.”

Letting out my breath, I reach for his hand. “And Tavo, I need to tell you something. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. You said it, and I need to tell you—”

But before I can get the words “I love you” out, a new blue Fiat approaches, creeping into view.

“¿Quién es?” Tavo asks, his brows furrowing. While there’s plenty of activity on the farm, we normally don’t get any strangers. And harvest isn’t for a few days still, when we’re expecting lots of help.

I don’t recognize the car either. “No tengo ni idea.” It continues all the way up by Tavo’s car.

The car stops. Parks. The door opens.

And the familiar form of Shane lumbers out.

“Oh my God,” I rasp. “That’s Shane.” I’m not processing. He’s in slow motion. I’m nauseous, and I don’t think it’s from the pregnancy. I think it’s from his face.

Tavo looks at me sharply. “From Iowa?”

I nod.

His nostrils flare, and his forehead creases into a frown. “The one you broke up with?”

I’m chilled, and it’s not just because I need my jacket. “Yes.” The one who never responded to my email breaking up with him.

Tavo’s mouth falls open. His head whips back and forth from Shane to me and back to Shane, as Shane approaches us, feet crunching on the gravel, the wintry sun low in the sky.

This is worse than anything I’ve ever imagined. Even my naked stress-out dreams in the auditorium.

Shane waves at me. “Kim?”

I say with as much brightness as I can muster—admittedly not much—“Shane’s here, Tavo. Isn’t that great?”

The look on Tavo’s face says this is anything but great.

Shane’s precise hair jolts me back to all the trips to the barber in Iowa. His beefcake body hides under my least favorite shirt of his, the one that says, “I PAUSED MY GAME TO BE HERE,” which is not only ironic but likely true. Even though he’s wearing a hoodie, I know his wardrobe well enough to make it out from just a few words in the middle.

I squeeze my eyes shut, then fix my features into a smile and walk forward with my arms out. “Hi, Shane. Wow. This is a surprise.” I give him an awkward hug while Tavo scowls. When Tavo clears his throat, I step back.

Shane grins, but he’s punchy. Jumpy like a boxer, dancing on his feet. Probably tired from the trip. “Yeah! I wanted to surprise you. Jeez, I didn’t recognize you with that hair color! I like it.”

What the actual fuck? Did he not read my email? Why is he so cheery? Does he not know we’re broken up?

The kitchen door bangs behind me, and Tavo’s mom emerges headed our way.

Good God.

“So this is where you’re staying?” Shane asks. “I dig it. It’s really pretty. Wow. Spain!”

What the actual hell?

Tavo tugs at his collar and steps closer to me, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallows hard.

Shane holds out his hand. “Hi. Shane Nichols.”

“Gustavo de la Guerra Cantor.” Tavo says that with as much Latin flourish as he can. They shake hands. While Shane’s friendly, Tavo wants to obliterate him with his grasp. His lips are pressed into a slash, and his jaw’s clenched tight. When they let go, he folds his arms over his chest and takes another step closer to me.

Seeming to ignore Tavo’s reception, Shane grins widely and reaches out a hand, patting the side of my arm. I hear a grumble suppressed in Tavo’s throat.

Tavo’s mom walks up between us with a curious look on her face. “Hola,” she says, extending her hand and giving Shane two kisses. “I am Tavo’s mother. Are you a friend of Kim?”

“Yeah! Hi! I’m from back home. Shane Nichols.”

“Mister Shane, you are her amigo?”

As I shake my head no, Shane says, “Yeah.”

Is she asking amigo as in friend or amigo as in more than friend?

Tavo’s mom’s eyelids fly open, and she leans closer to him. “Welcome, welcome. You must be tired. We will feed you. Come, come. I will introduce you to our family.” Beyond her, back at the kitchen, Valeria and Tavo’s abuelo are standing in the doorway, watching intently.

Clenching his fists, Tavo closes his eyes and gives the barest shake of his head. But his mom completely ignores him and pulls Shane into the house to have breakfast, leaving me and Tavo standing there. As Shane walks away, he looks back over his shoulder, and I could swear he smirks.

“I … uh,” I say lamely. “He’s not … We’re not … I really need to talk to him.”

The pain in Tavo’s eyes is too much for me to bear. “Did you know he was coming?”

“No! He’s been radio silent for weeks.” I reach out and hold Tavo’s hands. “Please. Just let me talk to him. I’ll find out why he’s here.”

Tavo searches my face, seeming to look to see if I’m telling the truth. Finding nothing amiss, with a curt nod, he lets go of my hands and exhales. “I don’t like this, Kim.”

“I don’t either. Are you going to stay? Or go to school?”

“La huerta calls me now.”

“I’ll miss school today, too. Have to, I guess.”

He pauses like he wants to say something else, then stalks off.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I take off to the kitchen, where Tavo’s mom has already placed bread, butter, jam, and coffee in front of Shane. “Carbs,” he says raising his eyebrows and lifting the bread up toward me. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had bread. Guess it’s okay since I’m on vacation.”

María Luisa sits across from him. “Mister Shane, you must stay. How long are you here in España?”

“A couple days,” he says, his mouth wrapped around the toast.

She gestures down the hall. “A few days? Muy bien. You can stay with Miss Kim. We will have room.”

Oh, no, he can’t.

I open my mouth to talk, but María Luisa has already asked Mari Carmen to get a towel for Shane and sent Jorge to get his bag.

This is my nightmare. My absolute nightmare.

While Shane eats, looking around at the beautiful, ancient kitchen, he tries to talk to Antonio, whose eyes are like saucers looking at Shane’s biceps, but there’s not much communication going on. Tavo’s abuelo gives me a weird look and then goes out to smoke. Valeria cuts up vegetables for soup, likely an excuse to eavesdrop.

Haven’t we had enough drama lately?

I have nothing to say, at least not in front of anyone else. Now that Shane’s here, so many thoughts and feelings are running through me, I can’t separate them out. I’m freaked, nervous, scared, relieved, pissed, and nostalgic. He feels familiar, like home, but he’s completely out of place.

Completely.

He’s handsome and annoying, and I don’t want to hurt him, even though I fear I already have. I don’t know how much clearer I could have been. And besides, he sprung the ring on me right before I left. What was I to do? I sit in agony as he eats, frozen, unable to move.

Finally, after seeing him wash down a half a baguette with two cups of coffee, I say, “Can I talk with you? Alone?”

Tavo’s mom gestures grandly down the hall. “Por favor. Be our guest.”

Shane follows me down the hall, his face tentative. I turn around and whisper-shriek at him, “What are you doing here?”

“I told you I had a surprise.”

“Weeks ago.” My hand flies to my hip, and heat infuses my cheeks. “Why didn’t you answer my messages?” We get to my room and step inside. I shut the door behind us.

“I needed to talk to you in person.” He’s acting weird, too, kicking at the ground and biting his lip. Then he reaches out and grabs me in another hug. “Hey. I missed you.”

As I’m in his arms, I feel nothing but friendship. And pissed off. “Did you read my email?”

“Yeah. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

“Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you talk to me? How come you never said anything?”

He lets out his breath, drops his arms, and takes a step back, looking out the window to the cork oak outside. “It’s pretty here.”

Answer my fucking question, Shane.

“Yeah, it is.” I try a different tack. “How have you been?”

“Well.” He clears his throat. “I’ve been well. Listen. I need to talk to you. Things have gotten way out of control, and talking with you in person was the only way to do this.” He eyes my unmade bed and then gingerly sits on the end, putting his hands flat on his thighs and letting out another breath.

I clamber up to the top of my bed and put my pillow on my lap. With my pulse racing, I open my mouth to say that I’m sorry, like I said, I really can’t marry you, but he interrupts my thinking.

“I’m—” He closes his eyes, opens them, and his face is full of terror and pain. Gone is the adrenaline-fueled American who showed up a half hour ago. “Kim. I can’t marry you.”

Wait. What?

He continues. “With you gone, it gave me time to figure out some things.”

“Me too,” I whisper, about to go into how much it’s not going to work between us. But then I look at him and it clicks. It all clicks. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but having him here, after the pause of distance, makes it all make sense. “It’s not me you want to marry.”

“No,” he whispers back.

“It’s Randy.”

He nods and tears form in the corner of his eyes. “You’re the first and only person I’ve told. I had to come here to sort out my thoughts.” And his face crumples.

“Honey.” I crawl over to him and wrap my arms around him to hold his pain.

“With you gone, I had … space. And I realized how much I’d been hiding. I’d suppressed everything for so long. Tried to talk myself into believing I was wrong. And I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t live a lie.” A tear runs down his face. “What are my parents going to say?”

“They’ll love you.”

“They’ll think I’m wrong. All my life, I’ve been taught my feelings are wrong.” He starts sobbing.

Rocking him in my arms, I murmur, “You’re absolutely allowed your feelings. Absolutely.”

“I’m so sorry, Kim. I’m so sorry. I was so scared of coming out to my parents that I’d pushed all of this aside. I knew I’ve had feelings for him … like this, but they aren’t allowed. I’m not allowed. I figured if I married you, I would get all of it out of my system. We’d be set up. It would all go away. And we could all be together. I like you. I love you.”

“But this is who you are.” And now I’m crying, too. “Oh, Shane. You’re more scared of coming out to your parents than marrying me.”

He nods, and his tears drip down onto my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I absolutely love you, Kim, but as a friend. Not as a lover.”

“Same, Shane. Same.”

“You like that Spanish guy?”

I nod. “A lot.”

“He’s cute.”

Shoving Shane, I almost laugh. “He’s mine. Keep away.”

He gives me a rueful laugh, but then it turns back to desperation. “What am I going to do?”

I know exactly what he has to do. Like me dying my hair. Like me owning that I wasn’t in love with Shane. Like me figuring out that I like to cook, and I don’t like to play hockey or speak Mandarin or get an MBA. He needs to own who he is and not let anyone talk him out of it.

“For starters.” I hold his hand. “Shane.”

“Yeah,” he sniffles.

“Tell me who you are.”

His eyes have that deer-in-the-headlights look.

“Say the fucking word, Shane.”

He shakes his head.

“When you say it, it’s the first step toward accepting it.”

He shakes his head again.

“Shane. Tell me who you are. Tell me who you really are.”

He shakes his head.

I stare.

Then he takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes. Opens them. And says, “Kim. I’m gay.” And he breaks down again. Noises come out of him that I’ve never heard from a person. He sounds like a wild animal. Trapped. Caged.

Now I burst out crying too. “I know, honey. I know.” And I did know. All the times we’d spent together, I subconsciously knew there was more than friendship between those two. “I love you just the way you are. We’re not getting married. I’m giving you back your ring so you can make it into something for the love of your life.”

He’s so big, with muscles and tight clothes, but when he cries like this, he’s a little kid.

“Let out that shadowy, secret part of you that you hide with your motivational Instagram posts and your schedules and your precision. You don’t need to hide anymore. At least not from me.”

He curls up on my bed, and I wrap my arms around him. Letting him shake out all these feelings.

After seemingly unending tears, his sobs get quieter. Then they cease.

“But Kim, I cheated on you. I never thought I’d do that. We just got carried away one night, and we kissed. And other things. I’m so sorry.”

My eyes narrow. “When did that start?”

“After you left,” he whispers. “I fought it until then.”

A bunch of emotions run through me. I settle on relief. “I’m glad that it wasn’t while we were together. I guess we both figured stuff out while we were apart. If it makes you feel any better, Tavo kissed me before I emailed you. So I’m sorry, too.”

“Apology accepted.”

“Thanks,” I say.

He stretches out and turns over, his red eyes looking at my red eyes. With a kiss of my forehead, he asks, “What did I do to deserve you?”

“We’re always going to be best friends. Just because we broke up doesn’t mean we can’t talk.”

At last, he sighs. “Thanks. I don’t want to tell anyone else until I’m ready. But I might need someone to give me a push.”

I shove his chest with both hands. “I’m happy to give you a push whenever you need it. I’ll even help you tell them if you like. I’ll support you.”

“Thanks.” He stares at my hair, pressing a strand between his thumb and index finger. “I wonder what our third wheel will think of this?”

“For fuck’s sake, go home to Randy.” I roll on my back and let out a chuckle.

Sidling up next to me, side to side on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, he mutters, “Jeez, you’re swearing a lot, Kim.”

“I know. You don’t know the half of it.”

And I can’t help but laugh for the first time in a while.

“I still can’t believe I didn’t realize you were gay, Shane.”

We’re both calm now. He’s sitting at my desk, and I’m lying on my back on my bed looking at the ceiling.

“I did my best to hide.”

I straighten up and sit against the headboard. “You were using me to hide. For years, Shane.”

He lets out his breath and squeezes his eyes shut. “I know that now. I don’t think I realized it before. And I’m so sorry.”

I look at him, and feelings war. Between genuine friendship and pissed that he used me. But I don’t want to keep all this inside. I want to resolve it. “Apology accepted.” I flex my fingers over my cross-legged thighs. “We were both kind of hiding.”

“How were you hiding?” His open, curious face makes me smile.

“By listening too much to everyone else. Shane, did you know how much I love cooking?”

“You do?”

“I’ve fallen in love with Spanish cuisine.” I’ve fallen in love with other things, too.

“You have?”

“Totally. I’m eating all this weird stuff you’d never find in Iowa. Fish and seafood and tons of garlic and olive oil. It’s so fresh and tasty, though. I love creating it. It’s fun. I feel like I’ve been given freedom to be in the kitchen, and I love testing to see when food is done, tasting all the new flavors. I mean, have you seen saffron threads? They’re tiny and ridiculously expensive. And they make everything taste so good.” I pick at my nails. I need to polish them. “I’ve spent so much time listening to my mother and her weight loss program, which is like fearing food instead of enjoying it.” I give him a pointed glance. “It’s also you with your protein shakes and meals designed for energetic content rather than taste.”

He gives me a sheepish smile. “Yeah. I don’t eat much variety. It helps me stay in shape, though.”

“True. And it’s not just that I’ve learned how much I like being in a kitchen. I’ve discovered that learning a language is a lot harder than I thought. It’s not how it is in class. Talking in class is like being in a controlled lab. Out here in the real world where we speak real Spanish, it’s all messy and hard to understand. They have this thick accent here, and even if I know the words, half the time it takes me a second before I process what they said. And they’re onto another topic before I can figure out what to say back. It’s fascinating and frustrating. When I have a good day and can do my work in class, it feels so amazing and satisfying. But a lot of the time it’s just impossible, and I end up feeling like this dumb foreigner smiling all the time.”

Shane furrows his brow. “I’m probably keeping you from class, too. God, I’m sorry for that as well.”

I let out a sigh. “I haven’t gone to school in a week.”

Should I tell him?

Yeah, I should.

“I haven’t been to school in a week,” I say, “because, uh, well, I found out I’m pregnant.”

His mouth drops open like a cartoon dog. I half expect his jaw to unhinge, and his tongue to go lolling out and then have to be rolled back in.

“You’re … what?” He shakes his head a little bit as if clearing out the cobwebs. “Pregnant. With Tavo?”

I glare at him. “Yes, who else would it be?”

“But Kim? Don’t you … didn’t you use protection?”

“We got carried away, and so caught up in it, I didn’t even think about it. It was like my brain had shut off, and all I wanted to do was feel.”

“We never felt that way for each other,” he whispers.

“No,” I whisper back. “He’s my lover, Shane. In all senses of the word.”

Straightening up, he rubs his jaw. “Jeez, Kim. Pregnant. How are you going to tell your parents?”

I get that bad feeling in my gut. Not the one from pregnancy. The one from not knowing what I’m going to do. “I don’t know. I’ll just have to tell them.”

“I mean, you’re going to keep it.”

I nod, and I’m not nodding because he’s telling me this. I’m nodding because it’s my conclusion, too. “Of course. Doing anything else, well, it doesn’t feel right. Not for me. Or him, he says.”

He stands up and comes over to the bed, sitting by me. Patting the back of my hand, he says, “If you want support in telling your parents, I’ll be there.”

“And I’ll support telling yours,” I say.

We just sit in the quiet for a moment. Outside a bird chirps, and a dog barks somewhere far away.

“But you and Tavo? Is it serious?”

“It’s so serious it scares me. Shane, you and I were always destined to be in the friend zone.” I scoot up and put my head on his shoulder. “I think we’re always going to be friends. With Tavo, my emotions are so fierce. I’m putting myself on the line. Like, I trust him with everything. Do you know how risky it is to have someone in charge of your everything?”

“That’s how I feel with Randy.”

I get chills up my arms. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “So with Tavo, everything has happened so fast, and I’m caught up in this whirlwind of emotions. It’s not just him, it’s the pregnancy. I think my hormones make me go up and down. My moods and emotions swing wildly from complete and utter despair to elation. My body aches. I’m sick all the time. And my brain is this fuzzy mess.”

“Well,” he says sagely, “maybe it’s best not to make any rash decisions.”

“Yeah. We’ve got all these things going on. He’s supposed to marry the neighbor girl to keep her father from foreclosing on the farm.”

“Holy moly.”

“And his mom doesn’t like me. Except for that, though, I love it here in Spain. Otherwise, I belong.”

“So you’re glad you came?”

I hug my belly. “Yeah. So very much. Even if it’s painful sometimes. It’s worth it.”