Sophie doesn’t know it, but today is our fifth anniversary. Five years ago today I took a wrong turn that changed my life. There was construction on Walnut. I detoured and missed my normal stop at Starbucks. I spotted Grind Me and stopped on a whim, desperate for a jolt of caffeine before the clinic.

I had no reason to go back the next week. Or the week after that. Weeks of detours for no reason other than a glance at a barista named Sophie. I had to finish the coffee in my damn car every day since I wasn’t about to walk into a student clinic holding a cup stamped Grind Me.

I never intended to start up anything with her. I knew she was young. I assumed she was a grad student at the very least, but that was still too young for me. It was nothing more than a harmless ego boost at first - watching her pupils dilate when I spoke, her cheeks flush when she handed me coffee. Seeing her eyes follow me in the reflection of the glass every morning as I strode out of the cafe.

Slowly I began to question, Why not her? I could take her out to dinner. Fuck her. Get her out of my system. But hell, she looked like the kind of girl who’d need to be called the next day. She looked like the kind of girl who had baby names picked out and would practice writing Mrs. Miller on scraps of paper. She looked terrifying.

But I didn’t have any idea what terrifying actually felt like until I realized that I was the one who wanted all those things, and I wasn’t sure she did. That maybe the past was repeating itself. That maybe Sophie might be more interested in a career than a husband and children, with no faith that she could have both.

I glance at her, sleeping next to me. She’s stirring with the morning sun filtering in. We don’t have long before the girls will be awake and the day begins. I reach over and trace kisses down her jaw to her chest.

"Mmm, good morning to you too, Dr. Miller. Tell me you locked the door?" she pleads.

I release a nipple from my teeth before replying. "Locked, and they’re both still asleep." I part her legs and move between them as I kiss her stomach. "Based on the time we should have at least twenty minutes."

She laughs. "Remember when we had all day?"

"I do." I grin at her.

"I miss the marathons, but I do enjoy seeing how creative you can be on a deadline."

"Do you?" I ask and drop her ankles over my shoulders.

"Uh-huh."

"I enjoy it when you visit me at work after dropping the girls off at the hospital daycare."

"Do you think we're bad parents? Are the other parents using daycare to slip in a middle-of-the-day fuck?"

"If they're not, they should be."

"It was one thing when they couldn't walk, but they're little terrors now."

I pause and raise my head. "You don't want another one?"

"We have two!" she exclaims. "Under five! I just got Christine off to pre-school and I finally have Alessandra out of diapers."

"Well, maybe you'll change your mind?" I raise an eyebrow at her.

"Wait a minute." She sits up and scoots away from me. "Wait, wait, wait." She eyes me, scowling. "Do you think I'm pregnant now?"

"You're three days late."

"You're three days annoying."

"I love the way your insults don't even make sense when you're flustered." I reach for her calf to pull her back to me, but she dodges me and grabs her phone from the nightstand.

I wait patiently while she thumbs through looking for her period-tracker app.

“How do you do that?” She scowls. “You don’t even have the app!”

"Pregnancy tests under the sink," I call out as she stomps off to the bathroom. "I can get a blood draw this week when you stop in for office sex."

"Thanks, babe, that's convenient," she replies sarcastically, and I just laugh.

I hear the stick hit the trash can before she appears from the bathroom with a sigh she doesn’t mean. I smile and crook my finger, beckoning her back to bed to finish what we started.

Something thumps against the bedroom door and the handle shakes back and forth. "Mommy?"

She sags. "There goes morning sex. For the next decade."

"Just a minute," I call out to whichever kid is in the hallway. "You," I say to her, "get back in bed. Give me five minutes, I'll set them up with a snack and a Disney movie and be right back."

She bites back a smirk. "You're going to distract our children with a movie so we can have sex? You’re so wrong."