Deadshifted

It was already afternoon back home. My mother picked up the phone, her voice unsure because she didn’t recognize Asher’s number. “Hey, Mom? It’s me. Guess what…”



She started screaming before I could finish my entire sentence. She heard “baby” and let loose—which was good because right after that, the phone cut out. “Mom? Mom?” I tried redialing, and found I couldn’t; there was no connection. I handed Asher back his phone. He tried again, and when it didn’t work, he shrugged.



“We’re probably too far out.”



“She heard enough—she’ll probably be waiting for us at the dock.” Holding a diaper bag and a list of distant relatives she wanted to invite to our baby shower.



“I could hear her from over here.” He grinned and sat beside me. “How are you feeling?”



“Apart from the sick thing, good. I think.” I spent a moment checking in with myself. I was going to be a mom. A mom … I looked at him, eyes wide. Oh, my God. It was real.



Asher watched me panicking. “You’re sure?”



“Yeah. I think.” The world around me was narrowing, though. I felt like I was in a tunnel, and the distant exit was getting smaller.



He wrapped an arm around me and held me close. “It’s okay to be scared. But everything’s going to be just fine.”



“How do you know?”



He beamed down at me. “Because it’s too early for you—for either of us—to be able to screw anything up. It’s not even worth worrying about now.”



“But what if I still do? Or—things later?” The enormity of eighteen years of responsibility, and beyond, stretched in front of me like open road.



He made an absurd face. “That’s not going to happen, Edie.”



“But what if it does?”



“Then you’ll have me around to help you unscrew it,” Asher said, and I nodded slowly, forcing myself to agree with him. I knew he meant it. But I also knew my propensity to mess things up. “Are you seriously worried about that, this early in the game?” he went on. “Don’t make me start chalking things up to hormones this fast.”



I inhaled deeply and held it for a second too long to buy myself time to think. “You knew I was naturally paranoid when you started dating me. Not just knew, but knew-knew.” I wiggled my fingers between us to indicate the strange.



“I did,” he agreed. “It’s oddly charming, though completely unnecessary.”



“What if I suck at this?” I poked at my stomach, like the creature inside there could poke back.



“Are you being serious?” Asher pulled away to look at me like I might be coming down with something.



“Completely. What if I mess up their life? What if they hate me?”



“Edie,” he said, dismissing me with a head shake, his voice low. “There is no possible way that will happen.”



“You know me. I mean, you really know me, Asher. It wouldn’t be the first thing I’d screwed up—” There was a swelling under my breastbone, and I didn’t know if it was more nausea or stomach acid. I put my hand there, to press it down.



Asher’s hand followed mine, interlacing his fingers. “No one gets any guarantees. And while you are reckless—I know you try harder than anyone. If anyone can make this work, it’s you and me. We’re a team. Okay?”



I nodded quickly, as though I was trying to convince myself, and took several deep breaths. “Thanks.”



“I love you.” He stood suddenly, pulling me up after him. “I never actually loved anyone before I met you.”



“That’s because you were too busy using them,” I said aloud with my outside voice. Asher looked pained, pressing his lips together tight. “Oh, God. See? That was it. I do that. I don’t mean to do it, but I do that. Sometimes. It’s like I can’t even help doing it. I’ll be doing that all over PTA meetings. For the next eighteen years.”



The pained look was replaced by soft exasperation, and then he laughed aloud. “And somehow I still love you. In spite of it. Maybe because of it.”



I bit the insides of my lips before I could say anything else. He sank to his knees in front of me. “Edie, let’s get married.”



CHAPTER SEVEN



My lips became unglued. “What?”



“You heard me.”



He was kneeling in front of me, looking up expectantly. I stared at him like a deer in headlights. The longer I was stunned, the wider he smiled.



“Say yes. We’re on a ship for two weeks. We’ll get the captain to do it somehow.”



I blinked. “Yes.” He stood immediately and I shoved him lightly before he could kiss me. “I can’t believe you’re not even nervous! About anything!”



Asher laughed and swooped me up. “Of course I am. I’m just better at faking being calm than you.”



And then he kissed me, one of those sweet kisses you see on diamond jewelry commercials on TV, except it was me. The girl who just got everything she ever wanted, mostly. When we came up for air I was beaming.



“Someone should pinch me,” I said. With an evil grin, Asher did. “Hey!”



“Just following orders, ma’am,” he said, innocently.



I laughed. His hand rested where he’d pinched, then moved up underneath my shirt. I extricated myself, still laughing, and stretched out on the bed, and he moved to lie beside me. I snuggled him.



“Will your mom get mad?” Asher asked, a possessive arm around my waist.



“No. It’ll be easier this way. Assuming we can swing it.”



Asher shrugged. “We’ll swing it.”



Of course we would. If it wasn’t allowed, or there wasn’t time, he’d just bribe whoever he had to until rules were broken in our favor. Asher was the type of man who made things happen—betrothals or pushing people overboard. For better, or for worse.



But getting married on the ship would be easier on everyone. There’d be fewer hoops to jump through, and I wouldn’t have to worry about getting all my family in one place at the same time, fight-free. And this way my mom wouldn’t get the chance to ask questions about where Asher’s absent family was.



“Are there any shapeshifter traditions I should be aware of?” I imagined myself throwing a grenade instead of a bouquet.



There was a long pause. “Live fast, die free?”



“All this time we’ve been dating, and you never told me you were secretly in a motorcycle gang.”



He snorted. “We don’t do this that often. You’re supposed to find someone like yourself to settle down with. Have a few kids, fast. Raise them up to fend for themselves in time.”



“How old were you when…” My voice drifted, unsure what I was asking him.



“When all the adults in my life abandoned me?” he filled in. “Fourteen.”



“You’ve been on your own since then?”



“Yeah. Of course.”



“Wasn’t it hard?”



“Not really. It wasn’t fun … but it wasn’t hard, either.” I twisted back to see him better, caught him staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. “It was mostly lonely.”



I found his hand wrapped around my waist, with my own, and his fingers twined with mine. “Not anymore.”



Asher looked down at me. “You’re really going to be with me, a misfit shapeshifter, for the rest of your life?”



I smiled up at him. “Yeah. I think you’re pretty much stuck with me now.”



“Good.” He nodded, and kissed my temple, and then held me as the ship rocked back and forth on the waves. We were quiet together, and I wondered what he was thinking. I managed not to ask him, though. I closed my eyes and just let the moment spin. When I opened them again, he had a questioning look on his face.



“Sleeping? Food? Or other things?”



This really was a vacation. I really didn’t have anything I had to do for fourteen whole days. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had that long off. Maybe the summer break before I got a job, back in high school.



I stretched beside him. I was hungry; my stomach was still on the other coast. “Food. And then we’ll see about sex, fiancé.”



Asher grinned. “I like the sound of that.”



* * *



It was in between breakfast and lunch, but there were certain restaurants on board that never closed. We made our way to one of these on the third floor, the Dolphin, through an indoor bar and promenade, with leather chairs facing huge portal windows showing a deck and, past it, the choppy seas outside. If I looked just right, I could see the orange belly of a lifeboat hanging down. Good to know. I wasn’t sure which was making me more green, the motion of the ship or my pregnancy, but I was fixated on getting pancakes. If only I’d had a day or two longer to get sea legs under me before everything else.



“Are you sure you want to risk it?” Asher asked solicitously.



“Yes.” I might learn better right afterward, but I was set on learning the hard way. “They’re spongy. They might help.” I wished I’d listened to all my pregnant coworkers back in the day. I’d always tuned out their pregnant-lady talks before. My current ignorance served me right. “At least the syrup might be fast calories? Maybe I can absorb some without throwing them up.”



Asher didn’t look like he thought it was a good idea, but he shrugged, willing to let me learn for myself.



This time of morning, the restaurant was mostly empty, except for the dolphins painted on the walls chasing one another. The maître d’ seated us near a window. Asher began to tell him to move us, but I quickly shook my head. “It’s nice to see outside.” Maybe if I could see the waves, I’d begin to get a feel for their motion, and separate them from my stomach. The window was bubbled out, giving a view in all directions, dark waters below, sun ahead, and behind us fast clouds pushing in.