“Hannah was right.”
He pulls back to look at Mara. Her legs are wrapped around his waist, because he picked her up the second he got home and she used the p-word. There’s something lodged in Liam’s fist—ah, yes. The test.
She showed him the second he got home, wagging it under his nose. There’s probably pee on it, and he should probably find it disgusting, but . . .
Yeah. No.
“Hannah? About what?”
“About your reaction.” Mara presses a kiss to Liam’s cheek, then grins, then disentangles herself from his arms. A steady, nimble descent. “She said you were going to buffer for fifteen minutes once I told you.”
“When you told me . . . ?”
“About this.” Her fingers splay against her abdomen, and for a split second his brain short-circuits in the best possible way. It’s happening. This is going to happen. This is his life. He doesn’t deserve it, but somehow this is his life, and—
“Wait.” He shakes his head, chasing the other, less pleasant train of thought. “How can Hannah know about the baby?”
“I told her, of course.” Mara smiles again and grabs his hand, pulling him into the kitchen. She also takes the test from him and drops it into the hallway trash bin. It’s not something Liam’s ready for, saying good-bye to the one piece of evidence that yes, this is happening, so he makes a mental note to retrieve it later. In the meantime . . .
“When did you tell her?”
“Earlier this morning. When I found out.”
Earlier this . . .
Liam frowns. Then he scowls. Then a sound comes out of him, and Mara stops in her tracks to look back at him. She’s beautiful and still happy-looking, but also narrow eyed all of a sudden.
“Did you just . . . growl?” she asks.
“No.” Yes. “Did you tell your friends about the baby before telling me?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “I had to tell someone.”
“Did you consider . . . me?”
“You were in court. All day.”
“You could have called me.”
“I couldn’t tell you on the phone.” Her hands come to her hips—usually Liam’s cue to let go of an argument.
He does not let go. “You told your friends on the phone.” He sounds sullen.
“It’s totally different. And anyway, Hannah and Sadie have been asking for updates every day since I told them we’d been trying, so.”
“They knew we—” The sound chokes somewhere in his trachea. Liam clears his throat. Twice. “They knew we were trying?”
“Yeah.” Mara blushes a little, and Liam takes a step closer.
This time, it’s his hands on his hips. “What did you tell them?”
“Just . . . you know . . .” The way she hand-waves is very suspicious and reveals something:
Her friends know everything about their sex lives for the last two months.
Every. Single. Thing.
“What about Ian and Erik? Do they know I’m having a baby?”
“I’m not sure,” Mara says, evasive.
Too evasive.
“Mara.”
“Well, Erik sent over celebratory croissants. They were really good. I left you one, by the way. Well, half. And Ian texted me to ask if we’re going to call the baby X ? A-Xii. It’s an Elon Musk joke. And Elon Musk is an engineer, so it’s kinda funny—”
“I know who Elon Musk is.”
For maybe half a second, Mara looks contrite. It all melts when her arms slide into the loops of his and she hugs herself to his chest. “They’re really happy for us,” she murmurs against his shirt. “I’m really happy for us.”
Okay. Fine. Who cares? So everyone knows about their sex schedule. Big deal. What’s some reproductive life talk among friends, after all?
“I’m happier,” he murmurs against the crown of her hair. “I’m happiest.”
But while Mara brings him dinner （half a croissant that looks more like one third）， he checks his phone, scrolls past the group chat he shares with Mara’s friends and their partners, and zeroes in on the text thread with Ian and Erik. It was pinging today while he was busy in court. Ian, trying to convince Erik to buy a PS5 to play the FIFA 22 game. As if.
First of all, you assholes could have mentioned I’m having a baby.
Liam’s just too happy to be mad.
But more importantly: FIFA 19 is a million times better.
ERIK
The phone buzzes in Erik’s pocket, but he doesn’t check what for.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t take his eyes off Sadie. Doesn’t step away from his strategic position—leaning against the fridge—which allows him a full view of the kitchen, and, above all, of his wife.
It’s not because she’s pretty, or mesmerizing, or his happy place—even though she is all of these things. It’s not because he’s in love with her, or interested in what she’s doing, or enthralled by the way she moves—even though he is all of these things.
The reason he won’t look away from his beloved spouse on this beautiful April night is a bit more basic, and vaguely embarrassing:
Abject fear.
Not quite of Sadie, but of what she might do to his brother. His poor, unsuspecting, clearly terrified brother.
Anders has been “finding himself” all over the world for the past several years, and has therefore never met Erik’s wife before today. Maybe if he’d showed up to their wedding in Copenhagen . . . but he was too busy picking plums in Australia. Which means that his knowledge of Sadie is undoubtedly secondhand, most likely through Erik’s parents. And, oh, Erik can just imagine his mom’s review. What a kind, radiant, lovely bride. A brilliant, gentle young woman. A bit superstitious—she forbade anyone to gift knives and she put six pennies in her shoe, which fell out while she was walking to the altar—but so lovely. The football-shaped wedding cake she insisted on—unusual, but delightful. She’s perfect for your brother.
Yup. Erik can just imagine. Just like he can imagine Anders shitting himself as Sadie leans over the kitchen table to hiss at him: “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m— I—” He points at Erik. To no one’s surprise, his finger is shaking. “His younger brother—”
“I know who you are.” Sadie’s eyes narrow. “What I asked is: Who do you think you are, to come into my house and steal my cat?”
“Um, technically, Garfield is my—”
“His name is Cat.”
Anders blinks. “Pretty sure I named him Garfield.”
“You named him Garfield. Past tense. Then Erik took him in because you were Eat Pray Loving your way through Europe. Erik opened his home and his heart, and renamed him Cat. And Cat likes it much better than Garfield. Don’t you, babe?”
On the windowsill, Cat licks his orange paw in what almost looks like a nod. Mmm.
“Knowing Erik, I seriously doubt he opened his heart to—”
“Things have changed around here, Anders.” Sadie’s tone is so sharp, Erik’s six-foot-something, two-hundred-pound brother presses himself deeper into his chair. Yeah, Erik thinks, watching little wisps of hair come undone from her bun and frame her face. She’s terrifying. And cute. “Especially between Erik and Cat. They are bonded now.”