Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
NATHAN
Whatever it is, we'll figure it out.
The words mock me from my phone screen as I arrive at Snow City Cafe fifteen minutes early.
The cafe buzzes with the usual afternoon crowd—outdoor guides discussing trail conditions, students buried in laptops, a woman in fleece ordering something with too many modifications to be called coffee anymore.
I claim a corner table with clear sightlines to the entrance and begin my ritual: napkin squared to the table edge, phone positioned parallel to said napkin, sugar packets organized by type—white, raw, artificial sweetener that probably causes cancer, but everyone uses anyway.
The barista glances over, recognizes me from my twice-weekly visits, and starts my usual americano without being asked.
Control. Order. Predictability. The foundation of a life that actually makes sense.
Unlike whatever situation Avery Lane is about to walk through that door with.
Are you okay? I'd asked. Not really, she'd answered.
The words have been rotating in my mind like a CT scan I can't quite read.
Since her text yesterday, I've diagnosed everything from terminal illness to witness protection.
Because what else makes someone who hasn't spoken to you in two months suddenly need to meet?
Two months since Dimitri's wedding. Since I did something completely out of character and slept with a woman I'd known for three hours.
Since I woke up alone in that wine cave with a note that said Thanks for the photo opportunity and a Polaroid of me sleeping that somehow managed to be both invasive and endearing.
I check my watch. Twelve minutes early now.
She'll be late. People like Avery are always late, living in some alternate timeline where schedules are suggestions and appointments are abstract concepts.
It should irritate me. It does irritate me.
So why have I thought about her every single day since—
The door chimes.
She's five minutes early.
My brain actually stutters, like someone's knocked my mental filing system onto the floor. Avery Lane doesn't do early. Except apparently she does, standing in the doorway like she's photographing her own entrance, cataloguing exits and obstacles and possibly my facial expression.
She looks different. Her hair is a bit longer, wilder, honey-blonde waves catching the afternoon light, like she's been living outdoors—which, knowing her, she probably has.
The late afternoon sun backlights her frame, turning her into a silhouette that my brain unhelpfully notes is exactly as perfect as I remember.
Wearing jeans with a hole in one knee and a flannel shirt that's too big, probably thrifted, probably has a story she'd tell with animated hands and self-deprecating humor.
But her face is pale. Too pale. And her hand hovers over her stomach in a gesture that sends my diagnostic brain into overdrive.
"Hi," she says, approaching the table with uncharacteristic caution.
"You're early." Brilliant opening, Kingsley. Really showcasing that Hopkins education.
"You're earlier." She attempts a smile that doesn't quite land. "Let me guess—you've already reorganized the sugar packets and critiqued the barista's extraction technique."
"The packets were already organized. I just improved the system."
There. A real smile this time, small but genuine. Avery sits across from me, doesn't remove her oversized sunglasses. I catalog symptoms automatically: mild hand tremor, careful movements like she's nauseated, the way she turns her face away from the coffee smell wafting from the bar.
"You want something to drink?" I ask.
"Maybe just water?"
Water. Avery Lane, who I watched consume four espresso martinis at the wedding without blinking, wants water.
The silence stretches between us like surgical wire, taut and potentially dangerous. Her fingers spin that silver ring shaped like a camera aperture—the one from a street vendor in Prague. Or Portland. The story blurs in my memory, overshadowed by the way her hands had moved when she told it.
"So," I begin, then stop. Twenty-seven published papers, hundreds of surgical consultations, and I can't figure out how to start this conversation.
"So," she echoes. Then: "God, this is awkward."
"Spectacularly."
"I mean, what's the protocol here? Do we acknowledge that we've seen each other naked, or pretend we're strangers who just happen to know exactly what sounds the other makes when—"
"Avery."
"Right. Sorry. I babble when I'm nervous." She pulls off her sunglasses, and I can see the exhaustion written in purple shadows beneath her eyes. "You look good. Very... doctory."
I glance down at my scrubs, having come straight from surgery. "Doctory isn't a word."
"It should be. It perfectly describes that whole—" she gestures vaguely at me, "—thing you've got going on. Like you just saved lives and are now going to organize them alphabetically."
"I don't organize lives."
"Nathan, you told me you tried to create a spreadsheet for optimal wine tasting progression while at the reception."
"That was about palate cleansing between varietals—"
"It was about control." She's fidgeting with her ring again, faster now. "Which, I get. Control is good. Control is... controllable."
The water arrives. She grabs it like a lifeline, drinks half in one go. I watch her throat work, note the slight green tinge that appears around her mouth after.
"You're sick," I say. Statement, not question.
"Not exactly."
"Then what—"
"I'm pregnant."
The words hit like a surgical complication you didn't see coming. That moment when routine suddenly becomes emergency, when everything you thought you knew shifts ninety degrees left.
My brain, the same one that can calculate drug dosages on the fly and remember every bone in the human body, goes completely blank.
"What?" The word comes out strangled.
"Pregnant. With child. Knocked up. Bun in the oven. Would you like more synonyms, or should I move on to the part where I promise I don't want anything from you?"
She's rambling, words tumbling over each other like she's trying to build a wall between us. Her hands move to her stomach again—protective, unconscious. The gesture rewrites everything, adds context to every observation from the last ten minutes.
"It's mine." The timeline is obvious, the logic inescapable. We used protection, but I know the statistics—nothing's a hundred percent. We weren't even close to perfect use that night in the wine cave, fumbling in the dark, drunk on wine and each other.
"No, Nathan, it's the other guy I slept with in a wine cave eight weeks ago." The sarcasm is sharp but her voice cracks. "Yes, it's yours."
Yours. Your child. Your responsibility.
The cafe continues around us—steam wands hissing, keyboards clicking, someone laughing at a YouTube video—but I'm trapped in a bubble of shifted reality.
My five-year plan unfolds in my mind like a surgical checklist, every item suddenly irrelevant.
Year two: build patient base. Not: become a father with a woman who lives in a van and thinks meal planning is buying extra granola bars.
"Say something," Avery whispers.
"I need a minute."
"Take all the minutes you want. I've had two days to process and I still don't—"
"Two days?" The interruption is sharp. "You've known for two days?"
"I found out yesterday morning. In a gas station bathroom, if you want the glamorous details. Three tests. All positive. I have them in my bag if you want proof, though that's probably weird—"
"A gas station?"
"I was photographing a retreat. The kind where people pay hundreds of dollars to be told they're cosmic stardust, which is technically true but doesn't really help with life decisions."
Using humor as armor again. I recognize the tactic because I use structure the same way.
"Okay." I take a breath, let my training kick in. When everything goes wrong in surgery, you don't panic. You assess, adapt, proceed. "We need to discuss options."
"Options." Her voice goes flat.
"I'm not suggesting—I mean, whatever you decide, I support. But we should discuss—"
"I'm keeping it."
The certainty in her voice surprises us both, I think. She blinks, like she's just now hearing her own decision.
"Okay," I say again. "Then we need a plan."
"Of course we do." But there's no heat in it, just exhaustion. "Let me guess—you've already got a mental checklist running. Prenatal vitamins, check. Obstetrician recommendations, check. Optimal nursery color for cognitive development—"
"You need to see a doctor." I'm already scrolling through my phone. "I know the head of obstetrics at Anchorage General. Dr. Alicia Hoffman. She's excellent. I can call—"
"Nathan."
"—get you in this week. And you'll need to start prenatal vitamins immediately. Folic acid is crucial in the first trimester—"
"Nathan."
"—we should discuss living situations. You can't raise a baby in a van. I have a guest room—"
"Nathan!" Her hand slams on the table, making the sugar packets jump out of formation. "Stop. Just... stop."
I look up from my phone. Tears track down her face silently, which is somehow worse than sobbing.
"I don't need you to fix this," she says. "I don't need your guest room or your doctor recommendations, or your five-year plan adjusted to accommodate an accident."
"It's not—" I stop. Because what? It's not an accident? By definition, it absolutely is.
"I know what this is," she continues. "Trust me, I'm not expecting you to suddenly want to play happy family with someone you barely know. Someone whose last name you probably don't even remember."
"Lane." The response is automatic. "Avery Jane Lane."
She stares at me.
"Your grandmother was Jane. You loved her too much to change your middle name even though you think it's boring. You organize your camera equipment by frequency, not type, which looks chaotic but makes perfect sense when you explain it. You’re allergic to milk."