16. Millie
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MILLIE
We walk home. Neither of us talks, and we don't need to—the quiet sits easy between us. I glance at him. He's looking ahead, hands in his pockets, a small smile on his face like he's replaying something in his head.
How easy it would be to look at Joseph and assume everything came easily to him.
The charm. The confidence. The way people lean toward him the second he enters a room.
But none of it came free. He earned every bit of it by being the kid who decided early that if he kept everyone laughing, no one would notice the hard parts.
You really can't judge a person by the face they show the world.
Someone rushes past me on the sidewalk, too close, shoulder clipping mine. I stumble. Joseph's arm is around me before I finish losing my balance, pulling me into his side, his hand firm on my shoulder.
"You okay?"
I nod.
"Stay close to me."
I don't pull away. He doesn't let go. We walk the rest of the way like that. His arm around me. My body tucked into his side. I can feel his warmth through his jacket and the steadiness of his stride, and I match mine to it without trying.
When we get home, I can feel the shift the second the door closes. The apartment is dim. Just the kitchen light he left on. The sound of the city drops away, and it's just us and the quiet and the air between us.
He turns to me. "You okay?"
I nod. I point at him and mouth: You?
His mouth curves, slow and easy. "Better than okay."
I smile back, and he leans down and kisses me, gentle and unhurried. His hand cups the side of my face, his lips warm, and there's no hesitation in it, none at all—he just lets the kiss be soft and complete in itself, and I feel it in places I forgot I had.
He pulls back. "Goodnight, Mills."
I mouth goodnight. My hands won't move. My phone is in my pocket, and I couldn't type a word right now if someone paid me. He smiles one more time, turns, and walks to the guest room.
I go to his room. Close the door. Lie in his bed. Press my face into the pillow.
I'm falling for him. I've been falling for him since he decided to stay. Since the whiteboard. Since the night on the rooftop when he said he wanted to learn my language. And every day I spend with him, every new thing I learn about him, I just fall even more.
I've been falling for him, and the only reason I haven't hit the ground is because I keep pretending I'm still standing. But I'm not. And I don't want to stop it anymore.
Tofu jumps onto the bed and curls into the crook of my knees. I scratch behind her good ear. "I'm in trouble," I sign to her in the dark. She purrs. Unhelpful as always.
A few days later is my second OB appointment. Brookfield Medical again.
The waiting room is less terrifying this time.
Joseph takes my hand before I even sit down.
Last time there was a wall between us in these chairs.
Now his knee is against mine, and our fingers are laced.
I don't think about whether we look like a real couple or whatever I was worried about last time. I don't care.
The receptionist calls us in. I hop onto the exam table. Joseph pulls his chair closer. The gel is cold, and I flinch again, still not used to it. He squeezes my hand.
The wand moves. The screen fills with gray and white, and the shapes that I'm slowly learning to read. Dr. Park adjusts, tilts, and the image sharpens.
"Baby is looking great," she says. "Growth is right on track. Everything is measuring exactly where we want it."
I exhale. Joseph's fingers tighten around mine.
I type and show her. The bump isn't really visible yet. Is that normal?
She smiles. "Completely normal. You're petite. First-time moms with a smaller frame can show later. Every body carries differently. I promise you that baby is growing perfectly."
I nod. Okay. Okay.
She takes a few more measurements. Then she looks at us. "Would you like to know the sex?"
I look at Joseph, and he's already looking at me, eyebrows lifted in a question. Do you want to?
I nod. He nods back, and a grin breaks across his face before he can help it.
Dr. Park moves the wand, adjusts, studies the screen for a moment.
"It's a boy."
The room goes quiet.
A boy.
I look at the screen. At the shape of him. He's bigger than last time. More defined. I can see the curve of his head, the line of his spine, and he's moving. Tiny movements, small shifts, and I can't feel them yet, but I can see them on the screen, and he's real. He's so real.
A boy. A son. My son.
There's going to be a person in the world who is half me. Who might have my eyes or my stubbornness or my love for music. Who will probably have Joseph's smile, his laugh, his charm. Who will have a voice. A loud, full, beautiful voice.
My vision blurs. The tears come sideways again because I'm lying on my back and they run down my temples into my hair. I don't wipe them.
Joseph's hand tightens around mine. I turn my head to look at him.
His eyes are locked on the screen. Glassy.
Wide. His lips are parted slightly, and he's completely still—which is rare for him, because Joseph is never still.
He looks like someone just handed him something he doesn't know how to hold yet.
He's in awe. Pure, unfiltered, wordless. And watching him look at our son for the first time, watching this man who fills every room with noise go completely silent, something in me fills so completely it aches.
Despite how we got here. Despite all of it. I'm glad it's him. I'm so glad the father of my baby is this man sitting in a plastic chair with wet eyes and a death grip on my hand, staring at a screen like he just discovered something he didn't know he'd been waiting for.
I squeeze his hand. He squeezes back. Hard. Like he's holding onto me and the screen and this moment all at once, and he doesn't want any of it to slip.
Dr. Park gives us a minute. She always does. She's good at that. Knowing when to keep talking and when to just let people sit with what they're seeing.
Joseph clears his throat. "A boy." He says it like he's testing the words. "We're having a boy."
I nod, more tears coming, and I don't care anymore.
"What do you think he'll look like?" he asks. His voice is still rough, but the smile is back. "I'm hoping he gets your eyes. Mine are boring."
I type through blurry vision: Your eyes are not boring.
"They're brown. That's the definition of boring eyes."
Brown eyes are warm. Our son will be lucky to have them.
He reads it, then goes quiet for a second. I just called him our son—like confirmation that this is something we have together.
Dr. Park finishes the appointment. Everything looks perfect. Next scan at twenty weeks. She prints a new image. I hold it in both hands, walking out of the building like it's made of glass.
We sit in the car. He doesn't start the engine. I keep looking at the printout. He's bigger in this one. The round of his head, the bow of his spine. More person than blur. I trace the outline with my finger.
Joseph keeps glancing over—at me, at the printout. He's gripping the steering wheel with one hand and drumming his fingers on his knee with the other, and he's bursting with something.
"I need to tell you something," he says.
I look up.
"When the doctor said it's a boy, the first thing I thought was that I'm going to teach him to ride a bike.
Which is random. I know. But I just saw it.
This kid on a bike in a park somewhere, and me running behind him, and I don't even know where that came from, but now I can't stop thinking about it. "
I smile.
"And then I thought, I'm going to teach him to cook. He's going to be better at it than me, which won't be hard. And I'm going to teach him to be kind to people. And to respect women. And to never be the guy who walks away when things get complicated." He looks at me.
I reach over and take his hand off the steering wheel. His fingers fold around mine the second they're free.
I type with one hand: He's going to be amazing. Because he'll have you.
He reads it, and something moves across his face. He blinks, swallows, looks out the windshield for a second like he needs somewhere to put it.
"Okay, you need to stop saying things like that or I'm going to cry in this parking lot and I have a very manly reputation I need to maintain."
I type: What reputation?
"The one where I'm tough and cool and don't cry at OB appointments."
That reputation ended about ten minutes ago.
"It did. It absolutely did. And I blame our kid."
We sit there a few more minutes. Holding hands over the center console. The parking lot is quiet. The printout is in my lap.
Later that night. His bed. The most comfortable bed I've ever slept in.
It molds to me now. I know the shape of it, which side I prefer, which pillow I reach for.
The first few nights after we switched rooms, I fell asleep instantly because I was exhausted and the comfort just swallowed me before I could think about anything.
Tonight I'm awake. And when you're awake, you notice things. Like how large this bed is. How empty the other side feels. How quiet and cold the room is.
I turn over. Turn back. Adjust the pillow. Nothing works.
I tell myself I'm going to ask him because I feel guilty. That's the reason. He's the owner of this bed, and he's sleeping on a guest mattress because of me. I should at least offer to share. It's practical. It's considerate. It has nothing to do with wanting him next to me. Nothing at all.
I get up before I can talk myself out of it. I knock on his door.
He answers immediately, concern on his face. "Everything okay?"
I nod. I type: I feel bad that you're sleeping in here. We should just switch back.
He reads it and shakes his head. "I'm fine, Mills. The guest bed is great."
I type: Well, what if you sleep with me then?
He looks up from my phone. The corner of his mouth lifts. "You want me to sleep with you?"
I grab the phone back so fast I almost drop it. I type: Sleep beside me. On the same bed. So we're both comfortable.
I show him again. I'm burning. I hope the hallway is dark enough to hide it.
He's grinning. "Sure. Yeah, that sounds like a good deal."
He follows me back to his room. I get into bed on my side.
He gets in on his. The bed is big enough that there's space between us, but I can feel him.
The warmth. The mattress shifting. The sound of him breathing.
I stare at the ceiling. I'm acutely aware that the last time we were in this bed together, we were not sleeping, and I need to stop thinking about that immediately.
"You been having trouble sleeping?" he asks.
I nod in the dark. I don't know if he can see it, but he reads the silence.
"Anything hurt? Baby making you uncomfortable?"
I pick up my phone. The screen is too bright, and I squint. I type: It's going to sound weird.
"I work in a hospital. I've seen and heard everything. Try me."
I type: I want to be held.
I stare at the words. They look so small. So honest. I delete them. Type something about the pillow being wrong. Something safe. Then delete that too and type: Sorry. Never mind. It's weird. Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones or something.
He reads it. The screen lights up his face, and I watch him read it twice.
But he must have seen what I typed before I deleted it, because he moves closer.
No hesitation. He closes the gap between us, wraps his arms around me, and pulls me in.
My face presses against his chest. His chin settles on top of my head.
One arm around my back, the other resting on my hip, careful of my left side even now. Even half-asleep, he's careful.
"Whatever the reason," he says, his voice low and close, "this is the best request I've ever gotten. I'm more than happy to oblige. So no need to hide from me."
I press my face into his shirt. He smells like soap and warmth and something that catches me off guard, because I didn't even realize I'd been looking for it. But there it is. This man smells like home.
And then something cracks open. Quiet. Deep.
Because no one has held me like this before.
Not once. I've slept alone in every bed I've ever owned.
I never asked anyone to hold me because I never thought I could.
Asking requires a voice, or at least the willingness to be that vulnerable, and I've spent my life keeping that door closed.
But tonight I knocked on his door, and he wrapped his arms around me without a single question.
I close my eyes. His breathing is slow and even under my ear.
Mine matches it without trying. Tofu jumps onto the bed and settles at our feet, and I feel her weight and his warmth and the quiet of the room, and all of it together feels like a place I've been looking for my whole life without knowing it existed.
I sleep better than I ever have. Deep. Still. Held.
I don't dream. I don't need to.