Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
This fracture of color across the sky
Carina
Iwake before him, and for a moment, I think it’s earlier than it is. My bedroom is still shadowed, my curtains drawn tight, but the quiet hum of the city outside says otherwise. I blink once, then again, my eyes adjusting to the soft gray of morning.
His arm is heavy across my waist, the weight of it grounding. His breath brushes warm against the back of my neck, and all I can do is lie still, not ready to move.
Reid doesn’t stir, not even a twitch of his fingers. He sleeps like someone who hasn’t in a while—deep and unbothered.
I turn my head slightly, just enough to see him.
He’s tucked in behind me, broad and quiet and solid in a way I envy.
One hand splayed across my stomach, the other tucked under the pillow.
His brow is smooth, his mouth relaxed under his mustache.
The lines of tension that usually bracket his eyes are gone.
I study the rise and fall of his chest, the way the morning light softens the shape of his jaw. The faint scrape of stubble where it catches the pillowcase.
He looks so calm it almost hurts, as though nothing cracked open last night. That the words I forced out of my mouth didn’t turn my whole world sideways.
I’m pregnant.
I felt it lodge in my throat before it ever landed in the air, but it sat there, scraping its way out until I couldn’t hold it back any longer.
And still, he stayed. Held me. Let me cry.
My fingers rest just above the sheet, and I can still feel the imprint of his warm hand wrapped around mine. Not trying to keep me from falling apart, but making sure I didn’t have to do it alone.
That’s what undid me. Him, choosing to stay.
I shift carefully, peeling the sheet back inch by inch so I don’t wake him. His hand slips from my waist without resistance, and I pause for a second, watching the way he barely moves, his breath still even.
He takes up more space than I realized. Not just physically—though yes, he’s enormous and entirely too much man for my bed—but in the room. In me. The air feels different with him here, and I’m not sure if that terrifies me or calms me.
Maybe both.
I ease my way out from under the covers, feet finding the floor. The wood is cool beneath my toes as I cross the hallway to the living room, each step quieter than the last.
The apartment is wrapped in soft light, diffused and gold around the edges. I don’t turn any lights on. I don’t need to.
My succulents are gathered in clusters on the wide windowsill—bright ceramic pots of pebbled soil and green chunky leaves, glossy against the morning. It’s the one part of my apartment I never let get chaotic.
I make a coffee, then climb up onto the ledge of the deep windowsill and fold myself into the space. Knees drawn to my chest, arms looped around them, mug in one hand. The steam curls upwards, disappearing against the glare of my window.
Outside, the street is still. There are a few dog walkers, the odd runner, a truck idling two blocks away. It’s the kind of morning that feels like a breath held before the day begins.
The glass is cool against my temple as I lean gently into it, letting my eyes unfocus.
And there, faint but certain, arcing just above the skyline, is a rainbow. It’s not a perfect one. Broken a little in the middle, the colors faded around the edges, as though it didn’t fully mean to show up but did anyway.
I don’t react, just let my eyes rest on it. Study it. I haven’t seen one this bright in a while, which is maybe why my throat tightens the way it does. Because it’s here again, in the quiet. In the morning after.
With a deep inhale, I take a sip of my coffee and glance away, sitting tucked between my succulents and the cool of the glass, trying to find the shape of steadiness again.
My coffee is half-cold by the time I hear movement—a shift of blankets and a quiet creak from down the hall.
I continue to stare out the window, the faint arc of the rainbow still visible, blurred slightly now by condensation. The pad of his footsteps pauses in the doorway, replaced by the sound of him rubbing a hand over his face. Then a low, gravel-edged breath.
His voice is quiet and still sleep-warm when he speaks.
“You always sit in windows like a feral housecat, or is this just a post-trauma thing?”
I huff a laugh, but not quite a smile. He walks in slowly, in a way that feels thoughtful. His T-shirt stretches taut over his chest as he stretches, and his hair is rumpled, almost flattened on one side. The side he slept on all night, holding me.
He doesn’t ask what I’m doing as he moves to the couch and sits, knees wide, forearms braced on his thighs. His soft eyes skim the room, then land back on me.
“You want coffee?”
He shakes his head. “Not yet.”
“Anything else I can get you?”
“Yeah.” His gaze lingers. “You.”
He pats the space beside him once, then lets his hand fall again. I hesitate for a second, but then set the mug down carefully and slide off the windowsill, crossing the room in bare feet. When I reach the couch, he doesn’t wait, just tugs me down to him and wraps his arms around me without a word.
I sink into the space beside him and the cushions, letting myself be folded against him. His chest is warm, and his hands curve around my waist, threading through my fingers.
We sit like that for a long moment, with the press of his body and the sound of our breathing in the hush of the morning.
My eyes drift back to the window. The rainbow is still there, fainter now, barely visible. But still there. I tilt my head slightly, watching the fading curve of color through the glass.
“Wanna know something I’ve never told anyone?”
Reid hums his response, fingers weaving back and forth against mine.
“It’s stupid. I know it is,” I say softly. “I’m a surgeon, I don’t believe in signs. Except… I do. Just this one.”
I feel him gently nod, waiting for me to continue as his lips press gentle kisses to my shoulder.
“I saw a rainbow the day after my dad died. I hadn’t really processed what was happening. I was still in shock. Everything… the world just stopped, and I couldn’t make sense of it.”
I exhale through my nose, and his mouth pauses on my shoulder as the memory catches in my throat.
“But then I looked outside, and there it was. This fracture of color across the sky, as though it didn’t get the memo that everything had fallen apart.”
I pause, letting the warmth of his body seep into mine.
“I saw one again at his funeral. And then on the day I graduated high school. When my mom got remarried and had my sister, and again when I got accepted into med school. Another one during exams, when I almost gave up. And the week I was offered my placement with Moreno…”
The words aren’t tidy, they come out uneven and unrehearsed, and I know I’m rambling. Still, I hope he can make sense of it.
“I don’t think it’s fate or reassurance or anything like that,” I say. “I’ve never believed in that stuff, because my career is defined by rules and logic and science. But every time I thought I couldn’t do it, or the world felt too hard, there it was. A rainbow.”
I swallow. “Not a fix, just… a nudge. Like he was lending me a bit of light.”
Reid’s arms tighten around me just slightly, just enough to let me know he’s still here, and I melt into him.
“I think there’s a part of me,” I say quietly, “that needed something gentler than certainty and logic to survive. And maybe he sends them, because he can’t send himself.”
It comes out like a secret, one I didn’t know I was actively keeping.
“I know it sounds stupid.” I shake my head, huff a little laugh.
He stays quiet for another beat, his arms solid around me. I think maybe we’re done talking, because there’s nothing left to say. But a moment later, his voice breaks the silence, low and rough near my ear.
“You know I rinse my jockstrap in glacier water before every playoff round, right?”
I pause with a frown, then pull back just enough to glance at him over my shoulder.
“…What?”
“Dead serious,” he says, entirely unbothered. “Didn’t even make it to the third round last year, and I realized we’d changed the detergent. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”
A stunned breath escapes me, part laugh and part disbelief. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not,” he says, too flatly for it to be a tease.
“I’ve got three rolls of pre-torn stick tape in my bag right now.
I bless each one in the order of our conference standings.
Viktor has to tap my pads in the exact same rhythm before I go on.
Logan’s banned from saying the word shutout within five miles of me. ”
I blink at him. “You… believe in signs.”
“I’m a goalie,” he says, like that explains everything. “We invented signs.”
And I don’t really mean to laugh, but it bubbles up anyway, escaping before I can catch it. It shakes loose from somewhere behind my ribs, deep and warm and sudden.
His grin stretches against the shell of my ear. “So no, Havoc. I don’t think it’s stupid.”
I hum my amusement, then blow out an exhale as I close my eyes. When I open them again, the rainbow is fading in the sky, swallowed by light.
“I think I want to keep the baby.”
He stills, but only for a second. Then he nods against my hair, inhaling deeply as though he’s memorizing the moment. Holding me and allowing the weight of it to land where it needs to.
We sit in the hush that follows, and for the first time since I saw that test, I don’t feel like I’m carrying it alone. My chest still feels tight, like there might be too much inside it, but the words are out. The ache is out. And I’m still breathing.
His hand slowly glides over my stomach, just a single pass of his warm palm. Then he brings it back to my waist, brushing the inside of his thumb gently along my ribs.
He doesn’t speak until I’ve exhaled again, my head resting back against his shoulder, the bones of his collar pressing, steady and solid, beneath my cheek.