Chapter 18
GRACE
Grace patted her hair and glared at herself in the mirror.
Alex was coming over tonight. Again. As he did almost every night nowadays.
At first, he’d come to help with baby tasks or to bring her food. Now, he came over just as often to share dinner with her or watch a show or just sit and talk. And Grace looked forward to his visits more and more each day.
She turned to the side and sighed. No matter what she did with her hair or clothes, it wouldn’t change anything.
She was still nothing more to Alex than the mother of his children—and someone he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, trust. And she shouldn’t want to be more.
She shouldn’t want to spend all her time with Alex or kiss him again or be a real couple.
Grace looked down at her belly to distract herself from thoughts of Alex. Her babies had to be her priority, not the man who’d already hurt her once.
“Hello there,” she whispered, smoothing a hand over her stomach.
Now, at almost five months pregnant, she had a sizable baby bump that required actual maternity clothes instead of just oversized sweatshirts.
Today, she was wearing a blue dress with little flowers on it that she’d gotten at a secondhand store and that made her look like she came from the fifties.
Something shifted beneath her hand, and she gasped. Was that… could it be… a foot? Or a tiny hand? She’d felt kicks before, but never as strong as this. Never strong enough to be felt with her hand from the outside. And if she could feel them…
Just then, the doorbell rang. Grace dashed across the apartment, flung the door open, grabbed a surprised Alex by the hand, and pulled him inside.
“Feel this!” she instructed, placing his palm on her stomach. They stood in silence for a long moment, waiting, their hearts beating in unison, and then the fluttery kick came again.
“Did you feel it?” she asked, bouncing on her toes.
“Maybe?” Alex furrowed his brow. “It was very faint.”
“Well, soon, then.” She looked up at Alex, grinning. “The babies are kicking!”
“Oh!” Alex’s blue eyes widened, and he broke into a smile. “I felt it that time. It was kind of like a butterfly’s wings.”
“Yeah!” Grace nodded. “Exactly.”
“This is the most amazing thing,” Alex said. He shook his head. “I knew they were in there, but this… Wow.” He was usually eloquent, but now, he seemed close to speechlessness.
Grace was suddenly aware that they were standing very close together with his hand on her stomach. His thumb stroked lightly over her skin, and she shivered. He met her eyes.
“Should we get started?” he asked.
“Hmm?” Grace was so focused on his closeness that she barely understood his words.
“Should we get started on the signs?” Alex asked. Grace quickly nodded, stepping back and releasing his hand.
“Yeah, come on.” The reason Alex was here today, or the reason he’d named when he’d asked if he could come over, was to hang the sea-creature signs on the nursery walls. They’d picked out an octopus, a whale, and a turtle, all hand-painted by a local artist.
In the nursery, Grace tried to move past the moment of closeness as quickly as she could. She grabbed the turtle sign and scanned the walls for a good place.
“Maybe here?” She held up the sign.
“Perfect,” Alex agreed. “And I was thinking that it would be cool to spell out the babies’ names with wooden letters on the walls, too.”
“I love it.” Grace paused. “But then we probably need to pick out names, huh?”
“Sooner or later, we definitely do,” Alex agreed.
Grace wasn’t sure about Alex’s thought process, but she’d been putting off naming the babies.
It would be a big step for the two of them to agree on names.
Part of her had worried that she’d pick a name with Alex and that he’d change his mind about coparenting, and she’d be left with a baby name that always reminded her of him.
But now, after a few months of regular time together, she trusted him enough to know he wouldn’t do that.
“Should we… do that?” Grace asked.
“Sure. But let’s finish the signs first.” Alex grinned and reached past her to adjust the sign’s positioning.
It turned out that hanging three signs took about thirty seconds. With the signs up, they headed back to the living room and sat on the couch. Then they looked at each other in silence.
“Do you have any names in mind?” Grace asked when the silence stretched for too long.
“I think you should start,” Alex said. “You’re the mom.”
“Okay.” Grace rested a hand on her stomach again, half hoping for more kicks. “How about Kyle, for the boy?”
Alex winced. “I knew a Kyle in grade school. He punched a teacher right in the nose when she gave him a C on a spelling test. Blood everywhere.”
“Maybe not Kyle, then.” Grace pinwheeled her hand. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“Samantha, for the girl?” Alex suggested.
“When I was a teenager, I babysat for a little girl named Samantha,” Grace said. “She had a terrible lisp and couldn’t pronounce her own name. I swore then that I’d name any future children something easy to pronounce.”
“Our child probably won’t have a lisp,” Alex protested.
“You never know. Better safe than sorry. How about Delilah?”
“Are we having an eighty-year-old or a baby?” Alex replied. His eyes danced, but Grace still whacked him lightly on the arm.
“Hey. Be nice. Fine. Moving on.”
“George for the boy?”
“Please no. I had a boss with that name at the restaurant where I worked. He was the absolute worst. Timothy?”
“Veto.”
“Why?”
“You don’t even want to know.”
Back and forth they went, trading names and jokingly rejecting each other’s choices. Finally, Grace sat up a little straighter.
“Before you say no, my next idea was my dad’s name—Leo.”
“Leo,” Alex repeated. “Actually, I like that.”
“You do?” Grace grinned. “Do you really?”
“Really. So, how about Leo for our son?”
Grace’s heart lifted at the way he said our son. “Done. Now, what about our daughter?”
“Her name should go with Leo’s,” Alex began. “But not too closely.”
“So not Leo and Lea?” Grace joked.
“Better not. How about Leo and Ella?”
“Leo and Ella,” Grace repeated. “Ella and Leo. I don’t mind that at all.”
“Excellent.” Alex beamed. “Then I think we have our names. I can’t wait to welcome little Ella and Leo into the world.”
“Me neither.”
“You know, this feels really real all of a sudden.”
Grace laughed. “If you had babies growing in your stomach, it would have felt real for a while.”
Alex laughed, too. “You know what I mean—right? Now I can imagine our future more clearly. I’ll be in the kitchen, and I’ll call, ‘Leo! Ella! Time for dinner!’”
“And I’ll be at the park calling, ‘Leo! Don’t hang upside down like that, or you’ll fall!’”
“‘Ella, how was your day at school?’”
“‘Leo, do you want a snack?’”
“‘Ella, Leo, put down the sticks and make up.’”
Grace laughed. “I hope we don’t have to say that one.”
“Me too, but we’d better be prepared. These should be lifelong names.”
“True.” Grace considered. “’Please welcome Leo Boden-Medson, our valedictorian, to the stage!’”
“‘Ella Boden-Medson,’” Alex continued in a deep, commanding voice, “‘do you accept the office of president of the United States?’”
“It works,” Grace said happily. “It really does. And I’m looking forward to raising our future president.”
“Me too,” Alex agreed. “Or will we have the first twin presidents? Ella and Leo?”
“The dream team,” Grace said. “Or they’ll serve consecutive terms for a total of sixteen wonderful years in office.”
“Perfect.”
They met each other’s gazes and laughed.
“Maybe we’re dreaming too big,” Grace said.
“No matter what our kids do, we’ll be proud of them,” Alex said. “Whether they’re CEOs or presidents or surgeons…”
Grace whacked his arm again. “Or anything else. We’ll be proud of them no matter what.”
“We will,” Alex agreed. “I just hope we can do right by them.”
“We will,” Grace echoed. “We can do this.”
“We can do this,” Alex repeated. They met each other’s eyes and smiled again. Grace found that it was hard to look away from Alex’s bright blue eyes. And she didn’t want to.
“Should we have a snack?” Alex suggested suddenly. “Brainstorming names is hard work.”
“You know it,” Grace agreed. “What would you like?”
“No, no. I’ll get it. You rest up. Keep growing Ella and Leo.”
“Sounds good.”
Grace sat back as Alex went into the kitchen. She heard him rustling around and smiled as she imagined what he was finding for them. Then she took a deep breath.
Just because they were planning a future together was no excuse for the feelings growing in her heart. The more time she spent with Alex, the more time she wanted to spend with him. And the less she wanted him to leave. It was getting harder and harder to say goodbye.
And it was getting easier and easier to imagine that they could have some kind of future.
Maybe as friends and coparents. Maybe as something more.
She could almost imagine Alex holding her hand or pushing her hair behind her ear, the small gestures of affection he’d made during their one evening together.
Or perhaps even sliding his hands into her hair and kissing her, gently and deeply, as though she were precious. As though—
“Carrot sticks and M&Ms,” Alex announced as he returned from the kitchen, breaking Grace’s train of thought. It was a good interruption, because her thoughts had been going someplace they shouldn’t.
“Why that combination?” Grace asked as she made room. Hopefully, Alex didn’t notice her slightly flushed cheeks.
“I thought you might want something healthy. And I thought you might want a treat.” Alex smiled as he popped a piece of candy into his mouth.
“Excellent guesses,” Grace said, taking a carrot stick in one hand and a handful of candy in the other.
“Please don’t eat those together,” Alex said, his expression apprehensive. Grace laughed.
“My pregnancy cravings are weird, but not that weird.”
“More like peanut-butter-and-pickles weird?” Alex asked.
“No, more like a lot of mints still.” Alex had been bringing her a tin of mints at least once a week, and Grace was going through them as fast as he could bring them.
“And the other night I was desperate for a mango. So desperate that I ended up driving all around town trying to find an open grocery store that sold them and wound up drinking a mango juice from a gas station. It was not the same.”
“You should have called me,” Alex said. “I would have gotten you a fresh mango.”
“Sure, because I’m sure you’d have liked to be summoned to my apartment at two a.m. to find fresh fruit for me.”
“Yes,” Alex said plainly, “I would have. I told you I was going to be with you every step of the way, and I meant it. Even at two a.m. when you need a mango.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Grace said. “I’m probably going to end up calling you in the middle of the night for lychees or guavas or something.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
They smiled at each other, then Grace reached for another carrot stick.
Why was Alex being so incredibly sweet all the time?
If he’d shown a little of the dismissive, unkind side he’d shown when he’d told her it was over between them and let her be fired, it would have been easier to keep her distance.
As it was, keeping her distance was increasingly difficult.
After another hour or so of chatting, during which time Alex ordered several wooden letters to spell out the kids’ names on the nursery wall and Grace polished off both the carrot sticks and the candy, it was time for Alex to go.
“I would stay, but I’m attending another event tonight,” he told her.
“Of course—go for it,” Grace said. “I’ll have a quiet evening of reading my pregnancy book and brainstorming exotic fruits to ask you for.”
“Wonderful,” Alex said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It wasn’t even a question—they were both certain that they would see each other the next day, as they’d seen each other almost every day for weeks now.
“See you then,” Grace replied. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
“It’s fine, I know the way by now,” Alex protested.
“I know, but I want to be a good host.” Grace stood a little laboriously and followed him to the door. Alex reached for the handle but didn’t open it. For several moments, they just looked at each other. Grace could feel something building between them: warmth, tension, hope—she wasn’t sure.
Alex was right there, with those lovely blue eyes behind his glasses, his five-o’clock shadow on his strong jawline, his masculine scent, and his intense gaze. If she leaned closer, she could rest a hand on his firm chest. If she rose up on her tiptoes, she could plant a kiss on his lips.
“Grace,” Alex said softly. There was longing in that word. Hope.
“Alex,” Grace replied.
“I know things have been… complicated… between us, but I think we both—”
Panic rose in Grace as she realized where this was going.
She wasn’t the only one daydreaming about a kiss, and if this went on a moment more, Alex was going to kiss her.
And then they’d fall back into the same scary pattern as before, in which Alex was in a position to push her away or break her heart.
Grace couldn’t let that happen. She didn’t trust him quite enough.
At least, not yet.
“Oops,” she interrupted. “Um, look at the time! My goodness. You’d better run or you’ll be late.”
She sounded like her mother when she was flustered, but at least she managed to cut Alex off before he could say anything else.
“Right!” Alex looked at his watch, then at Grace, then took a step back. “See you later. Have a nice evening.”
And then he was gone. Grace leaned against the door, her heart racing.
She’d come so, so close to a kiss. And worse, she’d wanted that kiss so much.
She wanted the closeness that came from having someone to count on.
Someone to care for. Someone to be with her at two a.m. when she wanted mangoes.
Someone who loved their children as much as she did.
Someone who might someday love her.
But there was still too much between her and Alex. She cared about him. She worried she was even teetering dangerously close to loving him. But her distrust still won out. She had to protect herself and her children.
She couldn’t let herself fall for Alex again… not yet.
But maybe there was a future in which she could. Grace swept her fingertips over her lips. Maybe she could talk to him. Ask directly what had happened with the laptop. Finally get some answers. And maybe the conversation would put her fears to rest so that they could finally be a proper couple.
Maybe.