Chapter 4 Melanie
Melanie
SEVEN MONTHS LATER
Seven months is a long time to avoid your feelings.
It is not a long time to choose a stroller.
I waddle—I mean, walk—into Baby Bungalow on Main with my sister, Amelia, flanking me like a Secret Service agent with a latte.
Saint Pierce has done its usual magic: pumpkins turned to twinkle lights turned to back-to-school turned to—surprise—baby-on-board.
The bell over the door jingles, and a wave of powder-fresh air and pastel overload smacks me in the face.
“Okay,” Amelia says, clapping once like a coach about to yell hustle. “Mission: Tiny Human. We need a car seat, a stroller, and something adorable with woodland creatures wearing sweaters.”
“Copy,” I say, then immediately detour to a wall of onesies that say New to the Crew and Snack Dealer. My hand slides to my belly—hi, roommate—who does a little goldfish flip like, Snack Dealer is our brand.
My phone buzzes in my tote. Charlotte’s name blooms across the screen with about nineteen heart emojis.
“Put her on speaker,” Amelia says, steering me toward a display of strollers that looks like a Formula One pit lane.
I tap. “You are live from the womb boutique.”
Charlotte’s laugh crackles through. “How’s the bump?”
“Currently auditioning for a slow-motion surf movie,” I say, rubbing the spot where Baby Mason-Lawson—okay, not the last name, but… working title—has decided to practice interpretive dance.
Asher’s voice filters faintly in the background. “Tell her to get the car seat with the steel frame.”
Charlotte: “Asher says—”
“I heard,” I grin. “Tell Captain Safety I’m on it.”
Amelia, who thrives on actionable lists, crouches beside the closest stroller and flicks a lever. It unfolds smoother than my skincare routine. “This one steers like a dream,” she says, pushing it in a perfect figure-eight. “Parallel parks better than your SUV.”
“My SUV is a boisterous extrovert,” I argue, testing the handlebar. “It cannot be tamed.”
Charlotte hums. “How are you really?”
I glance at Amelia, who meets my eyes with her you-can-say-it look. I take a breath. “I’m… good. Weird-good. Happy-good. Panic-good.”
“That’s three goods,” Charlotte says softly. “And at least one of them is brave.”
“How’s Emory?” I ask, wishing I could have been there for the birth of Charlotte’s precious baby girl last May. By then I was in the midst of my morning sickness, and couldn’t travel for fear of puking all over… everything.
“She’s perfect. Seriously, our babies will be best of friends.” Charlotte sing-songs.
I try to picture that life. “Yeah,” I mumble, unable to picture anything but the pregnancy I’m dealing with right now.
“How are you really?” Charlotte asks.
“Fine.” I swallow. Truth: Lucas has called.
Twice? Three times? Four, if you count the text that said You okay?
—which I counted as two calls because of the punctuation.
I haven’t answered. Because once upon a truck ride he said, very calmly, I don’t do complicated.
And I have since turned into the dictionary definition of complicated—with ankles.
“Have you told him?” Charlotte asks, not judgmental, just Charlotte.
Amelia stands and places a tiny knit hat with bear ears on my head, which helps exactly zero. “Not yet,” I say to both of them. “He’s traveling, and the timing, and… I don’t know how to make it a cool sentence.”
“There’s no cool sentence,” Charlotte says. “Just a true one. When you’re ready.”
Baby flips again. Amelia pats my shoulder. “We’ll practice on me later. I’ll be Lucas and you be you.”
“You hate role-play,” I say.
“I’ll make flashcards,” she counters, deadly serious.
I say my goodbyes to Charlotte when Emory gets fussy, and Amelia and I try the car seats.
We debate buckles like we’re choosing accessories.
A very adorable accessory. I stress-sweat through a demo base install while a sales associate named Brinley demonstrates a one-finger canopy recline like she’s auditioning for QVC: The Heir Edition.
I cry over a swaddle with tiny foxes. Amelia does, too.
Brinley is a professional and only tears up slightly.
“Registry?” Brinley chirps, handing me a scanner gun.
I aim it at literally everything that doesn’t squeak or require a master’s degree to fold. Click goes the bottle brush. Click goes a mobile with silvery stars. Click click click goes my resolve.
“Let’s take a donut break,” Amelia says, because she knows my love languages and they are carbs and deflection.
We step toward the front windows where a tray of complimentary mini donuts sits like a Venus flytrap. I pop a cinnamon one, sugar dusting my sweater. I’m reaching for a second when the world tilts.
Across the street, at the Bean Flicker—our favorite coffee shop—the door swings open.
A familiar silhouette steps into the winter-sun stripe on the sidewalk: tall, field jacket, beanie, that steady way of moving like he’s got internal hydraulics.
He turns his head, and—yep—there they are. Blue-gray eyes I know too well.
My heart does an Olympic-level vault. “Abort,” I whisper, which is the command you never want to use in a baby store.
Amelia follows my gaze. Her mouth forms an O. “Oh.”
“Lucas,” I whisper, palms sweating. “Across the street. Coffee shop. Looking like the brochure for Tall Problems.”
Amelia’s eyes go saucer-wide. “He’s here? Here here?”
“Saint Pierce is small,” I hiss. “But not this small!”
“Okay,” Amelia says, adaptor-brain snapping into action. “Options: one, tell him. Two, flee. Three, camouflage.”
“I’m seven months pregnant,” I stage-whisper. “My camouflage options are ‘refrigerator’ or ‘parade float.’”
Across the street, Lucas turns in profile. He laughs at something the barista says. It does that thing to his mouth where one side lifts first. My chest aches. The baby does a more info please flounder.
“Mel,” Amelia says gently. “Do you want to talk to him?”
“No,” I say. “Yes. Later. Not like this. Not under fluorescent lighting with a donut in each hand.”
“Do not drop the donuts,” Amelia says. “They’re your cover.”
Lucas checks his phone. Panic tap dances up my spine. I pivot, full waddle, and hide behind a pyramid of stuffed llamas wearing scarves.
“Smooth,” Amelia whispers, joining me. “Very covert.”
Brinley materializes, concerned. “Are you… stuck?”
“Just trying to… see how the llamas photograph,” I say, crouching.
Do llamas come crashing down? They do. I am a baby-store Godzilla.
Two llamas tumble, then four, then twelve—soft whoomps of alpaca mutiny.
Amelia lunges, catches one by the scarf, spins it like a champion lasso artist. A mobile of tiny clouds twirls off-kilter.
Cinnamon sugar puffs into a halo around my head.
Across the street, Lucas glances up, gaze skimming windows. My soul leaves my body and stands in the parking lot yelling go home.
“Everything okay?” Brinley asks, voice at the pitch people use with both toddlers and very pregnant women who have done a chaos.
“So great,” I say brightly, cheeks on fire. “Just testing load-bearing plush. For science.”
Amelia smiles, saying, “You’re doing amazing,” she says between giggles. “Deep breaths. Either way you choose—talk or don’t—you’re allowed to choose.”
I peek through the llama army. Lucas takes his coffee, says thank you, and—of course—steps out to the sidewalk facing directly at Baby Bungalow. He does a slow scan like he’s doing recon. He is doing recon. That’s literally his job.
“Mel,” Amelia says, squeezing my hand. “What do you want?”
A thousand tiny answers bloom: Not to be ambushed. To look cute. To not cry. To time-travel to the deck with stars and say I’m scared, but stay.
What I say is, “I want to not run.”
Amelia nods. “Okay. Then let’s stand.”
We stand. I re-stack two rebellious llamas, swipe cinnamon off my sweater, and square my shoulders the way my yoga teacher says is “heart forward.” The baby rolls, settling. Brinley silently hands me a tissue.
Lucas lifts his coffee. Looks both ways, and starts across the street.
A minivan honks. He pauses. My heart jumps. He steps off the curb again, head tipping marginally—like he’s clocked movement in a window. Like he’s clocked me.
“Do you want me to stay?” Amelia whispers.
“Yes,” I say. “But also—maybe—hover by the onesies so I feel in control.”
She gives me a thumb-up and moves three feet, which is the exact distance at which a sister can still body-check a man if needed and also hand you lip balm.
The bell over the door jingles. I keep my eyes on a shelf of pacifiers like they contain ancient wisdom.
“Melanie?”
My name in his voice hits every molecule like sunlight through a magnifying glass. I turn.
He’s the same and not. The jacket. The unreadable eyes that are actually more readable than he thinks.
The steadying presence, like when he looked at a map and somehow also saw the weather and your mood and the way the dog was going to zig when you said zag.
The new thing is a deeper crease between his brows.
Or maybe that’s just me noticing different details.
“Hi,” I say, and it comes out… normal. Miracles happen. “Welcome to Baby Llama Armageddon.”
His gaze flicks down—belly, llamas, donut sugar constellation—then back to my face. Something slow and stunned passes through his expression.
And there, in the glow of fluorescent lighting and the scent of panic frosting, Lucas Lawson sees me.
Sees us.
His coffee tilts a fraction in his hand.
“Mel,” he says again, softer.
And then he really looks.