15. Heather #2
He lets me lead. Follows every cue, responds to every signal, lets me set the pace and the rhythm and the rules.
His mouth traces the changes pregnancy has made to my body with reverent attention.
The heaviness of my breasts, fuller than they’ve ever been, sensitive in ways that make me gasp when his lips find them.
The stretched skin of my belly, painted with faint silvery lines that map the growth of our daughter.
The way my hips have widened, my thighs have softened, everything about me transformed into something new.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs against my skin, his breath warm where his mouth has been.
“I’m enormous.”
“You’re growing our daughter.” He kisses the curve of my belly, his lips gentle, reverent. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
I want to argue. I want to deflect with self-deprecation, the way I always do when compliments make me uncomfortable.
Instead, I let myself receive it. Let his hands and mouth map every inch of changed territory, let myself feel beautiful for the first time in months, let the worship in his touch heal something that had been wounded by his doubt.
“I want you,” I tell him, and it’s the most honest thing I’ve said in a long time.
“You have me.” He rises to meet my eyes, his gaze so intense it feels like being touched. “You’ve always had me.”
We move together slowly, carefully, mindful of the belly between us.
He lets me find the positions that work, the angles that feel good, responding to every sound I make with adjustments and attention.
Five years of learning each other’s bodies, and he still knows exactly what I need, still reads me like a language he’s never forgotten.
I cry at some point, overwhelmed by sensation and emotion, the physical pleasure tangled up with everything I’ve been holding back for months. Tears slide down my temples into my hair, and he kisses every one without stopping what he’s doing.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I don’t know why I’m-”
“Don’t apologize.” He cradles my face in his hands, thumbs brushing away the wetness. “Feel whatever you feel. I’m here.”
And I believe him.
***
After, tangled in hotel sheets that smell like us now, the storm still raging outside the windows, his hand spread warm over my belly, I give him something I’ve been holding back.
“It wasn’t only your failure.”
He goes still against me. “What?”
“The night everything fell apart. The way it happened.” I stare at the ceiling, watching the firelight flicker across the plaster. “I had a hundred chances to give you one thread of the truth. And I chose the performance instead.”
“Heather-”
“The perfect surprise. The perfect reveal. The perfect wife who carries everything alone and calls it love.” My voice is quiet, but steady.
“I’ve been that person my whole life, Grayson.
The one who keeps everyone’s peace. Who manages everyone’s feelings instead of trusting them with the messy version. ”
He doesn’t interrupt this time. Just waits, his hand still warm on my belly, his body pressed along the length of mine.
“Somewhere in five years of managing your mother and managing your feelings, I started managing you. Instead of trusting you with the unfinished parts. Instead of letting you see the fear and the uncertainty and the moments when I didn’t have it all figured out.”
“You trusted me-”
“I trusted you with the polished version.” I turn my head on the pillow to look at him.
His face is close, his eyes dark in the firelight.
“I knew how much a surprise like the pregnancy would mean to you. After all the years of trying, all the disappointments, I wanted to give you the perfect moment so badly that I forgot something important.”
“What?”
“That you would have traded every surprise in the world for the truth on an ordinary Tuesday. That you would have wanted to know the second I found out, wanted to cry with me in the bathroom while we stared at that positive test, wanted to be there for the messy, uncertain beginning instead of waiting for the polished announcement.”
He’s quiet for a long time. The storm howls outside, rain lashing the windows in waves that match the rhythm of the surf below.
“None of that excuses what I did,” he says finally, his voice rough.
“I know. And I’m not trading blame.” I find his hand on my belly and lace our fingers together. “But the marriage we’re rebuilding can’t run on my old operating system. I have to let you see the messy parts. Even when it scares me.”
“I want to see them.” He turns toward me, propping himself up on one elbow, his free hand coming up to brush hair from my face. “I want the version of you that isn’t performing. The one that doesn’t have it all figured out. The one that lets me down sometimes.”
My breath catches. “That’s not-”
“That’s the wife I’m asking to come home to.” He cups my face, his thumb tracing along my cheekbone. “I don’t need the perfect wife, Heather. I just need you. You are who I love. You are who I’ll love for the rest of my life, if you give me the chance.”
“Grayson-”
“I won’t let you down again.” His voice cracks with the intensity of the promise. “Because you haven’t let me down for a single second of our marriage. Not once. And my failure was erasing five years of proof because of some photographs I should never have believed in the first place.”
I’m crying again. This time it’s different, not grief or frustration but something that feels like release, like setting down a weight I’ve been carrying for so long I’ve forgotten it isn’t part of me.
He kisses me softly. I kiss him back.
“I need you to read something,” he says against my lips. “Before you decide anything else.”
He pulls away and reaches for his bag on the floor beside the bed. When he straightens, he’s holding an envelope, slightly crumpled, with a date written on the front in his handwriting.
The baby’s due date.
“What is this?”
“Read it.” He presses it into my hands. “And then tell me what you want.”