Chapter 27 #2
The question hung between us, loaded with everything we weren't saying. I could deflect, make a joke, pretend I didn't know what he meant. Or I could be brave and address the elephant that had taken up residence in my living room.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "Are we?"
Jimmy's expression grew thoughtful, like he was choosing his words carefully. "I feel like there's something we're not talking about."
The children conversation, I thought. The way you went completely silent when I told you what I wanted. The way you've been treating me like I'm made of glass ever since.
But I couldn't say that. Couldn't push him on something he clearly wasn't ready to discuss. The relationship was still too new, too fragile. And maybe... maybe I wasn't ready to hear his answer anyway.
"We're fine," I said instead. "Just adjusting to being in a relationship with someone who understands the job. It's different."
It was a safe answer, focusing on our professional compatibility rather than our personal incompatibilities. Jimmy nodded, seeming to accept it, but I caught the relief in his expression. He didn't want to have the difficult conversation any more than I did.
"You're right," he said. "It is different. Good different."
"Yeah. Good different."
We turned back to the terrible movie, and Jimmy's arm came around me in our usual position.
I settled against his side, breathing in his familiar scent, trying to convince myself that this was enough.
That love was about more than matching visions for the future.
That maybe wanting children was just a passing phase brought on by trauma from a difficult call.
But even as I told myself these things, I knew I was lying. The realization I'd had while holding Amelia wasn't going away. If anything, it was growing stronger, more certain with each passing day.
I wanted children. I wanted a family. And I wanted it with Jimmy.
The question was whether Jimmy wanted it too, or if this was where our story ended — not with a dramatic fight or betrayal, but with the quiet incompatibility of two people who loved each other but wanted different futures.
As the credits rolled on the movie neither of us had watched, Jimmy's phone buzzed with a work notification. He glanced at it and sighed.
"I should probably head home," he said. "Early shift tonight, and I want to get some actual sleep."
"Of course," I said, even though he'd slept here plenty of times before early shifts. Another small distance, another careful boundary that hadn't existed a week ago.
He kissed me goodbye at the door, soft and sweet and just a little too brief. "I love you," he said, and I could hear the sincerity in his voice.
"I love you too," I replied, and meant it completely.
He stepped back, reaching for his keys, and something desperate clawed at my chest. The careful distance, the unspoken tension, the way we'd been dancing around each other for days — I couldn't let him leave like this.
Not when it felt like we were slipping away from each other one polite goodbye at a time.
"Jimmy, wait." The words came out more breathless than I'd intended.
He turned back, concern flickering in his green eyes. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, I just..." I swallowed hard, my pride warring with my desperation. "You could stay. It's been a while since we had a morning together."
The words hung between us, and I saw the exact moment he understood what I was really asking.
Not for sex, exactly, but for connection.
For proof that we were still us, that whatever had shifted between us could be fixed with closeness, with skin against skin and the familiar rhythm of bodies that knew each other.
Something broke in his expression — not rejection, but something that looked almost like pain.
"Okay," he said quietly, stepping back inside and closing the door behind him. "Okay, I'll stay."
Relief flooded through me, followed immediately by shame. When had I become the kind of woman who had to ask? When had Jimmy become someone who looked like staying the night was an act of charity rather than something he wanted?
We moved through my apartment with careful quiet, the easy domesticity we'd once shared now feeling fragile and forced.
In my bedroom, we undressed without words, without the playful teasing that usually accompanied this ritual.
Jimmy's hands were gentle as he helped me out of my shirt, but there was a reverence to his touch that felt more like goodbye than hello.
We slipped under the covers, and Jimmy pulled me against his chest, my back to his front, his arm solid and warm around my waist. It was intimate without being sexual, close without being passionate. Just two people holding onto each other in the dark.
"Thank you," I whispered, though I wasn't entirely sure what I was thanking him for.
"Shh," he murmured against my hair. "Just sleep, beautiful. Just sleep."
But sleep didn't come easily. I lay there listening to Jimmy's breathing, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against my back, and wondered when holding the person I loved had started to feel like holding onto something that was already slipping away.
Behind me, Jimmy's breathing never settled into the deep rhythm of sleep. We lay there, skin against skin, closer than we'd been in days but somehow further apart than ever.