Epilogue
BENNETT
One year later
The ringing phone didn’t wake me up. Instead, it was Hansel’s little tongue licking the side of my face like I was an ice cream cone on a hot day.
“Hansel,” I groaned, pushing him off me. “You have your own luxury bed.”
With a wagging tail, Hansel hopped across my body to snuggle into Charlie’s growing stomach.
The baby liked to kick out whenever Hansel got too close.
I could picture the two of them cuddling together on the couch.
Our little girl and the pet she already had wrapped around her finger—and she wasn’t even born yet.
We still had three months until her due date, which somehow felt like an eternity and a merely a blink away at the same time.
I waffled between being freaked out at the idea of being a dad—for obvious reasons I’d started discussing with my new therapist—and so excited it was hard to imagine happiness like mine could be contained.
“Bennett,” Charlie murmured, her eyes fluttering open for a moment before closing again. She snuggled her cheek deeper against my bare chest. I closed my eyes and let sleep nearly pull me under. “Is that your phone?”
“Hmmm? Maybe.” It had silenced for a few seconds, and then the vibrations started again.
Who in the world would be calling at five in the morning on a Monday?
I had a fishing excursion later today, and Charlie was leading one of her classes on an ocean exploration.
She couldn’t scuba while pregnant, but she still loved putting on a snorkel and getting into the water with them.
I reached for my phone and frowned when I saw Jules’s name on the screen. He was a morning person, but he wouldn’t call this early unless something had happened. “Jules, are you okay?”
Charlie’s eyes popped open at the worry in my tone.
She sat up, pulling Hansel against her chest to hug him.
Her hand brushed his fur, and I watched her ring glint against the light from my phone.
She’d wanted to keep her rope ring on forever, but after a few months, it had started to fray.
So we’d framed them with a picture of us on Married in the Wild, and then picked out new rings for each other, gold bands braided in a rope pattern.
“I need a place to stay,” Jules said, sounding out of breath and bringing me back to now.
I yawned widely. “Okay, yeah, of course you can stay here. For how long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a while.” He hesitated. I heard him breathing and moving around, then the zipping up of a bag. “I’m bringing someone with me.”
Charlie’s eyebrows winged up. Jules didn’t have friends. He slept, worked, went to the gym, and joined in our mandated online family activities.
“The nursery is all set up,” Charlie said apologetically. “You’re always welcome here, but …”
But we only had one couch, and two people couldn’t sleep on it.
“We’ll find a place for you,” I assured him. I had a million questions, but I knew when Jules was in this panicked headspace, it wouldn’t help for me to start interrogating him.
“Thank you,” he said, sounding relieved. “I’ve got to go.”
“Wait,” I stopped him. I needed to ask at least one question, for my own peace of mind. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“I messed up.” His breathing was ragged, and I wanted nothing more than to keep him on the phone until he calmed down. But Jules was going to do what he wanted, and no one could stop him. “I’ve got to go. See you soon.”
And then his phone went dead.