8. Jessica #3
The woman's eyes flick to my stomach, then back to Jordan's face. Recognition sparks, but she's too polished to react. "Of course. Follow me."
She leads us to a section near the back. Dresses in every color, some with empire waists, others with ruching designed to accommodate growing bumps. I run my hand over a navy cotton sundress, soft and simple.
"Try it on," Jordan says.
"I don't need sundresses yet."
"You will in two months."
The certainty in his voice—like he's already mapped out the next six months, already knows what I'll need and when—should annoy me.
It doesn't.
I take the dress into the fitting room, pulling the curtain shut behind me. The fabric whispers as I slide it over my head—cotton so soft it feels expensive even before I check the price tag dangling from the sleeve.
It settles over my hips, falls just past my knees, loose everywhere. Too loose. My stomach is still flat, still mine, but the empire waist is cut for a belly that will fill it in weeks. Maybe days, depending on how fast this thing decides to grow.
I stare at my reflection. The girl looking back is wearing a maternity dress she doesn't need yet for a body that hasn't changed.
But it will. Dr. Chen said twelve weeks puts me at the end of the first trimester—past the danger zone, into the part where things get real.
Where my jeans stop fitting and strangers start staring at my stomach instead of my face.
You will be, Jordan had said. Not if. Not maybe. Just certainty, like he's already seen the next six months play out and knows exactly how they end.
When I step out, Jordan's waiting with three more dresses draped over his arm—a black knit, a gray cotton shift, something floral I would never pick for myself but somehow know I'll wear anyway.
"These too," he says, holding them out.
"Jordan—"
"These too."
His voice is calm, final. Not a suggestion. Not a request. Just the same way he'd tell a teammate to take the shot or a reporter the interview's over. Decided.
I take them. Go back into the fitting room. Try on each one while he waits outside, silent and patient and probably planning which other racks to drag me toward next.
We leave with two dozen dresses in bags that fill the backseat—white paper handles looped together, tissue paper crinkling every time the car turns.
I stopped arguing after the first ten, right around the time I realized he wasn't hearing the arguments anyway.
He'd already decided I needed them. That was the end of the discussion.
Outside, the sun's lower now, stretching long shadows across the sidewalk. The afternoon has that golden-edge feeling, the kind of light that makes everything look softer than it is.
Jordan's at the trunk, loading the bags in—no wasted movement, nothing dropped or fumbled. I'm standing on the curb, arms crossed against the breeze coming off the lake, tired in the way that feels good—like I've been somewhere important and now I'm heading home.
A flash catches my eye.
Bright. Quick. Sunlight on glass, or metal, or something reflective I can't pin down. Across the street, maybe—or from one of the parked cars lining the curb. I can't tell. It's just a flicker, there and gone before I can focus on it.
I stop. Turn toward it, scanning the street.
Cars. Buildings with their windows catching the late sun. Pedestrians walking past without looking at me, absorbed in their phones or their conversations or whatever pulls people through their days. No one's watching.
Nothing.
Just a car window catching the light. Or someone's phone screen tilted wrong. Or the paranoia left over from this morning, from the pack of reporters outside the penthouse who shouted questions I didn't answer and took pictures I couldn't stop.
I let it go. Force my shoulders to drop, my breath to even out.
Jordan closes the trunk, the sound a solid thunk that cuts through the street noise. He turns to me, and I see the question in his eyes before he asks it.
"You good?"
"Yeah." I follow him to the passenger side, my legs heavier than they should be. "Just tired."
He opens my door and waits, one hand on the frame, the other on the edge of the roof. Patient. Like he's got all the time in the world, like we're not standing on a downtown sidewalk where anyone could walk by and recognize him.
When I'm settled in the seat, he leans in—close enough that I catch the faint scent of his cologne, something clean and cedar-sharp—and kisses my forehead. Soft. Deliberate. The kind of kiss that isn't about heat or want, just I've got you.
"Let's go home," he says.
The word home wraps around me like a blanket pulled up to my chin. I sink into the leather seat, close my eyes, and let the day's weight settle over me in pieces—the pregnancy that's real now, documented and dated and growing.
Jordan starts the car. The engine hums to life, smooth and expensive, and we pull away from the curb. I don't open my eyes. Just let the city noise fade into background static—horns, voices, the rhythm of tires on pavement—as we drive toward the penthouse.
Toward home.
The word still feels strange. Like borrowed shoes that fit better than they should.