8. Maura
MAURA
Three months later…
The coffee smell hits me wrong again.
Mark's standing at the kitchen counter with his usual morning cup, steam curling up toward the high ceiling, and my stomach clenches in that now-familiar way.
Three days running, the smell that used to make me want to bury my face in his chest now makes me want to step back and breathe through my mouth.
"You sure you don't want any?" He glances over his shoulder at me, eyebrows raised.
"I'm good with juice."
The orange juice tastes fine. Everything else has been hit or miss lately. Yesterday it was the scrambled eggs—halfway through breakfast, I had to push the plate away and pretend I was just full. The day before, the sight of the bacon grease made my throat close up.
Mark finishes his coffee and moves toward me, hands already reaching for the hem of my sweater. The morning routine we've settled into over the past three months—him taking care of what my body needs before I head to campus.
His hands are warm against my ribs as he lifts the fabric. My breath hitches, but not in the usual way. Everything feels different lately. More sensitive. The weight of his palms against my skin sends something sharper through me than it used to.
"You okay?" His gray eyes find mine, studying my face with the same intensity he brings to everything else.
"Fine. Just tired."
That's been true for weeks now. Bone-deep exhaustion that sleep doesn't seem to touch. I went to bed at nine last night and still woke up feeling like I'd been hit by something large and unforgiving.
His mouth replaces his hands, and the relief is immediate but different. Usually, this feels like pressure releasing. Today it feels like something else entirely—something that makes my stomach flip in ways that have nothing to do with nausea.
When he lifts his head, his jaw is tight with concentration. "Better?"
"Yeah."
But better doesn't cover it. Better doesn't explain why every nerve ending in my body seems to be operating at a higher frequency, why the simple touch of his mouth makes my knees want to give out.
"You've been off all week." He doesn't ask it like a question. He states it like a fact he's been cataloging, which he probably has.
"Finals prep," I lie smoothly. "Just stressed about school."
The lie sits wrong in my mouth, but the truth is bigger than I'm ready to say out loud. The truth is that my period is twelve days late, and I know exactly what Mark said he wanted to do to me three months ago, and I know we haven't done anything to prevent it from happening.
The truth is that my body has been trying to tell me something for two weeks, and I've been pretending not to listen.
He studies my face for another beat, then nods. "I'll pick you up at four."
"Sounds good."
The drive to campus is quiet. Mark keeps one hand on the wheel and lets me pick the music, which means we're listening to something soft and folky that would probably make him wince if anyone else chose it.
The air outside is sharp enough that frost clings to the edges of the windshield despite the heater running full blast.
"See you tonight," he says when he drops me at the gate.
"See you."
The campus pharmacy sits in the student union building between the bookstore and a Subway that always smells like processed turkey. I've walked past it hundreds of times over the past two years. Never bought anything more significant than aspirin and throat lozenges.
The pregnancy test aisle feels like enemy territory. Three different brands, all promising accuracy and quick results, all staring at me from their neat plastic packages like they know something I'm not ready to admit.
The cheapest one goes into my basket along with a pack of gum and a bottle of water. The cashier is a work-study student who looks about fifteen and doesn't make eye contact while she scans the items. The receipt crinkles when I shove it into my pocket.
My British Literature class passes in a blur of discussion about Jane Austen's marriage plots that feels uncomfortably relevant.
Professor Chen talks about Elizabeth Bennet's choice between security and affection, and I think about plastic sticks and late periods and the way Mark's hands felt different this morning.
The bathroom in the humanities building is empty at two-fifteen. Fluorescent lighting makes everything look sickly and harsh. Someone has carved "JENNY WAS HERE 2019" into the stall door, and there's a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe.
Not exactly the romantic setting I would have imagined for this moment, if I'd ever let myself imagine it.
The instructions on the box are straightforward enough. Pee on stick, wait three minutes, check for lines. Simple as a recipe, except recipes don't usually determine the entire trajectory of your life.
Three minutes feels like an eternity and no time at all. I count the tiles on the floor—sixteen across, twenty-two down. Check my phone twice. Wonder if the fluorescent light is bright enough to read the result accurately, then wonder if I'm looking for reasons to doubt whatever answer I get.
Two lines.
Clear as daylight, dark as ink, unmistakable as my own name written in permanent marker.
The laugh that comes out of me is part surprise, part relief, part something else I can't name. Joy, maybe. Actual, uncomplicated joy, which is not an emotion I've had much practice with.
I'm pregnant.
Mark Callahan put a baby in me, exactly like he said he would, and instead of being terrified or overwhelmed or any of the things I probably should be, I'm sitting in a campus bathroom grinning at a piece of plastic like it just handed me the lottery.
Which, in a way, it did.
Three months ago, I was living paycheck to paycheck in an apartment with broken locks, juggling work and school and the constant low-level anxiety of never having enough money for anything.
Now I'm carrying the baby of a man who built an empire from nothing, who looks at me like I'm the most important thing in any room, who wants to take care of me in ways I never knew I wanted to be taken care of.
The test goes into my backpack, wrapped in tissues like contraband. My last class of the day is Poetry Workshop, and I spend the entire hour composing terrible verses in my head about plastic sticks and two pink lines while my classmates critique each other's sonnets.
The air bites at my cheeks when I step outside afterward. Campus is busy with the usual late-afternoon crowd—students hurrying between buildings, faculty heading to parking lots, the general bustle of a university day winding down.
I'm halfway to the gate when the feeling hits.
Eyes. Someone watching me, tracking my movement across the quad with an attention that prickles along my shoulder blades.
My steps slow automatically. I glance around without making it obvious—just a casual survey of the people around me. Students with backpacks and coffee cups, a professor I recognize from the English department, maintenance crew working on one of the light fixtures.
Nothing stands out. No one staring directly at me or obviously following. But the sensation doesn't fade.
Three months ago, I felt this same thing. Asked Mark about it. He'd been in meetings all day, hadn't been anywhere near campus. So if it wasn't him then, and his car isn't at the gate now because I'm early, then someone else has been watching me.
The thought sends something cold crawling up my spine.
For a moment, the joy from the pregnancy test dims. The plastic stick in my backpack feels less like a winning lottery ticket and more like evidence of something that makes me vulnerable in ways I hadn't considered.
Then Mark's car appears at the gate, black and sleek and immediately recognizable, and I make a decision.
I'm not telling him about the watched feeling. Not today. Not when I'm about to give him news that will make him happier than I've ever seen him. Whatever this is—paranoia, coincidence, or something actual—it can wait.
The happiness is too good to darken with shadows I can't even identify.
"How was your day?" he asks when I slide into the passenger seat.
"Good." The word comes out steadier than I expected. "Actually, really good."
His eyes narrow slightly, reading something in my tone that I'm not trying to hide. "Yeah?"
The pregnancy test burns a hole in my backpack. Three months of living with Mark has taught me that he doesn't do suspense well. He's a man who prefers information delivered directly, completely, and as soon as possible.
"I have something to tell you."
"Tell me."
I pull the test out of my bag, tissues falling away, and hold it up between us. Two lines, still dark, still unmistakable.
"I'm pregnant."
Mark goes completely still. Not the relaxed stillness of a man at rest—the predatory stillness of someone whose brain is processing something enormous. His hands tighten on the steering wheel until his knuckles go white.
Then his eyes move from the test to my face, searching for something I can't identify. "You're sure?"
"Took the test an hour ago. Pretty definitive."
A muscle in his jaw jumps. He looks at the test again, then back at me, and something shifts in his expression. The careful control he maintains over everything—his voice, his face, his movements—cracks just enough for me to see what's underneath.
Raw satisfaction. Possession. The look of a man who wanted something specific and got exactly what he asked for.
"We're going to the hospital," he says, already putting the car in gear.
"Right now?"
"Right now."
The drive to Massachusetts General takes twenty minutes in traffic. Mark spends the entire time asking questions I don't have answers to—when was my last period, have I been taking prenatal vitamins, what have I been eating, am I experiencing any unusual symptoms.
"I don't know, no, food, and yes," I answer when he pauses for breath. "That's why I took the test."
"What symptoms?"
"Nausea. Fatigue. My boobs feel different."
His hands flex on the steering wheel. "Different how?"
"Just... different. More sensitive. This morning felt different when you?—"
"I noticed."
Of course he did. Mark notices everything.
The hospital is efficient in the way expensive medical facilities always are. Mark gives my name at reception, mentions something about wanting to confirm a pregnancy, and we're directed to the women's health wing with the kind of immediate attention that money and confidence tend to buy.
The blood test is next. The technician, a woman in her fifties with kind eyes and steady hands, draws three vials and tells us results will be ready in an hour.
Mark spends that hour interrogating every medical professional who comes within ten feet of us about prenatal care, optimal nutrition, recommended vitamins, and appointment schedules.
"Folic acid," he says into his phone, making notes on something. "How much? Daily?"
The doctor who delivers our official results is a woman in her forties with graying hair and the patient demeanor of someone who's delivered this news thousands of times. "Congratulations. Blood work confirms pregnancy. Based on your dates, I'd estimate you're about six weeks along."
Six weeks. Mark and I look at each other across the small examination room, both doing the same math.
"Due date would be sometime in mid-July," the doctor continues. "We'll want to schedule your first prenatal appointment within the next couple weeks."
"What's the earliest available?" Mark asks.
"I can check with scheduling?—"
"Tomorrow if possible."
The doctor's eyebrows rise slightly. "Most patients prefer to wait until?—"
"Tomorrow," Mark repeats, and there's something in his voice that makes it clear this isn't a request.
By the time we leave the hospital, Mark has scheduled appointments with three different doctors, requested referrals to specialists I didn't know existed, and made a list of dietary supplements that fills an entire page of his notebook.
"You realize the baby isn't due for months, right?" I ask as we walk toward the car.
"I realize that proper prenatal care starts immediately."
The parking lot is nearly empty, the November evening sharp enough to make our breath visible. Mark stops beside the car but doesn't immediately unlock it. Instead, he turns to look at me with an intensity that makes something flutter low in my stomach.
"So I'm pregnant," I say, testing how the words sound out loud now that they've been medically confirmed.
His gray eyes lock onto mine. "I told you I'd put a baby in your belly, and I always follow through."
Heat spreads through my chest, my stomach, lower. I thought it was dirty talk, the kind of thing men say in the moment without meaning.
But Mark meant it. Mark always means exactly what he says.
He steps closer, backing me against the car, his hands coming up to frame my face. The metal is cold against my spine, but his body is warm, solid, radiating the kind of controlled intensity that makes my knees weak.
When he kisses me, it tastes like promises kept and futures claimed and the specific satisfaction of a man who asked for something impossible and got it anyway.