20. Josh
Chapter twenty
Josh
I’m staring at the ceiling when I hear the knock.
For a second, I think I imagined it.
Last night, Liv read the inscription in Longitude and looked at me. For seven years, I kept her handwriting on my shelf as proof I had once been a man she thought she could have a life with. When Iris stirred down the hall, I closed the cover before I could ask Liv what she saw in those words now.
I tried to call that was patience.
It was the same thing I have been doing since the night she stopped coming here.
I thought I knew what the book meant when she gave it to me. A man helped sailors know where they were when they were at sea, by using time. I took the inscription too literally. For when we have more time.
Maybe she meant that someday, after enough time between us and everything we kept getting wrong, we might finally know where we were.
And whether there was still a way back to each other.
The knock comes again.
I sit up.
The room is gray with early light. I don’t know how long I’ve been awake. Long enough to know I am not going back to sleep.
I cross the room and open the door.
Liv is in the hallway with Iris tucked against her shoulder. Iris’s cheek is pressed to Liv’s shirt, her eyes heavy, one hand opening and closing like she is still arguing with sleep.
Liv’s hair is loose. Her face is careful.
“She’s close,” she says.
My eyes go to Iris.
Back at Liv.
She adds, softer, “I thought maybe we could walk to the coffee shop.”
For a second, I only hear the practical parts.
Stroller. Motion. Coffee. A baby who might sleep if we keep moving.
I catch Liv’s hand shifting against Iris’s back. The way she is not quite looking at me. The way she came to my door instead of waiting for me to find her in the kitchen.
There it is.
Liv is standing here the morning after I told her I never stopped hoping.
She is offering me a walk.
A coffee shop.
The length of one sleeping baby.
More time.
Not much. Maybe not even enough.
But enough to know she’s trying.
I look at Iris first. She is nearly out, cheek flattened against Liv’s shirt, one small hand curled near the collar.
Then I look at Liv.
And for half a second, I lose the line I was supposed to answer with.
Liv, barefoot, in my doorway.
Liv back in the place I have missed her.
Her hair is loose from sleep, softer around her face than she ever lets it be before court or a client call. There is a faint crease on her cheek from the pillow.
I realize I’m staring.
She glances down at Iris, then back at me. “Only if you want to.”
I do.
Too much.
So, I keep my voice easy.
“Yeah,” I say. “Coffee sounds good.”
We walk over with the stroller. Inside, Liv steers Iris toward the window while I go to the counter and order her flat white with oat milk.
The coffee shop is already crowded, but the window table gives us a thin strip of space.
Enough for the stroller. Enough for two cups.
Maybe enough for whatever Liv came here trying to say.
By the time I get back to the table, Iris is asleep.
For how long, who knows.
Liv hangs her jacket on the back of the chair and sits.
I set her cup down first and pull out the chair across from her and immediately wonder if across is too formal. Beside her would be too much. Standing would be insane.
So I sit.
Like a normal person.
Like this is only coffee.
On a normal Saturday. Normal coffee.
Not a date.
Just the first quiet thing she has offered me since I told her I never stopped hoping.
Liv sets her cup down and tucks the piece of hair behind her ear, looking at the door, the window, and me. I am already waiting for that piece of hair to fall loose again. Waiting for her to tuck it back without noticing she does it.
Iris makes a sound. Not the full cry — the low pitch before, the early signal.
I’ve learned to catch it in the first twenty seconds.
I shift the stroller angle and reach in with the ring toy.
Her fist opens and closes around it. She gives me the look.
Her face scrunches, but not all the way into atomic tomato territory. More of a warning flare.
I have maybe twenty seconds.
“I’ve got her,” I say.
I lean forward and tip the stroller back a quarter inch. The giraffe is in the bag under the stroller. I pull it out and hold it in front of her. She reaches for it, closes both hands around it, and goes quiet.
I settle back in my chair.
Liv has both hands around her coffee cup. Her focus keeps moving between the window and me.
I do not have her.
I had a plan. Ring toy. Redirect. Catch the fuss in the first twenty seconds before it becomes a full cry.
The sound climbs. Then it becomes the real thing — full volume, arched back, the whole thing. She is at full pitch in about three seconds. My hip catches the table edge as I stand to lift Iris out of the stroller.
She arches against my chest, spine curved, both fists going, putting everything she has into it. I head for the far corner near the window — most space, least foot traffic. The coffee shop isn’t large. The couple near the door looked up once and went back to their phones.
The twenty seconds are over.
The plan is over.
And there goes the morning.
Great.
This was supposed to be coffee. A walk. Ten stolen minutes with Liv.
Now I am standing beside a stroller with a ring toy in my hand, negotiating with a four-month-old with who has a terrible sense of timing.
I look for Liv.
She is already beside me, shoulder to shoulder with me. Her hand goes to my back between my shoulder blades.
“You’ve got her,” she says.
I keep moving with Iris. Small steps, back and forth. The same sway I fall back on at two in the morning.
I shift Iris higher on my shoulder and keep going.
The pitch drops. The arching slows, stops. Her weight comes forward against my chest. Her fist finds my collar and closes around it, tight.
Liv’s hand is still on my back.
For a second, it feels so familiar that I forget to breathe normally.
I would keep swaying Iris until college if it meant Liv stayed beside me like this.
So I keep moving.
We go back to the table. I sit carefully, one hand keeping Iris against my shoulder. She stays put. Eyes half-closed, fist still twisted in my collar, the ragged breathing that follows the real cry.
The woman at the table to our left catches my eye. She gives me a nod. The we’ve all been there and you made it, nod. I nod back.
Liv grabs her chair and pulls it next to mine.
“You had her,” Liv says.
“I had her.”
She picks up her coffee. A pause. Her mouth twitches.
“I especially liked the part where you pretended you had a system.”
I meet her eyes over Iris’s head, and for half a second, it is easy again.
Liv teasing me.
Me trying not to smile too hard.
Us, before everything got…complicated…
“I had a system,” I say. “Iris declined to participate.”
Liv’s smile slips free before she can stop it.
I used to live for that smile.
Apparently, I still do.
The barista comes by with a damp cloth and cleans the table next to ours. She glances at Iris asleep on my shoulder. She looks at Liv’s chair, angled toward me, and at Liv’s hands wrapped around her cup.
“You guys are a great team.”
Liv looks up at her.
I wait for the correction. The quick polite smile. The tiny step back into accuracy.
Instead, Liv’s mouth curves.
“Thanks,” she says.
Then she looks at me.
Still smiling.
I shift Iris higher against my shoulder and lean back a little, making room. My arm goes along the back of Liv’s chair.
Liv leans back at the same time, and my arm settles around her.
Liv doesn’t move away.
I don’t take my arm back.