5. Lucas
LUCAS
“You’re what?”
Harmony stands in front of me at the park with her arms wrapped around her middle, her face pale in the early afternoon light.
The same bench where she told me we should just be friends sits a few feet away.
When she texted asking if I could meet her here, some stupid, hopeful part of me thought maybe she’d changed her mind.
Instead, she dropped a bomb.
“I’m pregnant,” she says again.
The words hit even harder the second time. It’s a shock to my system like I’ve never felt before. I stare at her, waiting for my brain to do something useful, but all I can think is that she looks too alone standing there by herself with that much uncertainty in her eyes.
Pregnant.
Harmony is pregnant.
With my kid.
The thought nearly takes my knees out.
“Lucas?” she asks, and the concern in her voice snaps something inside me back into place.
I step closer, but I don’t touch her because she looks as though physical contact might send her over the edge. “Are you okay?”
She gives a shaky laugh that doesn’t sound anything like her. “I have no idea.”
I nod, forcing my voice to stay even. “That’s fair.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel,” she says. “I took the test twice because I thought maybe the first one was wrong, which is ridiculous, but I did it anyway.”
“Second one was positive, too?”
She nods. Her mouth trembles for half a second before she presses her lips together, and it’s clear she’s doing everything in her power not to cry.
For years I’ve known what to do in emergencies. Fire, smoke, broken glass, blocked exits, scared people, tight spaces, a clock running down. Those things make sense in a brutal kind of way. You assess. You move. You handle what’s in front of you.
This is entirely fucking different.
There’s no gear to put on. No hose to drag. No door to force open. Just Harmony standing in front of me looking scared and confused, and a whole future neither of us saw coming hanging over us.
My brain tries to move through practical steps and runs into a wall. Doctor. Timeline. Insurance. Appointments. Vitamins. There are definitely things I’m supposed to know, and right now I know exactly none of them.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
She blinks. “Physically?”
“Any way.”
“I don’t know. A little nauseous. Tired. Panicky.” She rubs both hands over her face, then lets them fall. “Mostly panicky.”
“Have you called a doctor?”
“Not yet. I will.”
Her eyes meet mine, and for a second she looks so close to breaking that I almost reach for her. I stop myself because last time I reached for her, everything between us changed, and I don’t know what she needs from me right now.
I mean, fuck. I know what I want to do. I want to pull her into me, tell her I’ll always take care of her, tell her I’d marry her in a heartbeat if she’d have me.
But I’m a smart enough man to know that isn’t what she wants to hear right now.
Harmony looks at me for a long, unsteady moment. Then she whispers, “I’m really scared, Lucas.”
The words gut me.
This time, I don’t stop myself. I reach for her, pulling her into my arms. “Come here.”
By the time I get back to the station, I know three things.
Harmony is pregnant.
She’s scared.
And I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.
Those three facts follow me through the apparatus bay, into the locker room, and straight back out again.
I check the rig because that’s the next thing on the list and because the work matters whether my head is screwed on straight or not.
The department doesn’t get to pause because my future just got rewritten.
Hoses still need to be checked, gear still needs to be ready, and if a call comes in, nobody on the other end cares that I’m trying to remember whether pregnant women are supposed to avoid coffee completely or just cut back.
I force myself to slow down.
Gauge. Valve. Coupling. No shortcuts.
I check every compartment twice because distraction is how mistakes happen, and mistakes in this job can get people hurt. My hands know the rhythm even when my mind keeps wandering back to Harmony in the park, pale and stunned, doing her best not to fall apart.
“You good, Cap?”
I look over my shoulder. Dane is standing near the bay door with a rag in one hand and suspicion all over his face.
“I’m working,” I answer.
“Didn’t ask what you were doing.”
“I’m good.”
He leans his shoulder against the wall. “You checked that compartment already.”
“I know.”
“You checked it three times.”
I close the compartment too hard. “Then it should be very checked.”
Dane studies me for another second, then apparently decides self-preservation matters more than curiosity. “Sure. Very checked.”
He walks off, but not far. I can feel him watching me from the edge of the bay, and I can’t even blame him. If one of my guys was moving through a routine this way, too controlled and tense, I’d notice too.
I finish the inspection, log it, and make myself eat half a sandwich in the kitchen. A couple of the guys are arguing about whether the new diner is any good, and I sit through five minutes of it without absorbing a word.
Pregnant.
Weeks. Trimesters. Morning sickness. Appointments.
Is nausea this early normal? Does she need vitamins already? Has she told her parents yet? Should I have said more, asked her more questions, reassured her it’s going to be okay?
I push back from the table.
“Where are you going?” Dane asks.
“Office.”
“To brood?”
“To work.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
I ignore him.
The small office off the hall is empty. I shut the door, sit behind the desk, and pull out my phone. For a second, I just stare at the search bar, hating how useless I feel.
Then I type: what to do when someone is pregnant.
The results are somehow worse than knowing nothing.
Prenatal vitamins. OB-GYN appointments. Due date calculators. Nutrition. Blood tests. Ultrasounds. Foods to avoid. Things to watch for. Things that are normal. Things that are emergencies. Within five minutes my head is spinning.
I set the phone facedown on the desk and scrub a hand over my face.
I need answers from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.
Someone who’s been through this. Someone who knows what actually matters and what the internet makes sound terrifying because the internet is a damn nightmare.
Then I think of Hudson.
Three kids. One more on the way. The man has spent half his adult life either expecting a baby, holding a baby, or assembling something for a baby.
He’s in the bunk room when I find him, sitting on the edge of the lower bunk and lacing his boots. The room is empty aside from him, quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioning.
He looks up when I stop in the doorway. “What’s up, Cap?”
“You got a minute?” I ask. “I need to ask you a couple things.”