Maya
She felt—she didn't have a word for it. Lighter than she had felt in weeks. As if something that had been wound very tight had finally been allowed to release.
"Victoria Hale called me,” she said.
Reid’s hand kept stroking her hair.
A pause. “Good.”
Maya tilted her head to look up at him. He was looking at the ceiling with a soft smile on his face.
She settled her cheek back against his chest.
"Jenny's going to take over the community work," she said.
Reid hummed.
"She'll be brilliant at it. And it's part time, flexible, she can bring the baby.”
"That's a good idea."
Maya smiled. "I have them occasionally."
His chest moved under her cheek. A quiet laugh.
"Naomi has three projects she wants me to consult on," Maya said. The words still felt slightly unreal. Good unreal. "Design stage, all of them. Getting the accessibility right from the beginning instead of retrofitting afterward." She paused. "It's perfect.”
Reid's arm tightened around her.
"Good," he said. His voice had gone rough. "That's—good."
She pressed her face into his shoulder. This was everything she wanted.
Almost everything.
"Reid," she said.
"Mm."
"I'm ovulating."
The hand in her hair stopped moving.
"Now?" he said.
"I've been tracking it," she said. "Since—" She paused. "For a while."
A beat of silence.
"Okay," he said. All the drowsy warmth in his voice had gone, replaced by something more focused. He was already shifting them.
"You can’t possibly be ready to go again,” she laughed as he manhandled her onto her back.
“Give me twenty minutes.”
She laughed harder. She hadn't expected to laugh like this, not today.
"You're not twenty-two."
"I am extremely motivated."
She was still laughing. Reid pressed his mouth to her temple. Her cheek. The corner of her jaw.
“Fifteen minutes," he said, against her skin.
She was laughing too hard to answer.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand.
He ignored it.
It buzzed again.
He continued ignoring it, his mouth at her throat now, his hands moving with renewed and frankly impressive purpose.
It buzzed a third time.
"Reid—"
"Not important."
"It might be—"
"It's not."
It buzzed again. Then it started to ring.
Reid made a sound of profound irritation against her collarbone and reached for it without lifting his head.
He squinted at the screen.
He put it back down without answering the call.
"Wilson," he said, returning his attention to her neck.
It rang again and this time, Reid sat up, annoyed, and answered it.
"What." His voice was clipped. Professional. Entirely at odds with the fact that his hand was still warm at her hip.
Maya watched his face.
"When," he said.
A pause.
"Which terminal." Another pause. "Give me a moment."
He hung up the phone.
Maya raised an eyebrow.
"Julian made bail. He just tried to leave the country," Reid said. "He's being held at the airport."
She pushed herself up onto her elbows.
“He won’t be granted bail again,” he told her. “And this stunt has added a few more charges to the list. They want to know if I want to go pick him up and charge him.”
Maya looked at her husband. He was waiting for her to say something.
“What do you want to do?” she asked him.
"It doesn’t matter,” Reid said. “It’s not up to me.”
Maya frowned. Who was it up to, then?
"You're in charge," he said. "Of me. Of all my moral decisions going forward." He said it completely seriously, as if this were a simple administrative matter he was clarifying. "That's the new arrangement."
Maya opened her mouth.
Closed it.
"You can't just—" She stopped. "You can't just hand over your moral framework to me, Reid, that's not how—"
"Too late," he said. "It's done. You're in charge."
She stared at him.
He looked back at her with an expression of complete and utter sincerity.
"Reid Lawson," she said.
"Maya Lawson," he said.
She thought about Julian Cross, held at an airport terminal, having tried to run.
She thought about Reid at a dunk tank, soaking wet, telling two hundred people he was the villain.
She thought about her phone left behind on a deposition table.
"Okay," she said. "Here's what's going to happen."
He waited.
"You're going to put your baby in me," she said. "And then you're going to go charge Julian Cross."
Something crossed Reid's face that she didn't have a name for. Delight and reverence, the expression of a man who has been handed everything he wanted and still can't quite believe it's real.
He was already redialing, lifting the phone back to his ear.
“Tell them to hold him overnight. I’ll drive out there in the morning.” He hung up before Wilson could respond.
He dropped the phone back on the nightstand.
He looked at her.
"Okay," he said.
He was already moving toward her.
“Fifteen minutes?” she asked.
“Twelve.” he said.
She laughed, and pulled him down, and when he came to her, she knew she was the most important thing in his world.