Page 43 of Ship Happens

“She started sobbing at one point, asked me if our baby would be as beautiful as me.” Kaitlyn smiles fondly. “Then she passed out on my boobs.” She rubs at her collarbone, stretching her neck a few different ways, grimacing. “God, I love her.”

“Your back okay?”

“Just sore,” she tells him. “These mattresses are hard.”

“Just the way I like it.”

“Is the heating pad for personal use?” Kaitlyn asks, eyeing where the cord trails back inside to an outlet. “Or are you hurting too?”

“It’s nothing,” he tells her. “Probably just the change in temperature.”

At least there’s no thunderstorms in the forecast this week.

Then she lets out a loud gasp, eyes going wide. “We should do a spa day! They’ve got mud baths and saunas and all kinds of stuff. They can do a deep tissue?”

“That’d be fun. Not the massage part, but I’d do anything for a deep soak,” Owen tells her, watching as she pulls out her phone, already imagining the scalding heat of a mineral bath warming his aching joints.

“I’ll just book a day for all of us.”

He puts his pencil back to his iPad. “Thanks for listening last night. I didn’t mean for things to get so deep.”

“It’s what I’m here for, dude.” Kaitlyn leans against the doorframe, still half-hovering inside where it’s warmer. “How are you feeling about . . . everything?”

“I’ll be okay,” he promises, meaning it for the most part.

Kaitlyn arches an eyebrow, staring at Owen like she doesn’t quite believe him.

Never mind that those feelings of inadequacy are still stirring, just barely below the surface of Owen’s mind. The thoughts that leave him questioning what he has to fall back on if tattooing doesn’t pan out. What if he opens this shop and it folds in under a year? Leaving him with even more debt than he started with?

“You know I’ll always be here to listen when your brain is being mean to you,” Kaitlyn says, leaning forward far enough to steal Owen’s coffee mug. “Jesus, at least put a few sugars in,” she says, sticking her tongue out.

“Make your own!” Owen steals the cup back from her.

“Why do you hate me so much?” she grumbles, shuffling toward the kitchen, Owen choosing to follow her, slotting himself in at one of the barstools.

“Wait.” Owen furrows his brow. “Are you allowed to have coffee?”

“I’m allotted twelve ounces a day,” she says to him. “And I’ve already warned Abigail that if y’all try to wean me off, things are going to get violent.”

“I think that could be a sign of addiction.”

Kaitlyn doesn’t say a word; she just glares at him with a terrifyingly quiet fire behind her eyes.

Owen holds his hands up defensively. “I said it could be. Not that it was.”

“Good boy.” Kaitlyn grabs five packets of sugar and the oat milk from the fridge as Abigail finally makes her way into the kitchen, looking much the worse for wear. Her hair is sticking up in a dozen different directions, eyes still mostly closed as she drapes her body over her wife.

“Don’t let me drink that much again,” Abigail grumbles, barely opening her mouth to speak.

Kaitlyn laughs. “You said that last time. And I tried to stop you last night, but you said you were pacing yourself.”

“Your fault for believing me.” Abigail nuzzles her nose against Kaitlyn’s neck. “What are we doing today?”

“Owen and I thought a spa day would be nice,” Kaitlyn tells her. “Perk everyone up.”

“God, that’ll feel heavenly,” Abigail says, grabbing a bag of trail mix from their pile of snacks on top of the counter. “Does the plan include breakfast?”

“It can,” Kaitlyn says, her words short.