Page 118 of Everything But Mine

Val picks me up just past noon, her sunglasses crooked and her professional bun looking worse for wear. She tosses my discharge papers onto my lap as I get in the car. Coffee cups and snacks in different stages of abandonment litter the car. By the time we’ve merged onto the highway, her driving’s gotten aggressive enough that cars leave a cushion around us.

As we drive north, the landscape transforms around us. Soft green slopes give way to a thicker forest canopy. Broader sycamores, maples, and oaks adorn the road now. I don’t ask Val to slow down. The motion calms my nerves even as it rattles my teeth.

Twenty-nine weeks and five days. I’ve been trying to imagine the feel of her under my hands. There’s bubbling excitement running through my veins, but also an undercurrent of fear that she’s upset I left.

Val pulls into the gravel loop, and Diego’s sisters rush toward us. Martina throws her arms around me while Carmen jabs me in the ribs, both grinning like they never doubted I’d make it here.

I look past them at the green-roof two-story cabin circle around a firepit beside the lake, but I only notice the dock. Amanda stands at the end of it, talking to Matteo, tumbler in hand, the other braced against her lower back. A breeze lifts her hair, purple highlights flashing in the sunlight. A shiver runs up my spine that my being here disturbs her peace. Rather than taking hold, I focus on her smile. I take in the curve of her stomach, more pronounced now, and how her hips angle differently. Warmth spreads in my chest.

“Hey.” Diego halts to a stand next to me, arms crossed, and his brown eyes trained on Amanda. “You good?” he asks, quieter now.

I shift my head from side to side. “Maybe. I need to see her face when she sees me.”

Matteo waves our way, then tips his chin.

“You’re about to,” Diego says, clapping my shoulder before walking away.

She turns my way then, and the moment her eyes find mine, everything else—the lake, the voices, the late-summer wind—disappears. Amanda doesn’t run to me. She simply holds my gaze while my pulse pounds harder with every step I take toward her. It’s not one of those run-and-hug moments from a romcom. It’s charged and cautious. When I stop, we’re a breath apart, suspended between reunion and uncertainty.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” She purses her lips into a smile. It’s neither cold nor warm, and the shiver returns.

I gesture at her belly. “You look… I mean, you’re⁠—”

“Big?”

“Gorgeous.”

She looks down, then back up at me. The smile is warm now, the corners of her eyes crinkling.

“I missed you,” she says.

“I’m here now.” I hesitate. “And I’m not leaving again.”

She focuses her gaze on me, eyes squinting. “You wouldn’t have said that before.”

“I’m trying to be who I promised I’d be.”

Amanda stretches out her hand, and I give her mine. The second our fingers touch, every shiver and undercurrent of fear I’d felt eases. She steps in and presses my palm to her belly, right on the sliver of skin between her peasant skirt and tank top.

“He’s missed you too,” she says.

“Did you name him?” I ask, soaking in the movement inside her.

She shakes her head.

“Pick an apartment?”

Another shake.

“Pick a color for the nursery?”

A third shake. I chuckle. “Did you do anything I asked you to?”

She hesitates, then smiles. “Be with you.”

My own smile breaks. I close the final distance and pull her into my arms. Her nails dig into my sides, and it helps my heart settle. I’m home.