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“Thinking so hard I can practically hear it.” She pushes herself higher against me, studying my face, her hair falling over one shoulder. “I’m checking whether you’re about to decide last night was too much and hide in your office for six hours.”

A few weeks ago, she would’ve been close enough to the truth to piss me off, but today I pull her closer until she has to brace a hand against my chest.

“I’m staying here.”

Her mouth curves before she leans down to kiss me. “Look at you. Personal growth before coffee.”

“Don’t expect it regularly,” I tell her, sliding my hand around her waist as she laughs against my mouth.

When Emma shifts closer instead of putting any distance between us, I run my hand down her back and let myself accept what she’s already made clear. My hand moves across the curve of her stomach, small enough that most people probably wouldn’t notice yet, though I notice everything.

Emma follows my gaze. “They’re still in there.”

“I know.”

“You’ve checked twice since you woke up.” She laughs and drops her head back onto my shoulder. “You should hear yourself at appointments.”

I’ve heard myself at every appointment so far, and I remain entirely comfortable with the amount of attention involved.

Three days later, however, Emma seems considerably less convinced when her obstetrician starts explaining hydration and nutrition and I open the notebook across my knee.

Emma watches me for long enough that I can feel her stare without looking over. “Bane.”

I finish the line before lifting my head. “Yeah?”

“Why do you have a notebook?”

“The doctor is giving us information.”

Emma turns toward her. “Please tell him drinking enough water doesn’t require meeting minutes.”

The doctor smiles behind the chart in her hand. “Hydration matters.”

“Thank you.” I write the recommendation beneath the previous line before Emma can argue with the medical professional she brought into this.

She catches what I’m doing and rubs a hand over her forehead. “I walked into that.”

The doctor laughs before returning to Emma’s results. I finish the note under Emma’s increasingly unconvincing pretense that she hasn’t noticed.

Pregnancy books have taught me enough about everything that can change between appointments that I listen to every word, but once the technician starts the ultrasound and two familiar shapes appear on the screen, the explanations around me become harder to follow.

As the technician identifies what we’re seeing, the gray shapes pull me back to the appointments I attended with Celeste, when neither of us could tell an arm from a leg until somebody showed us.

She laughed when we learned there were two babies, and later I stood in the spare bedroom trying to work out how the hell one crib had become two.

Emma slips her hand into mine, bringing me back to the screen in front of us, and I close my fingers around hers. The technician moves the wand across her stomach and shows us each baby.

“They’re doing great,” the doctor says.

Emma squeezes my fingers.

I keep watching the screen. “You sure?”

The doctor glances at me with the patience of someone who’s probably dealt with hundreds of men exactly like me. “I’m sure.”

Emma smiles. “He’ll ask again before we leave.”

“I won’t.”