Page 17 of Between Our Hearts

The ball passed two times before he could bring himself to tell the truth. “It was her third.”

“Oh.” His partner’s eyes softened. “Oh, man.” He blew out a breath. “Did you guys—”

“See the specialist? Yeah, after the second one. We got all the testing done, and everything seems normal, but this keeps happening.”

Jayce tsked. “Well, she’ll still need time. I know with Caroline, she kinda went into a fog for a week after hers.”

Miles blew the whistle to switch stations, and they moved on to dumbbell thrusters.

“Did she ever . . .” The words caught in Clark’s throat, but he forced them out. “Shut down on you?”

“No. Caroline was kind of the opposite. I felt like she wanted to hash it out constantly, and I ended up being the one who needed to take a break from talking about it.” He paused, pushing the weights high over his head. “Whatever you do, don’t try to fix it. I made that mistake.”

Clark winced. Was suggesting adoption trying to “fix things?” Maybe that was why she’d been so angry every time he’d brought it up.

He just wanted Lottie to have a sibling. He loved his parents and was incredibly grateful that he had a close relationship with them, but growing up, he’d always felt so alone. If he hadn’t been at school, he’d been by himself, usually scrounging around the woods for hours. When he’d grown tired of that, he’d quietly sat and read at his father’s side as he’d worked on his latest novel. Clark didn’t want Lottie to grow up feeling the same emptiness he’d always known.

“What’d you do?” His friend’s voice brought him back to the park.

When he looked up, Jayce had stopped his set.

“Are we talking, or are we working?” Miles called out from his position in the center of the strollers, blowing bubbles toward the kids.

They both continued in silence for a few beats before Clark asked, “Is it ‘fixing things’ to bring up other options for having a child?”

Jayce thought for a moment. “Not necessarily. There was a point when we were considering adoption, but then the pregnancy with Grace stuck.”

The whistle tweeted.

“Okay,” he said, moving to the next station. They both got into plank position and started alternating reach out high-fives. “But she gets really angry when I bring it up.”

“Did you bring it up yesterday?”

Clark stared at the black mat under his hands and swore.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Jayce said. “It’s not like there’s an instruction manual for this or anything. Though Caroline would joke that if there was one, I wouldn’t have read it anyway.”

Clark laughed for what felt like the first time in weeks, his abs straining from the action while being in plank. “I’m actually pretty good at reading instructions.”

“Well, la-di-da.” Jayce slapped his hand.

They continued until Miles blew three quick tweets letting them know that stations were over, and it was time for a concentrated ab circuit before cool down.

“The biggest advice I can offer is just to be there for her. Silence is okay. If she ends up talking, just listen.” They laid on their backs per Mile’s instructions to start bicycles. “And I’m sure Sadie knows this because she’s a doctor, but make sure you tell her it isn’t her fault. That she’s not broken. Something like one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, but nobody ever tells you that because no one ever talks about it. Caroline thought it was something she was doing wrong, but that’s just not how it works. I still remember the look on her face when I told her it wasn’t her. It was like watching this heavy weight lift off her body.”

“I did say that.” He’d at least gotten one thing right last night.

“Good.”

Miles called out to them again, and they switched to leg raises.

“And give yourself time to feel sad about it yourself. It’s not just her loss, it’s yours as well. You can always talk to me if you need to,” Jayce added.

“Thanks.” That small, simple acknowledgement assuaged the maelstrom of emotions tugging at his weary muscles.

Jayce let them finish the rest of the abs circuit and the stretching afterward in silence. They rolled the mats and tucked them under their arms before grabbing a few dumbbells to carry to Miles’s truck. After all the dads had picked up the equipment, Jayce’s hand stopped Clark’s shoulder on the way to the strollers.

“One more thing,” he said quietly as the rest of the dads moved toward the kids. “You guys can’t try again for a few weeks anyway, so I’d focus on reconnecting right now. Caroline and I tried to do some more date nights, and though the first few right after were awkward, I felt like when we decided to go for it again, we were back on the same page. Then Grace was conceived, and it all”—he looked off to the trees and blew out a breath—“don’t mock me, but it felt like it was meant to be.”

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