Page 83 of The Complication with the Best Man

“What?” I prop my arm behind my head and take her in. The wild waves of her thick red hair, the freckles on her nose, the sparkle in her eyes.

“My aunt told me that at the next ultrasound, we can find out the sex of the baby. What do you think?”

I consider it for a moment. The idea of knowing—being able to choose a name, decorate the nursery, and prepare in a way that you can’t when you don’t know the baby’s sex—appeals to me. But so does the idea of finding out when he or she is born. More than anything, I don’t want to influence Harper’s decision. I can live with either.

“What do you want to do?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Nope. You tell me first.”

I chuckle. “I want whatever you want.”

“Finn…” she says with a slight whine in her tone.

“How about this… I’ll count us down, and we both say what we want at the same time. That way we know neither of us is just saying what the other person wants to hear. We can discuss from there.”

She nods. “That works.”

“All right. Three, two, one…”

“No!” we say at the same time.

The two of us dissolve into laughter, and she lies back down beside me, cheek on my chest.

“It’s decided then. We’ll wait until the baby is born. You get so few surprises in life. I think it will be fun to wait.”

“You were a surprise. This was a surprise.” I move my hand to rest on her stomach. “Sometimes life gives you amazing surprises.”

forty

HARPER

Afew weeks have passed since Finn’s return, and we’ve fallen into a good rhythm. It’s not that much different from how we were before we decided to be a couple. Only now, I don’t sit on the opposite side of the couch as him. Now I hold his hand when we’re walking around downtown or in the grocery store. And now he’s beside me when I retire for the night.

Oh, and we have sex.

A lot of sex.

I’m not sure if it’s pregnancy or just Finn, but my appetite is insatiable these days, and he definitely isn’t complaining.

I’ve had good sex in my life, but sex with Finn is on another level. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s mastered his technique or if it’s because there’s something more between us. Something is building that I’ve never felt before, and it’s equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. There’s no way I’m going to acknowledge it first though.

Thankfully, my family has pretty much left us to our own devices, letting us stay in this little bubble we’ve created for ourselves.

Today we’re painting what used to be Finn’s room and will soon be the baby’s nursery. Finn has spent the past week moving the furniture that was in here into storage. We went to the paint store last week and picked a light beige since we’re going with a neutral palette that will work for a boy or a girl. He wanted me out of the house while he painted, but we went with a low VOC paint so that I can help.

We’re about a half hour in, and Finn is doing all the cutting before I can help with the rolling. He wouldn’t let me get up on the ladder and didn’t want me crawling around the floor to cut in on the baseboards.

For some reason, it’s kind of hot watching him paint our baby’s room. Maybe it’s the way the muscles in his back and arms bunch with every stroke of the paint brush. Or maybe it’s just that I get to admire his ass while his back is to me.

So while he does that, I sit with my legs crossed, looking through the website of the baby store in Anchorage that my mom suggested we register at.

“Babies sure come with a lot of stuff.” It’s not as though I didn’t know that. Enough of my family have had kids over the years that I’m aware, but it feels different when it’s for yourself. “So many things to decide on.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Finn says to me over his shoulder.

I frown, staring at the screen. “Just for baby monitors alone, there’s, like, a hundred different options. Ones with cameras and ones without. Ones where you place this mat under the baby and an alarm goes off if they stop breathing. And who knows which one to pick? Based on the reviews, some people say they love the mat because it gives them peace of mind, and others say it just gives them anxiety because they’re waiting for the alarm to go off. And then some people say the alarm went off, and it was a false alarm, and now they’re always afraid for their baby. Then others say it saved their baby’s life. It’s overwhelming.” My chest feels tight when I look across the room at Finn.

He comes down off the ladder. “Harp, whatever we pick will be fine. Don’t stress yourself out over it.”

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