Page 98 of Shared By my Ex's Best Friends
I hold her tighter. Sometimes she doesn’t want solutions. Sometimes she just wants to beheld.
We’re always learning.
We don’t shove things under the rug or pretend they don’t matter, and we never go to bed angry. Even if it means sitting up at one in the morning in our pajamas, bleary-eyed and exhausted, until the air is clear again.
Jake is always the first to break the silence after a fight. “Okay, I was a dick,” he’ll say, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can we skip to the part where you forgive me and I rub your feet?”
Liam apologizes in quiet actions—refilling Maya’s water bottle before she asks, leaving sticky notes on her mirror that say things likeYou’re strongorYou’re doing amazing, sweetheartin his careful handwriting.
I wrap her up in my arms and breathe her in like she’s the answer to every question I didn’t know I had.
On Sundays, we don’t do much of anything. We curl up on the massive couch—Jake still insists it was “architecturally impossible” to get it through the front door, even though Liam and I managed it while he yelled encouragement from the porch.
Maya stretches across our laps like a spoiled cat, her phone in one hand, thumb scrolling lazily through her pregnancy app. The app tells her the baby is the size of a lemon this week.
Jake raises an eyebrow. “A lemon? That’s kind of… aggressive. I like that for us.”
“I thought last week it was a plum?” I say, reaching for the coffee mug Maya abandoned on the side table. “Does it really grow that fast?”
“Plums are soft,” she murmurs, half-asleep, not really answering my question. “Lemons are zesty. This kid’s got bite.”
Liam smirks. “If it inherits Jake’s stubbornness, we’re in trouble.”
Maya grins, resting a hand over the slight swell of her belly. “Then it’ll also be loyal. And reckless. And full of heart.”
We haven’t heard the heartbeat yet. Haven’t seen the baby on a screen. But it’s there.
We feel it in the silence that falls when Maya goes still, her palm pressing instinctively to her stomach. We feel it in the way weargue about cribs and paint colors and where to put the changing table.
We don’t always agree, but weall care.
There’s this buzz of anticipation in the house. Like we’re all holding our breath for the moment everything changes. But we’re not rushing it.
There’s beauty in the waiting. In the in-between.
We’re suspended here—before appointments, before names and night feedings and early wake ups.
Before all of it, it’s just us.
A house with chipped paint and mismatched coffee mugs and too many blankets on the couch.
A girl we love, a baby on the way, and the kind of life you build one morning at a time.
Chapter forty
JAKE
The sterile chill of the exam room does nothing to steady my nerves.
Fluorescent lights hum softly overhead, casting a pale glow across the white walls and laminated posters that line them—charts about fetal development, stages of pregnancy, stark reminders of what’s coming.
The air smells faintly of disinfectant and latex. Too clean. Too cold.
I’m not even the one lying on the table, but my hand is slick in Maya’s. I tighten my grip a little, hoping she feels how solid I am for her—even if I’m barely keeping it together inside.
My knee bounces until I force it still. Calm. Strong. Present. That’s what she needs from me right now.
Maya is propped up slightly, the thin paper crinkling beneath her as she shifts. The gown is loose, draped over her legs, her belly just barely visible beneath the lifted hem.
