“It’s okay. I wanted to help,” he said. His mind was elsewhere. “I’m sorry you couldn’t be there. This was just as much your moment as it was mine.” He looked up and touched the stretched fabric of my hoodie that covered my protruding belly—the second unplanned thing to ever happen to us. “But I’m glad you weren’t.”

I smiled. “I can’t see my scar anymore.”

Thomas stood and wrapped me in his solid arms. “Now that I’m finally here, you can just look at mine for the next eleven weeks—give or take a few days—until you can see yours again.”

We walked, hand in hand, across our living room, and Thomas led me through our bedroom door. We sat together on the bed and watched the flickering fire and the dancing shadows on the stacks of cardboard holding picture frames and trinkets from our life together.

“You’d think we would have figured out a more efficient system for this by now,” Thomas said, frowning at the boxes.

“You just don’t like the unpacking part.”

“No one likes to unpack, no matter how happy that person might be to move.”

“Are you happy to move?” I asked.

“I’m happy you got this job. You’ve worked toward it for a long time.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Did you doubt me?”

“Not for a second. But I was nervous about the ASAC position in DC. I was beginning to sweat getting settled before the baby arrived, and you didn’t seem to be in a huge hurry for me to get here.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I’m not thrilled about your hour commute though.”

He shrugged. “Better than transcontinental. You dodged the part about not being in a hurry for the father of your child to be around.”

“Just because I’m learning to allow for a few variables doesn’t mean I’ve given up on having a master plan.”

His eyebrows shot up. “So, this was the plan? For me to go crazy from missing you for three months? For me to take the red-eye to be here for every doctor’s appointment? For me to worry that every phone call was bad news?”

“You’re here now, and everything’s perfect.”

He frowned. “I knew you would apply for this position. I psyched myself up for the move. Nothing could have prepared me for you to tell me four weeks later that you were pregnant. Do you know what it did to me, watching my pregnant girlfriend move across the country—alone? You didn’t even take everything with you. I was terrified.”

I breathed out a laugh. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this before?”

“I’ve been trying to be supportive.”