When we’ve both settled in, I wait for her to begin speaking. When she doesn’t, I take the lead. “Did Doug leave you?” I ask as gently as I can. I mean, I won’t win the fight, but, if that’s the case, I will still gladly go over and attempt to punch him out.

“No,” Jordan says, putting her glass of water on the table. “I mean, I don’t know. He’s freaking out. I’m freaking out. The thing is . . .” She wrings her hands, takes another deep breath to compose herself, and finally looks at me. “He was never supposed to be the father of my children, Miles. That was always supposed to be you.”

I could say something right now about how she was the one who ruined that the minute she let someone else’s sperm inside her. But I look at her tearstained face and her rounded belly between us and I just can’t.

Memories tug at me everywhere. For two years, my brain’s synapses fired away with visions of the two of us, visions of our future. And there were always (at least) two children in the picture. There are two children here with us now.

Jordan’s next shaky breath is a small “oh” and her hand goes to her belly. “They’re kicking. Do you want to feel?”

I hesitate for a split second. Then nod.

She takes my hand and guides it to the right underhand side of her belly. I immediately sense it, the little spasm. It feels like electricity coursing through from her body to my hand; it feels intensely real.

“This one’s the kicker. Baby B, as she’s creatively called,” she says with a small laugh, the little bells laugh. “Baby A is chill. He seems to flip over every once in a while, but this one . . . Another kick. “She’s a firecracker.”

“Like her mom,” I say.

Jordan smiles and then her face cracks open. “I don’t want her to be a screwup like her mom,” she says, her voice thick with tears. “I screwed up the best thing I had going, Miles. And I don’t want my kids to suffer for it. Our kids, if you can find it in your heart to let that happen.”

Baby B knows her cues. She reaches out to me again, a tiny wave—or a fist bump if she’s anything like her dad, her real dad.

But it’s her mom who is openly sobbing now. And the only thing my heart knows to do in that moment is to hold her and let her.

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 32

ZOEY