I saw him the second I stepped into the workspace, before my sister, before Tess. He leaned against the worktable with his enormous arms folded across his wide chest. He seemed the ideal blend of the Bennet qualities, from his stupid, irreverent T-shirts to his unflappable, solid support. Granted, his T-shirts were a little more bearable since seeing him fill out tailored clothes so nicely. Nicely enough that I’d made excuses to get him to come to a few venues in the hopes he’d show up in a tie. He cleaned up well, though his jaw, which had been smooth and clean just a few days ago, was already smattered in dark, thick stubble. I wondered what he’d look like with a full-blown beard, imagining it would be as lustrous and luxuriant as his hair. I wanted him to shave his face and cut his hair just as badly as I wanted him to let it run wild despite my wishes.

Today, his shirt read, Sow Cool, bordered with a silhouette of wheat beneath it.

I wanted to laugh, but then our gazes tangled, and I forgot what was so funny.

Something had changed in him over the last week or so, something I couldn’t place. Something about his eyes or the set of his lips that smoldered serious. I’d caught a glimpse of it when he’d asked me about relationships—a personal tone we sadly hadn’t slipped into since—but today, the expression was unprompted, existing before my entrance and seemingly likely to remain when I was gone.

He didn’t move but for the uptick of one corner of his lips, framed by that square, utterly masculine jaw.

Caught off guard, I defaulted to my work smile.

“Lila!” Ivy sighed, smiling. “If you’re here, that means it’s almost pizza time, and thank God. I’m starving.”

The room chuckled.

“I’ll buy you all the pizza you can eat.”

“The cruelest part of that joke is that I can’t even finish one slice. I’m too full of baby,” she said on a laugh, running her hand over the swell tenderly.

“Well, half a piece it is, and I’ll get you one for the fridge. You can eat it in a couple hours when you’re hungry again.”

“Deal. How’d it go with the Femmes?” she asked.

“Well, Angelika and Jordan fucked in a confession booth, and I had to divert a nun who almost caught them.”

The three of them blinked at me, mouths hanging open, before they burst into laughter.

“I know.” I set my bag on the worktable, bending to smell the lilies in Tess’s vase. “If they weren’t totally goo-goo over each other, I’d have figured it for a stunt.”

“I mean, it probably was a stunt,” Ivy noted.

“Probably,” I agreed. “But still. At least something about the ordeal was genuine.”