“I’ll tell you about a conversation I had with Sophie later. I just need a picture of you holding my hair while I vomit.”

Another wave crashed into me and I heaved right when he was taking the photo. He dumped my phone on the counter and crowded behind me again. I took the damp washcloth he offered.

I’d been battling these bouts for the last couple of months, but this was the first time I had both Aiden and my phone with me. I leaned back on my heels. I thought I’d be okay, but I didn’t want to leave the safety zone of the porcelain throne.

Aiden kneeled behind me. “Isn’t this supposed to get better?”

“Maybe? The first trimester is almost done.” I was taking my prenatal vitamin at night like Sophie suggested. She fawned over me as badly as Aiden.

We’d started trying immediately after the board meeting where Aiden had told his grams and the board that he was quitting. Gentry and Kendall had backed him up and said nothing was holding them to the company. Gentry could retire early and Kendall could take a job anywhere in the world she wanted. Only that part was a bluff. They weren’t moving far from their families.

Grams had stayed silent for several minutes. Then she’d dipped her chin and tears had glittered in her eyes. She’d told the board that she should be the one to go.

Aiden had stayed long enough to help with the transition and train his replacement, but he’d militantly stuck to a forty-hour workweek. He’d been officially done at King Oil for three months. I was fairly certain this baby had been conceived on the company plane, in the back bedroom we’d never used before, on the way to Denver to stay with Beck and Eva.

Gentry would step down at King Oil after the new leadership was trained in. They’d hired a vice president from an oil company out of North Dakota: Barron Oil. Another family company, it was also headed by a workaholic CEO who was trying to recruit his oldest as his successor. Gentry had gotten the story out of the new hire and was glad to give him the upward mobility he wouldn’t get at Barron Oil.

Then Gentry would take his place on the board, probably as president. Kendall was leaving too. She’d found a nonprofit in town that could use her expertise, expertise that usually came with a high wage. But she was working for a fraction of what she used to make and she and Gentry were traveling all over. Before the grandkids start dropping, Kendall had said, dancing and clapping after I told her Aiden and I were expecting.

Ours would be the first, but I wouldn’t be shocked if Aiden’s brothers had announcements by the end of the year.