It’s a plausible enough lie. At the moment, I’m between jobs. I used to work at an online magazine. You know the kind—twelve tips to make your boyfriend sizzle, five recipes that will get things going in the bedroom, how to drop fifteen pounds without even trying. I was the master at creating clickbait. But then the magazine unexpectedly went belly up right before the wedding. It wasn’t like I was going to look for jobs on my honeymoon, so it gave me an excuse to procrastinate. And somehow now it’s been almost six months that I’ve been unemployed.

It’s not that I don’t want to work. I do. I would love to be a productive member of society. But I remember how long it took to find a permanent position at the magazine, and I’m not excited to start pounding the pavement again. Rejection hurts, even though it’s a part of the job application process.

And now house hunting has become yet another excuse to avoid it. After all, moving and possibly renovating a house will be a full-time job. And of course, now my pregnancy.

Ethan is apparently thinking the same thing, because he crinkles his nose. “You’re looking for a job now? But we’re going to have a baby soon.”

“Not that soon,” I point out, even though I secretly agree with him. “I don’t know if I’ll take anything, but it can’t hurt to look, right?”

“Right. I mean, you can look if you want. But if you want to stay home during your pregnancy, I’d be okay with that.” He grins at me. “More than okay.”

I get a warm fuzzy feeling all over my body. I hit the husband jackpot. I don’t know why my friends don’t like him. Whenever we talk about him, they always say, this is a red flag, or that’s a red flag. But Ethan is a genuinely good guy. What does it matter that he hasn’t had many girlfriends before me? And why should the fact that he lost his parents and doesn’t have much family be a reason I should avoid him?

My mother would say they’re jealous. After all, I have a gorgeous, wealthy husband, who just wants me all to himself.

I clear my throat. “Did you get the laptop?”

He holds his MacBook up triumphantly. “I almost sunk into about six feet of snow, but I got it.”

I look around the room. When we first came in here, Ethan’s eyes lit up and he had talked about how much he wanted to make this room into his office. “Do you want to work in this room?”

“Actually,” he says, “not really. It’s a big room, and the furniture is nice, but there’s no natural light in here. There’s just that one tiny window.”