But now it is my turn. And I’m realizing that it isn’t about the presents or the parties. It’s about celebrating a milestone with the people you love. The people who love and support you.

There is so much love at this table right now my heart is bursting.

“Let’s also pick a date to put together your registry,” Olivia is saying, turning a page in her notebook. “I’ve asked some of my friends who have young kids for their input, and they gave me some great suggestions. Figured we could use those as a good jumping off point. How do you guys feel about a field trip to Hello Baby? There’s one out in West Ashley. Oh! And are you going to find out the gender?”

“You know,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. “I haven’t actually thought about that.”

“Wait, Julia…Julia, are you okay?”

I am crying. All of a sudden.

Hard.

Snotty, sobby, happy crying.

“I love y’all so much,” I say. “Seriously, I’m overwhelmed, and I know I’m always crying when we’re together, but I was not expecting all this.”

“What?” Gracie hands me an extra napkin. “You really think we’d let you have dickhead Greyson Montgomery’s baby on your own?”

“He is a dickhead,” I say, wiping my nose. “He’s also really great and has a really nice penis.”

Olivia laughs. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting to hear that. Although I had a feeling something was going on between you guys. Something more than just sex, anyway.”

“Really?” I sniffle.

“Yeah. For all his growliness and general abrasiveness, Greyson’s actually been pretty great to Elijah over the years. He was one of Eli’s first investors. This was before people knew who Elijah Jackson was—before The Pearl was even open. But Greyson took a real risk and believed in this chef nobody had really heard of. In fact, it was when Greyson backed Eli that things really started to turn around for him. The Montgomery Partners name has real weight behind it in this town—people trust Greyson and Ford, and when they put their money behind something, people take notice. When The Jam closed”—this was Eli’s second restaurant, which never did well despite the success of The Pearl, his first restaurant—“Greyson still stuck by Eli, even though he could’ve easily tucked tail and run. He did a hard thing, a good thing, without having to. He’s a stand-up guy, Julia. And because you’re you, and you take no crap, and you see through people’s bullshit, I knew you’d eventually discover that about him.”

Because my heart wasn’t swollen enough.

It feels enormous now. Filling my entire chest cavity, squeezing my lungs so that it’s difficult to breathe.

“This is not how I pictured my life ending up,” I say. “That I’d be thirty-four and single and knocked up by a guy like Greyson Montgomery. I’m still struggling to come to terms with how off-course it is from where I thought my story would be. But the further along I get in my pregnancy, the better I feel, physically and mentally, and the more I get to know Greyson…I mean, it doesn’t seem half bad. Sometimes it actually seems pretty damn great. Which I was not expecting. At all.”