“You’ve ruined nothing,” Nick said softly. “It was not your responsibility to make it a certain way.”

“Yeah, but I always imagined us deciding to try, having a lot of fun doing it, and then finding out it worked and you picking me up and twirling me around. And instead I acted ambivalent, and made you feel sad about something you really want,” I said. “And what am I even stressing about? We’re married and we love each other, and we’ll have plenty of help and we have plenty of money. So.”

Nick frowned. “Those are all fine reasons to have a child, if you want to,” he said. “But I only want that if we both do.”

“I have to want that, don’t I?” I asked, my mouth still half in the mattress. “It’s been made very clear to me that having a baby is one of my primary responsibilities. I don’t get to not be ready. Whatever is in here, he or she is the heir to the throne. There isn’t room for me to have complicated feelings about it, because my jurisdiction has pretty much ended.”

The words had tumbled out of me almost faster than they’d come to mind. Nick took a breath, then winced, and peeled off the comforter. We took greedy gulps of the colder, fresher air.

“I hate that you feel that way,” Nick said. “It’s your body, and it’s our baby. No one is in this but you and me. This room is the jurisdiction.”

I tilted my head. “Theoretically,” I said. “But you can’t ignore the fact that if we don’t have a baby, this whole thing falls apart.”

“Bollocks. Gran’s aunt and uncle didn’t have babies, and that’s worked out all right,” Nick pointed out.

“That wasn’t because they didn’t want them,” I reminded him. “It’s not even that I don’t want one! Eventually. It’s just…” I rolled onto my back. “The obsession about when we’re having a baby is already intense. But we’ve only been married a year and a half, and for a lot of that time, you and I were not okay. You, specifically, were really not okay.” I gulped. “Maybe it’s not even pregnancy itself that’s freaking me out. It’s us. I don’t want to break us if we’re too fragile for this right now.”

Nick took my hand, but didn’t look at me.

“I am never going to try to talk you into something you don’t want to do,” he said. “But we are so much better than we were even six months ago. We’ll get ready. We’ll do the work. That’s why it takes so long for babies to percolate in there. They give you months to prepare.”