He ran his hand reverently over the cover of the binder before opening it and flipping to the page I’d marked.

“It’s not as comprehensive as all the stuff you did,” I said, chewing on my thumbnail. “And there’s probably a lot of stuff I’m missing. And it’s seriously going to be fucking expensive. I mean, how hard is it to get a chick pregnant, right? High schoolers do it all the fucking time. Creed did it to Anna and they didn’t have to pay seventy grand. I mean, what the fuck? But it’s called the Northwest Surrogacy Center, and it’s based out of Portland. It’s supposed to be the best, and we go in, tell them we want to knock up a woman, and then they’ll trot them out like an auction or something, and we have to judge them, which seems really mean, but I don’t want our baby to come out with beady eyes and a hook nose, so I get why. Though I’m still fuzzy on the auction, or how that works, because that seems sort of demeaning. But then we give them all our money and we’ll have to live on ramen and Fig Newtons for the rest of our lives, because once you have a kid, you’re broke and don’t ever get to have privacy anymore ever. But I want that. With you. I want to eat ramen and Fig Newtons with you forever, because I’m ready. I’m sorry I took this long to get here. I’m sorry you thought I didn’t want it. But I’m ready now. And I know there’s the Kid and his whole deal, but we can’t put off our lives because of him. We can’t. It’s not fair to us. And he wouldn’t want that. I don’t want that. And I hope you don’t either. So yeah. The end. Can I please get you pregnant?” I sighed and put my face in my hands. “I don’t know why I keep saying that.”

I heard him close the binder.

I heard knees pop as he pushed himself up.

And then I was surrounded by him, his big arms around me, squeezing me so tightly that I thought my bones were creaking. And he was shaking, so much so that I thought he was laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I asked suspiciously.

And then I heard him choke out a sob.

That’s when I realized that I, Derrick Thompson, had made my husband, Oliver Thompson, cry.

“Whoa,” I whispered fervently.

And that’s when I felt it, the wetness on my neck from where his face was pressed against me. I wiggled my arms out from where they were trapped between us and stood on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck. He shuddered against me, and we swayed back and forth while he shook. I would have been worried about his reaction if I hadn’t heard him mumbling, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” against my skin.