She sounds the same when she comes. She grips my hair and pulls me to her, thighs closing on either side of my head, squeezing as she moans my name. When her body goes limp, I climb on top of her and make slow love to her. And I can’t stop kissing her. I can’t stop.

It’s when we’re lying in bed afterward that I see something I’ve never seen before. Mercedes giggling. It’s such a foreign sight that I find myself staring. Then I see why. And I watch in awe as her stomach moves.

“They’re kicking. Probably hungry,” she says, looking at me. When I don’t move, she takes my hand and lays it over her bump, and I feel it. I feel the pressing of a hand or a foot. Contact. The babies are making contact.

Mercedes watches me, but I am mute.

“Is the great Lawson Montgomery finally dumbstruck?”

“I’ve been dumbstruck for a long time now, little monster.” I have no idea why I say it, and clearly, she is taken aback and confused.

The baby stops moving then, and I clear my throat. Mercedes looks away first, slips her nightie on, and climbs out of bed.

“I need breakfast,” she says and hurries from the room.

I sit there for a minute, wondering what the fuck just happened. What I just admitted. Wonder what I’m doing.

I get up to pull on yesterday’s clothes, stiff from drying on the radiator. I pick up my phone from on top of the dresser where she must have set it, and I see several notifications but ignore them. They can wait. I wash my face and work my fingers through my hair.

She’s in the kitchen scrambling eggs and toasting bread when I get there. I set our mugs on the counter and pour us more coffee while I watch her, this strange, new Mercedes standing at the stove scrambling what looks to be a dozen eggs.

“I didn’t realize you knew how to cook.”

“It’s eggs.” She rolls her eyes. “But there’s a lot you don’t know about me, Judge. You’ve never bothered.”

“That’s neither true nor fair.”

“Isn’t it?”

The toaster pops.

“Can you put more bread in?”

I take the two pieces out and put two more in.

“There’s juice in the fridge.”

The dynamic between us is strange. Different. Domestic. But off. I remind myself that Mercedes and I do better when we fight, but I find I don’t want to fight. Not now.

So I set the juice and the toast on the small table, and when the eggs are ready, I take the frying pan from her to serve us.

“Sit down,” I tell her.

“I can do it.”

“I know you can. I just want to. Please let me.”