Page 84 of Lost and Found

All it takes is a moment, and I’m immeasurably changed.

The happiest, messiest sob of my life rips through me, a shock of sound bursting out of my lips like a firework. Cali jumps onto the counter and meows in a staccato panic, headbutting my still-suspended palm.

“Bea?” I hear called out, coming from the front door. The test clatters into the sink before I stride purposefully into the hallway.

Our gazes link and his face brightens. “Hey,” he says, breathless, and gorgeous. My pulse stutters. He tosses his keys and wallet onto the counter. “What’s with all the bread?”

I must take the necessary steps to get closer to him. I must march his way and he must watch me as I do, but all of it blends together. The next thing I know, he’s within my reach, as clear as that second line and just as beautiful.

I launch myself into his arms and capture his mouth in a kiss, taste his quietoofbefore he’s chuckling against me. We build up a melody of happy, affectionate sounds . . . until they start to scale into something more frantic. He breaks away with a rough gasp and pins me to the door.

“I missed you, too,” he says. He tangles a hand in my hair and smiles a kiss into my eyebrow, then slowly settles me to my feet.

My whole body fills with helium and lifts me back onto my toes to kiss him again. “We did it.”

He cocks his head with a bemused grin. “We . . .” He searches my expression and his hands clasp harder around my waist. “Oh shit. Wait. Are you?”

I nod animatedly.

“You took a test?”

I nod again, and he glitches the tiniest bit, the quickest flash of something. Maybe hurt? But his eyes immediately fill with something like wonder, and he’s smiling so big and so fast that I think I must’ve misread it.

“Yeah. It’s still early, so there was a chance it could’ve been a false negative, but it was positive, so it’s—” I cough out a wet laugh. “It’s a really good sign.”

He tucks me into his chest, and I laugh and cry against him. I am every emotion trying to be restrained at once. I’m so excited, I feel nauseated, I’m terrified and trembling, I’m so happy I’m drowning in gratitude, so mad my friend is gone for this. I’m so worried about how happy I feel, but so hopeful that nothing will go wrong. My laugh is a waterspout and I’m getting snot on him for the millionth time, but I make fists in the back of his shirt and cling to him like he’s gravity.

“Of course it is,” he soothes. “Of course you did it.”

I almost correct him. I want to say,We did it. You helped me. You’re part of this, too, remember?But I get too in my head, and it’s such a small thing, why should I correct him when he’s looking at me like that, anyway?

He kisses across my cheeks and the bridge of my nose, holding my face with his big hands spread over my ears. “Look at you,” he says, lower lip shining with one of my tears. “Catch of a lifetime again.”

CHAPTER 32

Now

Silas

Bea is still asleep and lying in a sunbeam, curled on her side in my bed, dust motes glimmering like tiny stars around her, and I am staring like a besotted fool. She’s got one bare leg stretched outside the sheets and her hands folded beneath her cheek like a maiden in a painting, and I know, logically, it’s impossible that she looks different already. That the wordglowingis synonymous with pregnancy, so that’s why it’s skipping through my head like a scratched record.

It’s also accurate.

She’s glowing, serene . . . doing nothing other than soft, steady breathing while the universe expands inside her.

I want to tuck that leg back under the covers and make sure she’s warm. Strap her in a suit of armor. Make her French toast from one of the ten loaves of bread sitting around my kitchen. Bend her over the counter and mark her as mine, inside and out. Physically remind myself that she wants me as hers, too.

But Bea is maybe the one thing in my life I’ve been patient for, so I can keep it up a while longer. Just being able to touch her in any way is like carbonation in my bloodstream. I think I’ll be glad when it gets a little less intense, if it ever does.

I was full-up on happiness when she told me . . . So why do I feel like I’ve got a hand cupped around my throat, squeezing occasionally just to remind me it’s there?

Admittedly, I was taken aback that she took the test without me, but I’m not trying to read into it more than I should. I’m in this for her. It’s her body, her baby until she decides otherwise, and I guess I just need to be supportive in whatever capacity she’d like me to be.

“I can feel you staring.”

I laugh through my nose and bend to kiss the corner of her mouth. “Just trying to figure out how you managed to steal all my blankets while only needing half your body covered.”

She makes a petulant little sound and nestles deeper into the pillow. “Lie with me a while longer. Catch up on sleep while you can.” My chest tightens sweetly, thinking she means catch up on sleep before a baby comes. Thinking she’s automatically included me in this future. But then she adds, “Before the Fourth of July happens and people misplace common sense in favor of pyrotechnics.”