Page 17 of The Firefighter’s Forever

Harmony looks down at the ultrasound photo in her hand as we walk out of the exam room. “He was asleep, Lucas.”

“He refused to move for twelve straight minutes while Dr. Korman tried to get a better angle.”

“Because he was comfortable.”

“Stubborn,” I repeat.

“Comfortable.”

I reach past her to push open the door to the hallway, then hold it while she steps through. She doesn’t comment on small gestures like that anymore. She used to, but now she just walks through, close enough that her shoulder brushes my chest.

That’s how most things are between us lately. Easy.

Too easy, sometimes.

Dr. Korman knows we aren’t together. She knows we’re not married. Somehow that makes every appointment feel both simpler and stranger. Harmony and I show up together, sit side by side, ask questions in turns, schedule the next appointment around my shifts, and leave with ultrasound pictures tucked into the folder I bought two months ago because Harmony kept creasing them in her purse.

Harmony pauses near the front desk, squinting down at the little black-and-white picture again. She’s very pregnant now, round beneath a loose cream sweater, her hair pulled back because she said it was annoying her neck this morning. I know things like that now. I know which tea doesn’t turn her stomach, which side her hip aches on when she sleeps wrong, and that she keeps crackers in the glove compartment of her car because nausea still likes to ambush her without warning.

I know all of that, and I still don’t know whether I’m allowed to touch her without her reaching first. So I don’t.

I stand beside her while she schedules the next appointment, my hands in my pockets because that’s the safest place for them to be. When the receptionist offers the first Thursday of next month, Harmony glances over at me.

“You’re on shift, right?”

“Until seven.”

“Friday?”

“Open.”

She turns back to the receptionist. “Friday works.”

The receptionist smiles as she types. “You two are very coordinated.” She hands over the appointment card, still smiling, and Harmony tucks it into the folder with the ultrasound photos. We step outside into the late morning sun, and I walk Harmony to her car. When we reach it and she turns toward me to say goodbye, her eyes stay on mine for half a beat too long, and I have to fight the urge to step closer.

I’ve had months of practice.

Months of appointments, food runs, late-night texts, and sitting on her parents’ living room floor assembling a crib while her dad pretended not to supervise. Months of watching her become a mother in small increments while trying to be useful without crowding her. Months of wanting more.

By every measure, we’re together. I go to appointments. I assemble furniture. We talk almost every day, and somehow I know more about the way she sleeps, eats, worries, and laughs than I know about anything else in my life.

But I don’t touch her. I don’t call her mine.

I clear my throat. “You heading back to your parents’ place?”

She shakes her head. “I need to stop and buy a few things first.”

“What kind of things?”

She glances down at herself with a sigh. “Maternity clothes. I can’t keep pretending that leggings and whatever tent-like shirt still fits is a wardrobe.”

“You look good,” I say.

Her eyes narrow. “That was careful.”

“It’s true.”

“It was also careful.”