Page 199 of Reeves

We weren't even officially trying yet. She just looked at me one morning and said she stopped taking the pill. And that was the whole conversation.

"How do you feel?" I ask.

"Hopeful." She considers that word for a second. “Ready to build our family together.”

I slide my hand over hers, where it rests on her stomach.

"Benjy's going to lose his mind," I say.

She laughs, the real one, the one that goes all the way up to her eyes. "He's going to want to name it something completely unhinged. Last week, he told me his favorite name for a girl is Stingray."

"That's a strong choice."

"He's committed to it." She shakes her head, still smiling. "He said it can be shortened to Ray for everyday use."

I stare at the curtains dancing in the breeze for a moment.Stingray Stone.

"We'll workshop it," I say.

She laughs again and turns her face into my shoulder. Her breath is warm against my skin.

Outside, an egret moves through the marsh grass, and the water beyond catches the last of the moon before it drops below the tree line.

I've lived in a lot of places. Base housing in Virginia Beach. My father's estate in New Orleans. A rotation of luxury condos, tents, and forward operating bases that all started to look the same after a while, regardless of the disparity. Places where I kept exactly what I needed and nothing that weighed me down.

This house has Charli's reading glasses on my nightstand, Benjy's artwork taped to the refrigerator, and a collection of shells along the windowsill that gets added to every Saturday morning when we walk the beach. It has a marsh fort in the backyard that keeps getting added onto and a dock that Benjy has already deemed the official headquarters of all future pirate surveillance operations.

It has them in it.

That's the difference.

"How was the drive today?" Charli asks.

"Fine. Hit some traffic coming through Metairie, but I made it before the morning briefing."

She tilts her head up to look at me. "You're sure you're not tired of it?"

I've answered this question approximately forty times since she moved in. I don't mind.

"Charli."

"I know. I know, you're not tired of it." She lays her head back against my shoulder. "I just don't want you resenting the commute when the newness wears off."

"The newness of what. Driving to work."

"You know what I mean."

I do. She means the newness of this. Of us. Of choosing to absorb an hour of highway each way instead of choosing the easier home that would have put distance between me and them.

"I'm not going to resent it," I tell her. "I lived out of a duffel bag for six years. An hour on I-10 is not a hardship. It’s what brings me back home to you.”

She's quiet for a moment. "Ridge said you're doing well."

"When did you talk to Ridge?"

"He called me." The corner of her mouth turns up. "He wanted to know if you seemed happy or if you were white-knuckling it."

"What did you tell him?"