Page 152 of First in Line

Jax and I look at each other, not expecting the offer. “Isn’t it too early to tell?” he asks.

“Not necessarily. We usually schedule that ultrasound later in the pregnancy to be sure we can get an answer, but I have a pretty clear view right now. I can tell you.”

We meet each other’s eyes again. We’ve decided we wanted to know, yes. It’s not like we can have a whole gender reveal party with friends and family from over here. Not that it would be our style, I think.

With a small smile, I offer Jax a single nod. “We want to know, yes,” he tells the doctor, squeezing my hand.

“Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?” the doctor asks, as if to make the suspense last a little longer.

“I think it’s a girl,” Jax answers first.

“I really don’t know,” I say then. “I thought pregnant women had some kind of instinct about it, but I have no idea.”

“Well,” the obstetrician says, adjusting the probe. “Dad is the one with the instinct this time. You two are having a girl.”

My heart flutters at the thought, almost as fast as the heartbeat we can still hear. We’re having a baby girl.

Jax stands from his chair with a luminous smile to bend over and kiss me, thrilled at the prospect. He’ll get to become a girl dad and spoil us both.

With a hand cradling my face, he pulls up just a little, eyes planted on mine. “We’re having a girl.”

“You were right.”

My grin is as wide as his, but it doesn’t stop us from sharing another kiss.

“I love you, princess,” he murmurs.

“I love you, Hot Wheels.”

One last peck and he returns to his chair. The obstetrician takes a few screenshots for us, then Jax helps me clean up the slimy gel from my stomach while he returns to his desk.

Probably sensing the concerns that linger within me, Jax promises, “Everything will be alright, Evie. We’ll have a healthy, perfect baby girl in the spring. And you’ll be the best mom there’s ever been.”

“You’ll be a pretty decent dad, too,” I say, before mumbling, “when you’re around.”

“Hey now, this is the life we signed up for, remember? And it’s not like I’ll be doing this my whole life. Just a few years, and then I’m all yours.”

The prospect makes me smile. “Mine and hers,” I correct him, grazing my stomach as I pull my top down.

“And probably more kids by then.”

Right. The house he’ll buy for us in Italy will be filled with the joyous sounds of children playing, laughing, and running around. I have no doubt about it.

This place is so quiet. Even with the birds and the cicadas, there’s something utterly still about the atmosphere here. We feel completely cut off from the world, as if Jax and I are the only two people left on earth.

We might as well be, given how we’ve ignored all our responsibilities for almost a week now. I took my laptop out when I arrived, but I haven’t worked since. Jax has been taking calls but pushed back his obligations. We’re entirely devoted to one another, wrapped in our Tuscan bubble.

Every morning, I walk down to the pond with a cup of coffee to sit on the bench and look at the weeping willow. It’s not much, but it’s my way to atone for moving on. For setting an ocean between her and me.

But I couldn’t stay. I was slowly dying inside, unable to heal. The bottle of sleeping pills on my nightstand began calling to me, promising a more permanent solution than the brief numbness that came with each pill. The day I realized where all that inconsolable sadness would lead, I packed a suitcase and left. It was better to walk away than stay and let Jackson eventually find my lifeless body.

It looked like I was abandoning him. But in reality, I was sparing him.

As Jackson says, what matters is that I found my way back. And we’ve been making up for lost time. Unless he’s exercising, we’re practically glued at the hip. We eat together, sleeptogether, relax together, make love… The effortless intimacy we used to have has returned in full force. We aren’t just lovers anymore. We’re each other’s best friends, like we used to be. There’s nothing we can’t discuss, no embarrassing story we can’t share, no secrets we can’t confess…

He is my person. It’s never been clearer to me.

And as pathetic as it sounds, I miss him in moments like these, alone in the pool while he works out. Even the sumptuous landscape of the Tuscan countryside isn’t enough to distract me.