Page 227 of Say My Name

“I'm checking it again.”

He crosses the room in black boxer briefs and unzips the bag.

“Your clothes.” He touches a stack of folded fabric. “My clothes. Chargers. Toiletries. Insurance cards. The folder.”

“All of which were there four hours ago.”

“Things get moved.”

“By whom?”

He glances over his shoulder.

“You were asleep,” I remind him. “I was pinned beneath nine months of baby and your arm.”

“You could've moved something before bed.”

“I didn't.”

“Then everything is still here.”

“Excellent work.”

His hand is still inside the bag, but his focus returns to me.

He's scared.

Anyone else would see an overprepared man checking his bag. I see the tension across his shoulders, the way his knuckles are white where he grips a spare phone charger. Labor has started, and he can't negotiate with it, schedule it, or guarantee what happens next.

Another pain catches low in my back. I close my eyes and reach toward him.

He's beside me before I have to ask.

One hand braces my lower back. The other closes around mine.

His palm presses against the ache. “Right there,” I gasp. “Harder.”

He adjusts the pressure.

“Yes. Don't move.”

“I won't.”

When the contraction finally releases me, I sag against him.

He glances at the phone. “Seven minutes.”

“Wonderful.”

“I’ll call the hospital. We should let Evan know. The car needs to be brought around, and there’s construction on Michigan, so I need to check whether the lower entrance⁠—”

I catch his wrist. “Sit down.”

“Elena—”

“Please.”

It’s the one word he’s never been able to refuse me, because it’s the one word I use only when I mean it. That reaches him.