Page 118 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

Her face softens.

“He loves kids. You should see him with Heidi.”

“I have.”

“And Mackenzie’s baby. He was ridiculously excited when she got pregnant. All the Lancasters were.”

“Reese—”

“He wants a family.”

“He wants children. That isn’t the same thing as saying there’s only one future that would make him happy.”

“If he’s loved me for years, that means for years he’s pictured a future with me without knowing one really big thing.”

“Or,” Mom says, “he pictured you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. But I think you need to hear the difference.”

I hate when my mother says something reasonable while I’m trying to catastrophize.

“I’m not saying this won’t matter to him,” she continues. “It might. Wanting biological children is a real thing. You shouldn’t pretend it isn’t.”

“That is somehow both comforting and not comforting at all.”

“Only Miles gets to say how he feels about something.”

I pick at the edge of my thumbnail. “I already know what he wants.”

“You know what he has said he wants.”

“That sounds like the same thing.”

“It isn’t always.”

I sigh. Then I say the part I hadn’t planned to say. “And it isn’t just that.” Her eyes stay on mine, and I wish I could take the sentence back. Instead, more comes out. “You know what I’m like.”

“Yes. You’re my daughter. I have twenty-five years of data.”

“I forget things constantly. I lose everything. I get overwhelmed and scatterbrained, and I make things harder than they need to be. Miles already remembers things for me. He finds things. He keeps track of things I forget.”

Mom starts to speak, but I keep going.

“Maybe that’s funny now. Maybe it’s cute when I leave my phone in the refrigerator or forget I put my sunglasses on top of my head or have to turn around because I left something at school.”

“Honey—”

“But what happens when it’s not funny anymore?”

She goes quiet.

I stare at the countertop. “What happens when we’ve been together ten years, and it’s his plans I mess up? His important thing I forget? When he’s tired of always being the responsible one?”

“That’s what you think will happen?”

“I think it could.”