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"Don't be." I was still smiling despite everything. "He's great."

"He's a menace."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive."

Adam reached under the seat and came back with a flashlight, which he propped against the headrest. It filled the cab, then he changed the setting, so it was more of a soft glow. He sat back and looked at me with that same steady, assessing expression he'd had since he'd first knocked on my window out there in the snow.

"So," he said. "You want to tell me about the baby?"

I opened my mouth to deflect. I had three different jokes lined up. Then another contraction started its slow climb and every single one of them evaporated.

I breathed through it the way the videos had shown me. In and out. Slow. Adam watched my face and didn't say a word, which I appreciated more than I could have expressed.

When it ebbed, I slumped back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling of his truck.

"My sister can't carry a baby," I said. "Chloe. She's my twin."

"Okay." No questions, he just made room for me to keep talking.

"There was scar tissue. Her body treats pregnancy like a threat instead of something it can hold." I paused. "Her eggs are fine. Her uterus just doesn't cooperate."

"So, you volunteered."

"I didn't exactly volunteer." I turned my head to look at him. "I researched it. Got the screening done. Then I told her I was doing it, and of course she said no. I told her I wasn't asking." I shrugged, which was harder than usual given that I was mostly horizontal on a Spider-Man sleeping bag in the back of a Ford 150. "She eventually came around."

Something shifted in Adam's expression. It took me a moment to place it. It wasn’t the normal admiration that pissed me off, instead it was recognition. He got it.

"And her partner?" he asked.

"Zarek." Just saying his name made me feel steadier somehow. "He was our best friend growing up in Jasper Creek. Then as we got older, he was Chloe’s best friend. It wasn’t until she was in trouble in her twenties that it became something more than friendship.”

“Sounds nice.”

“He can be a total pain in the ass, just like a normal brother. But not nearly as bad as my real brother. He has approximately four hundred opinions about everything I eat."

"Sounds like a reasonable man."

"Don't let him hear you say that, his head can barely fit through a door as is." Another contraction was gathering at the edges, and I breathed into it. "They're good together. Chloe and Zarek. The kind of good that you don't mess with. The kind that took a long time and cost them both a lot to get to."

I closed my eyes and rode the wave. When I opened them, Adam was holding his hand out, palm up, the same way he had before. Waiting. Not insisting.

I took it.

I didn't break any bones this time, but I didn't exactly go easy on him either.

"Okay," I panted when it passed. "Those are getting meaner."

"You're doing great."

"You're contractually obligated to say that."

"No contract." His thumb moved slightly against the back of my hand. Just once. "I mean it."

I looked out the window. The snow was still coming down. It was relentless.

"My whole family is going to lose their minds when they find out about this," I said. "I have five sisters and a brother. Every single one of them is going to be pissed as hell that I allowed myself to be caught in a snowstorm. Then I’m going to have to deal with all of their feelings about the fact that I ended up doing this without them.”

"Now that’s complete bullshit. If they love you, they should just be concerned about your feelings, you shouldn’t have to be worried about managing theirs.”