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“I’ll let you get ready for bed,” I murmur, already backing toward the hallway that leads to the guest room.

She nods without looking up, then disappears into her bedroom, and the soft click of the door behind her echoes louder than it should.

I try to sleep. I try like hell. But the bed’s too cold, and the silence is too loud, and I keep replaying her face from earlier—the quiet wonder in her eyes when she held those tiny onesies her dad gave her. The tears that followed. The laugh through the tears. God, that laugh wrecked me.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand.

Mya: You awake?

I answer before I can think better of it.

Me: Yeah. Can’t sleep?

Mya: No.

There’s a pause. Then another message lights up the screen.

Mya: Will you come here?

I’m already moving before the words finish sinking in.

I don’t knock. I just open the door and step inside, quiet, like I’m afraid the moment might shatter if I breathe too loud. She’s curled on her side, eyes open, waiting.

I cross the room and sit on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under my weight. For a beat, neither of us speaks.

Then, softly, “I couldn’t stop thinking about the boys.”

“Me either,” I admit.

She turns her head toward me, her hair fanned out across the pillow, her eyes so dark they look like midnight. “We haven’t given them a last name yet.”

I nod slowly. “I didn’t want to assume. If you wanted them to have yours…”

Her lips part, but no sound comes out. She just looks at me, something unreadable swimming in her expression.

Then—quiet, certain—she whispers, “They should be Malone.”

My heart trips.

“Because they’re your sons,” she adds, her voice cracking right down the middle.

I don’t say anything for a second. I can’t. There’s a lump in my throat the size of Texas and it’s not going anywhere.

Instead, I reach for her hand, fingers brushing over hers like a promise.

She doesn’t pull away.

And for the first time in weeks, the silence between us doesn’t feel like an ending.

She shifts closer, her hand still caught in mine, her eyes still on me like she’s trying to memorize the shape of this moment. I’m not sure either of us is breathing. I don’t even know if we have to—this right here feels like oxygen.

“Say it again,” I whisper, not even sure why I need to hear it.

Her lashes flicker. “They’re your sons, Fletch.”

God.

Everything I’ve been holding in—the fear, the guilt, the ache—fractures in my chest. I press her knuckles to my mouth and close my eyes. The room smells like her—vanilla and something warm and familiar—and I know right now, this is as close to peace as I’ve come in months.