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He’s a ghost now. A weight I carry in the spaces between breaths. I haven’t called. Haven’t texted. Haven’t caved. It’s a personal record. A quiet rebellion against my worst instincts. I don’t know if he’s tried to reach me—Kingston set my phone to auto-block anything that looks like regret.

I tell myself that’s progress.

Instead, I bury myself in work. Simply Reese is pushing into new territory—maternity athleisure that actually flatters instead of fighting your body. I met with the design team in the city this morning, pitching concepts like I wasn’t one poorly timed kick away from crying into my compression leggings.

“Soft where it matters. Supportive where it counts,” I told them. “Because growing a human doesn’t mean you stop being one.”

Reese eats that kind of tagline up. Now I’m back at the penthouse, perched at the kitchen island, laptop open and a half-empty glass of iced tea sweating beside me. I’m mid-call with her, both of us glowing with the kind of creative adrenaline that makes deadlines feel like dares.

“For the next reel,” I say, scrolling through raw footage, “we use your voiceover from the self-worth podcast—slow-mo stretches, mirror shots, raw belly clips—nothing too curated. Just real.”

Reese laughs. “God, you’re disgusting. How are you this good and this pregnant?”

“Black magic. And a perfectly timed snack schedule.”

“Seriously, Mya, you’re killing it.”

She means it. I can hear it in her voice. But still, I feel like I’m floating—like I’m watching my life play out from behind glass, nodding along like an understudy who never quite made it to center stage.

When we hang up, I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath for hours.

Sixteen weeks.

The doctor I found uptown is sharp-eyed and unshakable. Her office smells like disinfectant and destiny, and when she pressed the Doppler wand to my stomach last Tuesday and the heartbeats kicked in—steady, strong, stubborn—I forgot how to breathe again. It was real. All of it. Still is.

The babies are the only thing tethering me to now, and I refuse to loosen my grip on the hope it brings me.

My mom still hasn’t called. Not once. She knows, obviously. But she’s silent. Because silence is what we do in my family when we’re hurt. We go cold. We go quiet. We build walls and call it protection. She’s stubborn.

I got that from her.

The buzzing of my phone cuts through the quiet. It’s Thorin. More promo shots for Eighteendust’s upcoming tour. I tap into work mode, letting my fingers move before my brain can catch up. Image. Caption. Engagement strategy. Repeat.

But there’s an ache beneath it all. An echo I can’t shake.

Because even with the city outside my window and the future kicking beneath my ribs, there’s a part of me still reaching for something I shouldn’t want.

Still wondering if Fletch ever thinks of me at all.

I shut the laptop. Pour another glass of tea. Breathe in the stillness of the penthouse like it might become familiar if I try hard enough. Like I might become someone new inside it.

Someone who doesn’t need closure. Someone who doesn’t need to look back.

I press a hand to my stomach, where the tiny lives grow louder every day.

“I’ve got you,” I whisper.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.

I burn the garlic bread.

One minute it’s golden and perfect and the next it’s a charcoal brick that sets off the fire alarm in Kingston’s million-dollar kitchen. Which, by the way, has a double oven, a pot-filler faucet, and one of those fridges that tells you when your milk is about to expire—but apparently no built-in common sense, because it didn’t warn me I was about to ruin dinner.

“Shit,” I mutter, grabbing a towel and flapping it wildly beneath the screeching detector like it’s a demon I can chase away with cotton.

Kingston appears in the doorway a second later, barefoot, t-shirt tight across his chest, a lazy smile playing on his lips.

“Need backup?” he asks, eyes flicking to the blackened bread like it’s cute that I’ve just murdered carbs.