I also memorized the key points of her bio: where she worked before joining Gregory Fillow and Robert Tanner’s family law firm as a partner three years ago, the awards she’s won during her career, and to which legal organizations she claims membership.

  I checked out her Facebook and Instagram pages, which were both private, and although I considered “friending” her, I decided not to. She made her feelings for me clear, and that is to say, she didn’t have any, whereas my pathetic and quasi-tragic reality was that I had already developed feelings for her. They’ve proven incredibly tenacious since her departure, holding on when I wish I could shake them. I know I only knew her for a week, but she’s the closest thing I’ve ever found to what I want. And it sucks that we can’t be together, that we’ll probably never see each other again.

  Two knocks on my kiosk counter make me look up to find a bored-looking Sven standing on the other side. “Seven thirty from Anchorage is ten minutes late. Just landed.”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  “Got anything lined up for this weekend?” he asks.

  “Day trip tomorrow. You?”

  “Nah. But with those Viking, Holland America, and Windstar cruise stops in May, June, and July, I’m getting full. Tons of excursions booked for this summer.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” I shrug. “Just gotta get through April, huh?”

  He chuckles. “You said it.”

  If winter brings the extreme sports enthusiasts and summer brings the cruise clientele, it’s months like April and October that tend to be on the slow side, so I turn up at the airport more often, hoping to pick up a last-minute gig.

  As the sliding doors from the concourse open and a small group of tourists start pouring into the arrival’s terminal, Sven saunters back over to his kiosk.

  Talking to Sven reminds me that a travel agent from the Lower 48 wrote to me earlier about scheduling a day-trip to Worthington Glacier at the end of April. I open the e-mail program on my phone to look for the message. May as well shoot her a quick e-mail now and let her know I’m free.

  “I’m looking for a drop-off at the Berlin Wall,” says a woman’s voice from across the kiosk counter.

  “I’m not doing heli-drops…” My heartbeat is suddenly so loud, it’s almost deafening. I recognize that voice. I recognize it. “…right now.”

  As I look up, my breath catches.

  Standing there, across from me, with a hateful countertop separating us…is Addison.

  I stare at her, dumb struck, frozen in place, my lips parted in shock, and my eyes unblinking.

  “Gideon?” she murmurs, her brown eyes wide as they lock with my blue.

  This is probably a good time to mention I’ve let myself go to shit since she left. Not that facial hair is unusual for Alaskan men, but I haven’t shaved or gotten a haircut since the day she told me she didn’t care about me, which means I’m looking pretty wild at this point.

  “Y-Yeah.”

  Her sweet lips, that I can taste just by looking at them, tilt up into a small smile. “It is you. Hi.”

  I massage my chin with my thumb and forefinger. “Grew a beard.”

  “I see.”

  “Are you really here, aa’icagaq? Or is this a hallucination?”

  Her eyebrows rise as her smile widens. “I’m really here.”

  I clear my throat and stand up on shaky legs, flattening my hands on the counter between us. “What are you doing here?”

  She flinches for a second but recovers quickly. “I needed to come back.”

  Fuck me for being such a pitiful sap—and let it be known, on the record, that I know she’s probably not here for me—but my stupid heart soars to hear this news. I don’t care why. I don’t need to know why. I just thank God and every star in the sky that I get to see your face again.

  “I’m…” She takes a deep breath and lets it go slowly. “I’m sorry I left the way I did. Without, um, without saying good-bye.”

  As the shock of seeing her—standing in front of me, in the flesh—starts to wear off, I take a long look at her, and what I see upsets me.

  Her face is gaunt, almost hollow, and her eyes have luggage beneath them. Her collarbones are stark, her skin is sallow, and her hair looks flat and forgotten in a messy ponytail. She’s wearing an oversized sweat shirt that only enhances how much weight she’s lost, and there’s a fragility to her expression that breaks my fucking heart.

  She’s been through hell since she left me, and from what I can gather by looking at her, she’s been through it all alone.

  “How are you?” I ask.

  She laughs softly, but the sound is humorless. “Your face shows me everything going through your head, Gideon.”

  “You lost some weight.”

  “I did,” she says. “I haven’t…” She gulps, looking down at the counter where my hands are resting. “It’s been a rough time.”

  Every molecule in my body wants to reach for her, to comfort her, but I don’t. I don’t know why she’s back, but she was clear about how she felt. We had a fling. That’s all.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I know how much you loved Elliot.”

  She raises her eyes, and they’re filled with tears, which guts me since she prided herself on not being a crier when I met her in January.

  “I did,” she whispers, sniffling softly as she uses the backs of her hands to wipe her eyes. “Ugh. I still hate crying. I’ve just given up trying not to.”

  You’ve changed over the last three months, I think, and how you look right now may be the least of it.

  She glances over her shoulder at the few people still trailing into the arrival terminal. “I don’t want to keep you. Maybe we could, um, get together at some point? While I’m in town?”

  I’m not ready to let her out of my sight. “That was the last flight of the night. Let me give you a ride to wherever you’re going.”

  The words slip out of my mouth before I can think about them, but I feel relieved when her cheeks bloom pink and her smile widens.

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “I booked a room at the Best Western,” she says, then adds, “There’s um, actually something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  She stares at me, her eyes intense, her lips trembling like she’s getting ready to say something important. Finally, her shoulders, which are bunched around her ears, relax.

  “Um…yeah. Yeah. Kieran Flanders hired me to represent him on some legal issues. Turns out Howard Greene had a little money stashed away, and Kieran could use some help with his medical bills.”

  So that’s why she’s here.

  Kieran Flanders.

  No wonder she looked so fraught. It’s got to be difficult to be in contact with the person who survived the accident that killed your brother.

  “Of course,” I tell her, turning off the desk light in my kiosk. I lift the counter and step through, then pull down the metal grating and lock it at the bottom. “I’m happy to help out however I can.”

  I straighten up, standing directly in front of her, my hands itching to pull her into my arms. I tell myself not to. I don’t have a right to touch her. I don’t have permission.

  Her too-thin, still-beautiful face turns up to look at me, and her voice is soft with emotion. “It’s really good to see you, Gideon.”

  With those whispered words, I can’t help myself. I open my arms, half wondering if she’ll step back and refuse the comfort I’m offering, but she doesn’t. She steps forward, wrapping her arms around my waist as I pull her close. Her cheek rests against my flannel shirt, and she breathes deeply, then exhales slowly.

  “I’ve dreamed of this,” she sighs.

  Just for a second, I want to cry like a baby. Because, fuck me, but I have too.

  We stand like that, holding each other close in the not-too-busy main terminal of the Valdez Airport until a loud growl sounds between us.

  “Oops!” she exclaims, leaning away from me and placing a hand on her belly. “I think that was me!”

  “Someone needs some dinner, huh?”

  The color in her cheeks deepens. “Someone does, I guess.”

  “How about you let me take you out for a bite on the way to your hotel?”

  She grins and nods, stepping out of my arms. “I’d like that.”

  Me too, I think, taking her rolling suitcase from beside the kiosk and pulling it behind me. Me too.

  ***

  Addison

  Gideon. Gideon. Gideon.

  He walks through the terminal beside me, leading the way out the double doors and to his familiar van, and for the first time in months, something inside of me whispers that everything is going to be okay.

  I am not clever about recognizing my emotions and naming them, but I think I have missed him—so desperately, in fact, that when he opened his arms to me, I wanted to weep with relief. These last three months have been the loneliest and emptiest of my life, and seeing Gideon, hearing his voice, touching him…all of it feels so good and so right, it’s like sinking into a hot bath after running a marathon. It’s like coming home.

  I don’t know when to tell him my news, but I’m dying to. I want to share it with someone. I want him to know.

  Though I am barely showing, I visited my OB/GYN in Los Angeles who confirmed via ultrasound that I conceived on or around January fourteenth, which means I’m due on October seventh. I’m already in my second trimester, entering my fourteenth week today, and my baby is the size of an orange. I don’t know if my child is a he or she yet, but I have heard the heartbeat and it was…glorious.

  When I explained to my doctor how I had been a frequent drinker during my first trimester, she took a deep breath and nodded, her face concerned.

  “We can do an amniocentesis after week sixteen,” she said, “and check on baby’s health. There’s a slight risk to the procedure, but it’s worth considering.”

  “Why would we do that?” I asked. “Why would we do anything that posed a risk to my baby?”

  “Well, for a few reasons, but the three most common are for peace of mind, for preparation…or so that you can terminate.”

  My heart dropped, and I stared at her. “You mean…have an abortion?”

  “Yes. If you didn’t feel prepared to handle a child with special needs.”

  I have nothing against women who choose to abort their pregnancies; I think it’s a personal decision that every woman needs to make for herself. But for me, personally? It’s not an option. The circumstances of my conception are too unique, too precious. I already love my baby, and I know it may sound weird, but I feel like my child’s life is strangely bound to my brother’s. I wouldn’t dream of terminating this pregnancy.

  “I don’t need one,” I told her. “I don’t want an amniocentesis. I’m not okay with the risk. I’m not aborting my baby. No matter what.”

  “In that case,” she said, “I don’t need to see you again until week twenty. We can find out then if baby’s a boy or girl and if there are any major physical abnormalities. And there’s no risk to you or baby by having an ultrasound.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll make an appointment to come back at the end of May.”

  “Addison,” she’d called as I opened her office door to leave. I turned around to face her. “Yes, it’s possible that your child could be affected by a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Evidence shows that thirty percent of children born to an alcoholic mother will suffer from some type of alcohol-related disorder. But the ultrasound we did today tells me that your child’s heartbeat is strong, his or her organs appear to be developing normally, and there is adequate amniotic fluid in your womb. Stopping the consumption of alcohol when you did and maintaining a healthy lifestyle until delivery will go a long way in ensuring that no further damage is done, if indeed any was done at all. I’m just saying…you could get lucky.”

  “Thank you,” I’d whispered, blinking back tears as I pulled the door closed behind me.

  Now that I’m here in Alaska, once again sitting behind Gideon in the Ad Astra van, I’m feeling worried. Part of me doesn’t want to tell him that I was drinking scotch on a daily basis while our child was developing inside of me. What if he hates me for it? What if he rejects our baby? But don’t I owe him the truth?

  Maybe I should wait a few days before telling him. It might be better if we get reacquainted before I drop this bomb in his lap. Hey, remember that one day we had hot sex on every surface of your house? Well, guess what? You’re going to be a daddy!

  My skin prickles. God, I’m nervous.

  “Want me to open the window?” he asks as we pull out of the airport parking lot.

  “Sure,” I say. I’d welcome the fresh air, honestly. It’ll help me think.

  It’s amazing how much the landscape around me has changed since I was last here in January. With highs in the high-40s and most evenings above freezing, it’s chilly, but there’s not much snow falling except in the mountains, which are snow-capped and mighty behind us. Alongside the road, however, signs of spring are just beginning to show.

  “A lot warmer now than the last time you were here.”

  “I was just thinking about how much everything has changed.”

  Except you.

  You are as beautiful as ever, and I could stay in your arms for a million years and still long for a million more. But I hurt you, Sweet Gideon. I hurt you. I could see it on your face when you looked at me. I’m sorry for that. I’m so very sorry.

  “Are you hungry for anything in particular?” he asks, catching my eyes in the rearview mirror. “We’ve got pizza, Thai, BBQ, Korean…”

  “I don’t care. Somewhere we can sit and talk would be nice.”

  “And if memory serves, you like a cocktail too.”

  “No, thanks,” I say, maybe a bit too fast. “I’m, um…” Shit. Think fast, Addison, but don’t lie. Be as truthful as possible. “To be honest, I drank a lot after Elliot died. Been trying to cut back now.”

  “Oh. Sure. Gotcha.” He pauses for a second. “You’ve been through a rough time.”

  “Yeah,” I murmur, my eyes instantly burning with the blurred memories of so many days and nights drunk out of my mind. I have no idea what lasting damage I did to my baby, and it haunts me every single day. My hands land on my belly. Gently. Protectively. I’ll never hurt you again, little one. I’ll never, ever hurt you again. I promise.

  “Well, good food then. How about—”

  “—a burger?” I ask.

  “A burger, huh? Sure! I can manage that,” he says. “In fact, maybe we should just go to the place at your hotel. The Wheelhouse. They do as good a burger as anyone.”

  “Perfect,” I say, looking out the window as we pull into Valdez.

  I recognize everything, though it’s different now without a thick layer of white covering everything…there’s the turnoff to the medical center to the right…and soon after that, the road that leads to Gideon’s house.

  I spent a happy day there.

  The thought slides through my mind unprovoked.

  To be honest, I haven’t given myself permission to think much about that day. For the first couple of months after I got home, that day was strictly off-limits to me, because of how much I enjoyed myself while my brother lay dying. It was impossible for me to let myself have a morsel of happiness when measured against Elliot’s pain.

  But now that I’m back, pregnant with a baby conceived on that day, I indulge in a moment of reflection.

  And my heart blooms with the memory.

  It was one of the best days of my adult life. I laughed more than usual. I felt more than usual. I was happy. I felt safe. It remains the record holder for the sheer number of times I had sex in a single day, by a large margin. And every memory includes Gideon, who fucked like a Greek god and made me feel precious every moment I was with him.

  The unfamiliar feelings of attraction and affection, bound together like a DNA strand, assault me, and I wish I could untangle them. Attraction is familiar territory that I could deal with on its own. But accompanied by affection? A romantic feeling? It’s alien to me. It’s frightening.

  I close the window to those memories like pulling a shade over glass panes and press my hands to my hot cheeks.

  “This is awkward,” I say aloud, surprised that the words didn’t stay inside where they belong.

  “Yeah,” he says with a soft chuckle. “A little.”

  “I wish it wasn’t.”

  He takes a deep breath, letting it go slowly as he bears left toward the harbor. “A lot happened between us in a short time.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  “Regret what?”

  “Being my guide…helping me…” …fucking my brains out on your couch and everywhere else in your house.

  “Nope. Not even a little bit,” he says firmly. “You know, it occurs to me that to say ‘no regrets’ in Latin would be ‘nullus desideria,’ but the problem with that translation is that it also means ‘no longings,’ and that isn’t quite as accurate.”

  “You mean you…have longings?” I ask. Butterflies I don’t expect suddenly flutter in my belly. “For me?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he says, finding my eyes in the rearview mirror as he pulls into the hotel parking lot. “I have longings, aa’icagaq. For you.”

  A flash of warmth—of heat—slides down my back, and I can feel my nipples, which are so sensitive lately, plump and pucker behind my T-shirt and sweat shirt. Oh, Gideon. I have longings too.

  My cheeks flush as I draw a shallow breath.

  We’re still staring at each other in the mirror, and I watch with fascination as his eyes darken, the onyx pupils crowding out the beautiful blue of his irises.

  “I know you’re here for Kieran Flanders, but did you also come back for me?” he asks me, the question almost too direct.

  “Yes,” I answer, because he deserves my honesty. And because every cell of my body is hoping that he wants to be a part of this baby’s life. I haven’t allowed myself to think about him rejecting us. I don’t want to think about that while there’s a chance he might accept us. As hard as it is for me to ask for and receive help, I could sure use a partner to navigate this new world of parenthood with me. And Gideon’s the right person. The only person.