“I don’t hate you,” I say honestly. “I don’t hate you even a little.”

  Her shoulders, which are bunched around her ears with apprehension, collapse. She props her elbows on the table and leans forward, hiding her face in her hands. Her shoulders shake as she weeps quietly, and I’m certain that this conversation has been weighing heavily on her since the day she discovered her pregnancy. Either that or she’s scared out of her mind that she’s hurt our baby, and until now, she’s had no one to talk to, no one to support her, no one to care.

  Reaching across the table, I pull her hands away as gently as I can, forcing her to look at me. Her red, weepy eyes are like a punch to my gut, and I wince, feeling as emotional as she. Blinking back tears of my own, I speak haltingly, choosing my words carefully.

  “L-Listen. It’s…okay. It’s going to be okay, Addison.”

  “You don’t know that,” she sobs. “I’ve read about fetal alcohol spectrum disorders for a week straight. You don’t know how bad it can be, Gideon. And I did this. I did this terrible thing…to our baby.”

  “Not on purpose. Never on purpose. You were alone. You were grieving your brother.” I swipe my thumbs under her eyes like windshield wipers. “But whatever happens, you’re not alone anymore. This is our baby. Ours. Yours and mine. We’re in this together, Addison. I promise you. I’ll be right beside you every step of the way.”

  The waitress returns with her juice, and I draw my hands away so that she can take a long sip.

  “You don’t know what you’re signing on for,” she tells me. “There could be things…wrong. With the baby.”

  I nod. “I know. I’m still in.”

  “And I don’t know what kind of mother I’ll be. My mother was a train wreck.”

  “I’m still in.”

  “My brother was a drug and adrenaline junkie.”

  I shrug. “I’m still in.”

  “I have no idea where we’ll live. I—I lost my job in LA I’m—”

  “We’ll figure it out,” I tell her. “I’m still in.”

  “My emotions are all over the place. You—”

  “Addison. Listen to me,” I tell her firmly. “I’m in… no matter what.”

  “No matter what,” she murmurs, staring at me as though mesmerized, like she can’t believe that with the odds so stacked against us, I’d be willing to stay in the game.

  But what she doesn’t know is this:

  “Remember when you said you were already in love with this baby?” I ask her.

  She nods.

  “How long did it take for that to happen?”

  “It didn’t take any time,” she says. “The second I knew I was going to be a parent, my heart was gone.”

  I take the ultrasound picture out of my breast pocket and lay it gently on the table between us. “Mine too, aa’icagaq. My heart is gone too.”

  ***

  Addison

  After dinner, Gideon goes home to get Livia, but before he left, I got him a keycard to my room, and he’s coming back in a little bit to stay overnight.

  We have a lot to talk about, but also, it just feels good not to be alone. After the terrible loneliness of grieving Elliot, followed by the shock of my pregnancy and fears about my baby’s health, all I really want is to lean on Gideon for a little while.

  I change into sweat pants, a soft T-shirt, and cozy socks, but as I slip into bed, I take a moment to acknowledge the magnitude of this thought and the epic change it represents in me.

  I want to lean on someone else.

  I want to lean on Gideon.

  I lie down, staring at the shadows on the ceiling as the sun sets, and I realize that I haven’t leaned on anyone…ever. Nor have I ever wanted to, in part because there wasn’t anyone. There was just me. My father was absent, my mother was never an actual parent, and my grandmother, while loving, was very old and frail. And as much as I loved Elliot, by middle school, he was a mess. I needed to be strong for him.

  We spent our high school years in foster care, and while I went to college, Elliot bummed around from town to town, working as a mechanic until he was fired, occasionally coming to see me out in California before heading back out on the road again.

  I was awarded a full ride to law school and drove myself to valedictorian of my class, magna cum laude at Stanford Law.

  I passed the California bar exam on my first try.

  I was sought after by many high-powered LA firms, and I chose the best, assured that if I practiced as well as I promised, I’d make partner in no time. And I did, of course. But not because anyone was cheering me on or supporting me from the sidelines. No. All of my success was my own. And mine alone.

  But this is different.

  I can’t do this alone.

  Or maybe I could, but the truth is, I don’t want to.

  I hear the mechanical clicking of my room door being unlocked and Livia’s tags jingle as she trots into the room.

  “C’mon up, Liv,” I tell her, patting the comforter. She smells my hand, licks it once, then jumps up, walking around in a circle twice before collapsing by my toes. She’s heavy and warm, and I’m instantly grateful for her company.

  “You still awake?” asks Gideon, standing at the foot of the bed.

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Do you…I mean, should I call down for a rollaway or something?”

  Huh. Not what I was expecting. I didn’t want him to jump me, per se, but we’re having a baby together. Even though we haven’t redefined out relationship yet, I think we’re past the point of separate beds.

  “I just don’t want to assume anything,” he adds.

  “I don’t expect anything,” I tell him.

  “It’s okay to expect things,” he tells me. “I just don’t know what they are.”

  “Well…it’s okay for you to lie down next to me if you want.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  I hear him unzip his jacket and toe off his shoes. The mattress depresses as he lies down beside me, on top of the comforter, with Livia curled up between our feet.

  We’re quiet for a few minutes, both staring up at the ceiling. I want him here, but I wasn’t expecting it to feel so awkward. It never felt awkward between us when I was here in January. Then again, we weren’t having a baby together then. We were just looking for Elliot.

  “We were a good team,” I say softly, turning onto my side to look at him. While he was at home, he shaved his beard, and he looks like himself again. I pillow my hands under my cheek, staring at his handsome profile and my toes, under the covers, curl. “When we were looking for Elliot. We worked well together.”

  He takes a deep breath, then sighs. “I wish we’d found him in time.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  “Are you scared?” he asks. “To be a mom?”

  “Yeah,” I answer honestly. “My own mother was…”

  “I saw the missing person’s report,” says Gideon, rolling to his side to face me. “You had to list any scars on Elliot’s body, and I saw what you wrote. Who did that to him? Your mother?”

  “May as well been her,” I say. “But no. It was our stepfathers. There were two of them, and they were both abusive bastards.” I pause for a second, deciding that—for the first time in my life—I want to share the memories of those dark days with someone I trust. And I trust Gideon. “I never knew my father. Nothing about him. He could have been one of a dozen men. My mother was always on something. She had no idea who fathered us.” He doesn’t say anything. Just stares back at me with a gentle, steady expression. “We lived with my grandmother for a while when we were really little, but my mom got remarried when we were four years old, and we moved in with him. He’s the one who put out cigarettes on Elliot’s back and arms.”

  “Jesus,” he murmurs.

  “Broke both of Elliot’s arms too. Fractured his skull twice. Dislocated his shoulders more times than I can count.”

  “Addy—Addison. Sorry. I know you don’t—”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “You can call me Addy now.”

  He’s quiet for a second. “And the second husband?”

  “He came after us in different ways,” I tell him, remembering the horror of hearing our bedroom door creak open in the middle of the night. “We were a little older by that point. Elliot kept a knife under his pillow and pulled it on him one night. He never came back again.”

  “I’m so…Jesus, Addy. I’m sorry.” He speaks through clenched teeth. “Is he still alive? I’d like to kill him.”

  “No. He overdosed when I was thirteen,” she says. “And luckily Stanford had outstanding clinical and psychological counseling. I had a great therapist. She helped me work through a lot.”

  “Is your mom still alive?”

  “She is. But she has late-stage Alzheimer’s,” I tell him, remembering what Kieran told me about Elliot’s visit to Detroit. “I didn’t know this, but Elliot visited her the weekend before he came up here. Kieran Flanders told me. Apparently, Elliot forgave her, and Kieran told me he hoped I’d do the same.”

  “Will you?” asks Gideon.

  “I don’t know,” I murmur, wanting to change the subject. “What about you? Are your parents still alive?”

  “Yep. My mom lives in Tatitlek. I’ve mentioned it before.”

  “Right. On the Prince William Sound, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And your father?”

  “Never knew him. He was a Swedish tourist just passing through.”

  “Ah,” I say, grinning at him. “That’s where you got your blue eyes.”

  “Yep. From him. Kristof. That was his name.”

  “Kristof Grigoriev,” I say, with a soft chuckle. “That’s a lot of name.”

  “I’m not sure about Kristof’s last name, but Grigoriev is my mother’s name,” he says.

  “Oh. I thought she was Alutiiq?”

  “She is. Russian surnames are common in my village.”

  “In Tatitlek,” she says, trying out the Alutiiq word. “Are you close to her?”

  “Yep,” he says. “She raised me on her own—well, with her family all around but alone too. You know, without a partner. She’s pretty amazing. She’s going to be over-the-moon about this.”

  “A loving grandmother,” I say. “That’s good. That’ll be good for the Orange.”

  “The… Orange?”

  “The baby,” I say, glad it’s dark and he can’t see my blush. “It’s the size of an orange.”

  “Wow. Really?” he asks, propping himself up on one elbow and beaming at me. “That’s amazing.”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Will you tell me if it moves again? So I can try not being an asshole about it?”

  “It’s like a flutter,” I tell him with a soft chuckle. “Like a feather. I can barely feel it. But I heard the heartbeat. It was like…whoosh-a, whoosh-a, whoosh-a…like a galloping sound. It was the best thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “I want to hear it.”

  “Come with me,” I say. “I have an appointment at the end of May, and we’ll find out if it’s a boy or a girl. And we’ll also find out if…well, if it looks okay.”

  He sighs beside me. “You’re worried.”

  “Very.” I roll onto my back and blink my eyes when they start to burn. My hands move from my pillow to rest tenderly over my belly. “The thought that I’ve hurt this helpless little baby…that I could’ve hurt him or her—”

  “You can’t keep doing that to yourself,” he says. “You’re only fourteen weeks along. You have a lot of time left, and you can’t worry like this the whole time. It isn’t good for you, Addy. It isn’t good for the Orange.”

  “I can’t help it,” I tell him, some small part of me loving it that he just called our baby “the Orange.” “Mothers worry. That’s what they do.”

  “Yeah, but you’ll have this test in two weeks, and we’ll know more. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’re keeping it no matter what. We decided. So it does no good to worry. Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it.”

  The relief I feel in his support, in his camaraderie, in his kindness, is so vast and so strong, I can feel my heart filling up with something wonderful. I don’t know much about love, and anyway, we haven’t known one another long enough to fall in love…but whatever it is, it feels so good, I never want to know how it feels not to have it filling my heart.

  “Thank you,” I say when I can finally speak again. “You have no idea what that means to me. It’s not easy for me to…depend on someone else.”

  “Well, get used to it,” he says. “Because you can depend on me, Addy. You and the Orange. I want to keep you two safe.”

  “Safe,” I murmur, like the word is sacred or foreign. And maybe, to me, it is. I’ve never known what it was to be safe with another human being. Even with Elliot, whom I loved deeply, I never really felt safe.

  “Safe, aa’icagaq,” he says, shifting closer to me and putting his strong arm over my hip protectively. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  After a long day of travel and an emotional evening telling Gideon about my news, my eyes are so heavy, I can’t keep them open. You’re safe now.

  Moments later, I’m asleep.

  ***

  When I open my eyes the next morning, Gideon’s snoring softly beside me, still lying on top of the covers, though he rolled to his back at some point during the night.

  Livia seems to sense someone’s up and jumps off the bed, coming around to my side and whining softly near my face.

  “You need to go out?” I ask her, and she sits politely, her tail sweeping back and forth across the hotel carpet.

  It’s six o’clock, but I slept for nine hours and feel more refreshed than I have in weeks. I slip out of bed as quietly as possible and grab Liv’s leash off the bureau where Gideon left it last night. I put a keycard in the pocket of my sweat pants and close the room door carefully, hoping that I don’t wake up Gideon.

  As Livia and I head down the stairs and out the side door to the parking lot below, I think about Gideon’s and my conversation last night. While I appreciate that he wants to keep me and the Orange safe—and frankly, I told him more about my childhood than I’ve ever told a living soul—I feel a little naked this morning, like I said too much, too soon.

  I need to consider boundaries. I don’t know how comfortable I am suddenly sharing my whole life with someone who is still a stranger in many ways. Yes, we’re going to have a baby together, which means that we’ll have a permanent place in each other’s lives, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re a couple either.

  When I decided to come up to Alaska to file Kieran Flanders’ motion and ensure he received a fair share of Howard Greene’s estate (which is to say, all of it), I only intended to stay for a week. But Gideon and I have a lot to work out. It might make more sense to stay longer and spend some time together before the Orange makes his or her appearance. After all, I don’t need to be back in LA for my ultrasound until May 30.

  Livia does her business, and we head back upstairs to find Gideon standing in the hallway outside the room.

  His hair is tousled, and he looks adorably sleep-mussed, so I grin at him. “Good mor—”

  “Where were you?” he asks, folding his arms over his chest.

  “Livia had to go,” I say, offering him the leash.

  “You should have woken me up!” he says, frowning at me.

  “Why? She needed to pee and I was awake.”

  “I didn’t know where you were,” he says as I step around him, using my keycard to open the door and holding it ajar for him as he and Liv head inside.

  “You didn’t know where I was yesterday morning either,” I say.

  “Yesterday morning I didn’t know you were pregnant with my baby,” he says. “Things have changed a lot since then.”

  I put my hands on my hips and turn to face him. “I’m an adult woman, Gideon. I don’t need permission to leave a room. I don’t need a watchdog or babysitter.”

  “I woke up alone,” he says, still frowning, though his voice is gentler. “I was worried.”

  “Well, you didn’t need to be,” I inform him, feeling a little annoyed but not eager to get into a fight either, especially when he’s only worried about my welfare. “I took Livia outside. I’m back. End of story.”

  He huffs softly, his face grim. “You know what? I think you should come and live with me.”

  “What?” I demand. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I think you should move in with me,” he says. “I have plenty of room. You can have your own room if you want, or you can share mine. I have an extra room for the baby. I can look after you and—”

  “I don’t need you to look after me and I’m not moving in with you,” I tell him, sitting down on the side of the bed. “That’s crazy.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, first of all, I live in LA. Second of all, I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to suddenly move in together. I mean, we just reconnected and—”

  “Are you planning to raise the baby in LA?” he asks, his black brows furrowing, his blue eyes searching mine.

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “I don’t want to live in LA”

  “You don’t have to live in LA,” I tell him, annoyance moving into full-blown irritation now. “Stay in Valdez.”

  “With my son or daughter living three thousand miles away!”

  I rub my temples. “Gideon, slow down. I haven’t thought that far in advance yet. The baby isn’t here yet. We have plenty of time to talk about—”

  “What kind of life is that for the Orange?” he demands. “Shuttled back and forth between Valdez and Los Angeles? Not seeing his mother or father for weeks or months at a time?”

  “I don’t have all the answers yet!” I cry, springing up to stand chest to chest with him. “Stop yelling at me!”

  His chest rises and falls rapidly with the force of his breathing, grazing into mine with each deep inhalation, and as quickly as I felt irritated with him, a whole new feeling comes over me out of nowhere, like a bolt of lightning.

  Attraction. Desire.

  I reach for his cheeks and pull his head down to mine, sighing with relief and pleasure as our lips touch. I haven’t kissed anyone since Gideon—even when I was on weeklong benders in February and March, I never kissed anyone else.