Chapter Sixty-One
Jackson
I wake up with this weird quiet in my chest. Not the heavy kind I have been carrying for months. Something lighter. Something almost peaceful. Brooklyn is pressed against me, her hand resting on my stomach like she forgot she used to sleep curled away from me. Last night keeps replaying in my head. The panic in her eyes when the date fell apart. The way she broke down, thinking she ruined everything again. And then the way she let me pull her back, let me fix it, let me give us something soft and sweet right there at home.
The way she kissed me at the end of the night, like she finally believed I wasn’t going anywhere.
I’m watching her breathe when her eyes open. She blinks up at me, sleepy and warm, and for a second, I swear I’m looking at the woman she was before everything happened. Not exactly the same, but close enough that I feel my throat tighten.
"Morning," she whispers.
"Morning, Baby."
A smile pulls at her mouth, small but real. She kisses my shoulder, then my jaw, slow and shy like she’s relearning me. I slide my hand through her hair, and she leans into it, her whole body relaxing like she’s finally letting herself feel safe again.
When I get up to get ready for work, she follows me into the bathroom. She brushes her teeth while I wash my face, and she bumps her hip into mine like she used to. No tension, fear, or distance.
She catches my reflection in the mirror and says, "I’m trying."
I look at her, at the determination in her face, and I feel something in me loosen. "I know you are," I tell her, and I mean it.
She kisses me before I leave. Really kisses me. Her fingers in my shirt, her stomach pressed to mine, soft and warm and getting rounder every day. I rest my hand on her bump without thinking, and she covers my hand with hers.
"Have a good day," she says.
"I will," I answer, because for the first time in a long time, I know I actually might.
When I come home for lunch, the house smells like actual food. Not something frozen. Not something she barely picked at. Something cooked. Something seasoned. Something that took effort.
She’s in the kitchen, hair up, and a tight tank top stretched over her small bump. She turns when she hears me, and her whole face lights up. I feel it hit me in the chest.
"Hey," she says, shy all of a sudden. "I made lunch."
"You cooked?"
She shrugs, but she’s smiling. "I wanted to try."
Her hands are trembling a little. I pretend I don’t see it. Not because I want to ignore it, but because I know she’s trying so hard not to feel fragile in front of me. She sets a plate in front of me and watches me take the first bite.
It’s good. Really good. I tell her so, and she lets out this breath like she’s been holding it all morning.
We eat together. No tension. No heavy silence. She talks about the baby kicking more, and I talk about work, and she listens like she actually wants to be here with me.
When I go to leave again, she stops me by hooking her fingers through my belt loops and pulling me back. She kisses me once, quick but full of warmth.
"I love you," she says.
Hearing it like that almost brings me to my knees. "I love you too."
The afternoon goes by slowly, but in a good way. For the first time in a month, I look at my phone and wonder what she’s doing because I’m curious, not because I’m scared something is wrong. When I get off shift, I rush home without meaning to.
She’s on the couch when I walk in, but she’s not curled into herself like she has been. She’s sitting up, legs tucked beside her, flipping through something on her phone with focus instead of emptiness.
When she sees me, she smiles. Not big or dramatic but real.
"You’re home early," she says.
"Yeah. Got out a little sooner."
She sets her phone down and pats the couch beside her. I sit, and she shifts closer, leaning her head on my shoulder.
"Today was better," she says quietly.
"It was."
She lifts her head, then turns to face me. "I’m really trying, Jackson."
I reach up and brush my thumb along her cheek. "I see it."
She presses her face into my palm like she needs the contact. "I didn’t know how far I’d slipped. I didn’t know I was taking you with me."
I shake my head. "Baby, you weren’t doing it on purpose."
"I know. But I’m not going back there. I can’t. Not with the baby. Not with us."
Something warm spreads through my chest. Steady. Solid. Hopeful.
She shifts closer, climbs into my lap, straddling my thighs like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Her hands cradle my face as she kisses me. Slow at first, then deeper, more sure.
Her lips are soft. Her hands are warm. Her breath catches when I slide my hands along her hips, and her fingers tighten in my hair.
This kiss feels different. Not desperate. Not lost. Not afraid.
This is her choosing me. Choosing us. Choosing life again.
When she pulls back, her forehead rests against mine. Both of us are breathing hard and shaking a little.
"I want us back," she whispers. "All of us."
"We’ll get there," I say. "We already are."
She leans into me again, kissing me more softly this time. Tender. Purposeful.
And in that moment, with her in my lap and her belly pressing warm between us and her eyes looking at me like she believes in us again, I know we’re moving in the right direction.
One real step at a time.
Brooklyn and I are sitting at the kitchen table after breakfast, both of us still kind of riding the calm from last night. It feels easy this morning. Comfortable. Like the tension we’ve both been carrying, finally let go a little.
She’s got her notebook open, the one she’s been using to keep track of stuff for the baby and the house. I lean back in my chair and sip my coffee while she taps her pen against the page.
“Okay,” she says. “We need to start planning some things. Real things. Baby stuff. Us stuff. Life stuff.”
“Let’s do it,” I say, because honestly, I like the way she lights up when she plans. Like she can see the future laid out in front of her, and she wants to reach for it.
She starts listing things. A doctor's appointment next week. Looking at cribs. Trying out that new grocery delivery service she’s curious about. She even puts down a note to schedule a date night that doesn’t blow up in flames this time, which makes both of us laugh.
I throw in ideas too. Painting the spare room. Starting a little emergency savings for when the baby comes. It feels like we’re finally building something side by side instead of trying to survive separate storms.
We talk like that for almost an hour, and by the end of it, she looks lighter. I feel it too.
She closes the notebook and gives me this small smile that makes me feel like a win walked into the room.
“Okay,” she says. “That’s the boring stuff.”
“I didn’t think it was boring.”
“Well,” she grins. “Good, because I’ve got something else for you.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
She stands, walks over to the counter, and picks up a little white gift bag, which I swear wasn’t there five minutes ago. She holds it behind her back like she’s trying to contain pure chaos.
“You hiding things from me now?”
“Maybe.”
She brings it to me and sets it in my hands without saying anything else.
I look at her once, and she looks nervous and excited all at once. I open the bag and pull out a small black box. My stomach does this weird flip, but I open it anyway because she’s watching me like her whole heart is hanging on this.
Inside is a silver keychain. Nothing fancy. Just simple with a flat metal tag. But the engraving hits me like a punch.
**World's Best Dad.**
My vision blurs for a second, and I have to swallow hard because I didn’t expect that. Not today. Not in the middle of a casual morning with coffee still on the table. But she picked this. She thought about this. She thought about me.
“Baby,” I say quietly. “This is…damn. I love it. Thank you.”
She steps into me like she wants to be held, and I pull her tight against my chest. Her belly presses lightly into me, and my hand goes there without thinking. I feel her breathe out, soft and safe.
And right then, the future hits me all at once. Not in a way that scares me but in a way that settles something deep.
I picture our kid running around the house. I picture teaching them to walk. I picture Brooklyn falling asleep on the couch with the baby on her chest and me taking a picture I’ll probably stare at a thousand times.
I picture being there, not missing a thing.
I picture tiny shoes by the door, bottles on the counter, and the three of us in one bed on a Sunday morning. I picture moments I’ve never let myself hope to be able to have or imagine after everything fell apart with Raleigh, at least not until her.
I never thought I’d get to have any of that. Not with the job I do. But with her, everything feels doable. Possible. Like the world finally opened a door I didn’t know I was allowed to walk through.
I pull back enough to look at her, and she’s smiling up at me with that soft, steady love she’s finally letting herself feel again.
“I’m excited,” I tell her. “To be a dad. To start this whole thing with you. All of it.”
Her eyes shine, and she squeezes my shirt in her hands like she’s holding on to something real.
“We’re really doing this,” she whispers.
“Yeah,” I say, brushing my thumb over her cheek. “And we’re gonna be good at it.”
For the first time, I believe it with everything in me.
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