Page 27 of Homecoming

“Um, sure. I, ah, need to get these orders out.”

“I’ll leave you to it.”

Renata wished she could bang her head against something hard, but she’d also learned that didn’t help anything. She’d done that once after a particularly trying day with him and had ended up with three stitches in her forehead that she’d had to explain to him after he’d come to the ER to see if she needed anything.

She’d told him she’d hit her head getting into her car.

He’d offered to drive her anywhere she needed to go.

“Oh my God.” The words were out of her mouth before she could take a single second to decide whether it was wise to say them out loud.

“You say something?” he called from his office.

“Nope.”

Oh. My. God.

Kara was right. Hedidlike her as more than a coworker.

No. Just no, no, nopety nope, nope, nope. Absolutely not. No.

When Kara walkedinto the house, she found Dan typing away on his laptop at Bertha’s kitchen table, wearing the black-framed blue-light glasses he wore whenever he used his computer. She called him Dr. Torrington when he wore them because they made him look like a college professor.

“There’s my gorgeous wife. I was just wondering how long I had to wait to see you.”

All these years later, he still said stuff like that to her, and it never felt like a line because she knew he meant every word. “Here I am.”

He got up, removed the glasses and came to greet her with a hug and kiss. “How was the visit with Renata?”

“Good. It was nice to see her in person.”

“I’m sure it was.” He studied her in that intense way of his, as if he could see right through her. Sometimes she suspected he could. “How’s the nausea?”

“Brutal.”

Wincing, he said, “Did you eat anything?”

“Just crackers. They helped.”

“Do you want me to make you some toast or eggs or anything?”

She shook her head as she tried not to gag at the thought of eating anything. “Thank you, but no. I’m okay for now.”

“My baby mama cannot live on crackers alone.”

“For right now, it’s the only option. Hopefully, it’ll pass.” It usually let up by late afternoon, but some days it was a twenty-four-hour event.

He gathered her in close to him. “Do you want to lie down for a while?”

“Yeah. I can’t seem to shake the exhaustion lately.”

“I read that it’s normal to be super tired in the third trimester. You’re growing a whole human in there.”

“And I hear it’s supposedly the most natural thing in the world. Doesn’t feel that way on days like today.”

“I wish there was something I could do to make it easier for you.”

“This helps,” she said, snuggling into his warm embrace. She was so comfortable that she could doze off standing up. That’d happened before when he was holding her just right.

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