Page 162 of Falling Into Gravity

“Chile, you know me and my man be around the world,” Stephanie said, making everyone laugh. “Now catch me up and somebody need to tell me how my baby got a baby in her belly.”

“Sit down, woman,” Griff, her husband fussed with his own plate of watermelon.

The doctor’s office smelled like clean air and old magazines. The paper on the table crinkled under Aku’s weight as she climbed up with a little wince. Malik sat beside her, hunched and holding his side where the pain still came in waves. Six weeks wasn’t enough time to heal a through-and-through to the chest, but he wasn’t missing this appointment for nothing.

Not when it was aboutthem.

Aku sat beside him with her feet swinging gently above the floor. Her dress was hugging her bump now, small but real—a reminder that she was really about to be someone’s mama. She held her phone in both hands, thumbs hovering over the screen, but she wasn’t texting nobody…just staring, thinking.

“You good?” Malik asked.

Her eyes were soft when she looked over at him. “Yea, just nervous.”

“’Bout the baby?”

She nodded, then reached over and touched his hand. “And you.”

Malik tried to hide the way his body reacted to her touch. His fingers were still stiff some days. His shoulder still ached, but her hand in his steadied everything.

“I’m cool,” he said. “You sureyougood? You haven’t stopped moving since we got here.”

“I’m fine.” She leaned her head on his shoulder for a second, then laughed under her breath. “You the one who look like you think somebody gon’ jump out this room and try to finish the job.”

Malik smirked. “Ain’t shit funny.”

“You eyeing the emergency exit like you might have to duck and roll. This a doctor’s office, not a shootout.”

He chuckled, coughed once, then winced. “Damn, baby.”

“See?” she laughed. “God punishing you for tryna be serious.”

Malik shook his head, then rubbed his hand across his face. “Nah. I just…I’m tryna be chill, but this feel big.”

She looked at him. “It is big.”

“I ain’t never sat in no room like this before, not for anything like this, not with anybody.”

Aku laced her fingers with his. “Me neither, but we here now.”

He leaned his head back, eyes staring up at the soft ceiling tiles. “You think they gon’ be okay? The baby? I mean…”

She turned to face him fully. “They will be. You wanna know why?”

He looked at her, waiting to see what magic would come from her lips today.

“’Cause they got you…and me…and we already survived hell, so they gon’ walk through heaven without even tryin’.”

Malik blinked, a lump catching in his throat. “I don’t even know how to be a dad, Aku.”

“You didn’t know how to fall in love either,” she said, “but you figured it out.”

He looked at her like she was the whole reason the world still spun.

Then her name got called.

“Aku Banner?”

Aku grinned as she stood up, pulling Malik up with her. “Come on, baby daddy.”

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