he just studies it, a finger tracing the small shape. For some reason the sight of him clutching the tiny picture makes me want to cry. I swallow the emotion down.
“It’s really hard to make her out yet,” I murmur. “It’ll be clearer on the next ultrasound.”
Ethan nods, and I realize I’d forgotten that he’s done this before, that of the two of us he’s the one with more experience. “A girl?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Too early to tell, but I just think of the baby as a girl.” In my head, she already has Ethan’s honey-brown hair and green eyes, fitting in with her older sisters.
Ethan just looks at the image, his head bowed. I rock back on my heels and can’t help but notice the circles under his eyes, the unusually tousled thickness of his hair.
“Bella,” he says finally, his gaze meeting mine. “I don’t know where to begin.”
I swallow. “Why don’t you begin at the beginning?”
“How pragmatic.”
“Engineering student,” I say, the old joke slipping out.
His lip curls. “Engineer.”
Hope soars inside me.
He hands back the picture, but there’s reluctance in the gesture. “I can send you a copy,” I say.
“I’d like that.”
Sounding more sure than I feel, I slip my hands into the pockets of my slightly-too-snug jeans. “Starting at the beginning, huh?”
“Yes.”
“How far back are we talking here?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ll fast forward from the Big Bang, but pretty far back.”
“Wow.”
“I really wish you had a couch.”
“It’s going to be one of those conversations, huh?”
“I’m afraid it might be.” Ethan looks up at the ceiling, exhaling, like he’s gathering strength. And then, “Do you know there’s a gigantic crack in your ceiling?”
“It’s not important.”
“It strikes me as very important.”
“The place is safe. They wouldn’t rent it otherwise.”
His scoff tells me he thinks I’m an idiot. “Landlords do plenty of shadier things than that. And you refused to let me find you a better place to live?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “You can’t ask me to accept your charity. Knowing what you think of me, too? Absolutely not.”
“Bella, I don’t—”
“It was basically charity.”
“You’re right. I’ve been an ass.” Ethan spreads his arms wide, and like his frame, like his voice, they fill the small space. “From the second Lyra called me to tell me the Gardners had no niece, I’ve been an ass.”
I blink. “That’s starting from the beginning?”
“No. I got distracted.” He shakes his head. “For so long after Lyra, I shut down. I wasn’t… I didn’t look for love. I hadn’t looked for it actively before her, and after that, well… There were women, but nothing lasted, because I never allowed it to.
“And then you walked over with those damn fudge brownies. And I wanted you, even though I knew I shouldn’t let myself.”
I have to swallow before I can speak. “Because you thought you couldn’t offer me a relationship?”
“Yes. And it wasn’t because of a lack of time, or because of the girls.” He puts a hand to his chest. “It’s because I wouldn’t let you in. Not really. But you didn’t walk away. You kept coming, as irresistible as you’d been the first time, and I decided the risk was worth it. Because I knew there was a risk, and in the back of my mind, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
I wrap my arms around myself. “And then it did.”
He nods. “And then it did. And it was like a confirmation of everything I already knew, that relationships weren’t for me, that women weren’t to be trusted. But lost in that realization as I was, I left you alone with this, and I’m more sorry than I can say. It’s inexcusable.”
I wet my lips. “You’re right. This is a couch conversation.”
His laughter is short, surprised. “Told you it was.”
“Ethan, what you thought I did was pretty inexcusable, too.”
“You’re being too kind to me again,” he says. “I’ve been an ass. Be angry at me.”
“I have been.”
“Good.”
“But not just at you. At myself, too. At your ex-wife for putting these thoughts in your head.”
“I’m the one who listened to them. But I won’t, not again, not where you’re concerned.”
I shake my head. “Don’t say that.”
“Don’t?”
“We’re going to have to learn to trust each other again. It won’t be an overnight thing, but we have to.” And then, because I haven’t said it before, and because I can’t resist, “We’re going to be parents together, you know.”