In New Jersey, Elfie sneaked out of the downtown hotel and found a convenience store across the street. She bought the thing and sneaked back into the hotel.
Tryp was still asleep when she got back up to their room, and she locked herself in the bathroom.
She followed the directions, but she put a washcloth over the stick, hiding it.
In the bedroom, she sat on the bed and shook his shoulder. “Tryfon, honey?”
Tryp opened his dark eyes, blinking sleepily, and he smiled. “Hey, Fire Goddess. What’s up?”
“I need you,” she admitted.
“You bet. That’s my favorite way to wake up.” He tugged her arm toward himself.
“That’s not what I mean,” she whispered.
“Oh, too bad for me. What, then?” His gaze focused as he woke up more. “Elfie, what’s wrong?”
“I have a thing, in the bathroom.”
He sat up, more concerned, and he held her upper arms. “What kind of a thing?”
She looked out the window, over the clustered high-rises of New York across the river. “A pregnancy test.”
His hands tightened on her shoulders, but his voice held the lightness of wonder. “Elfie, are you pregnant?”
She kept looking outside. “I don’t know. I feel funny. I’m a couple days late. But that happens sometimes. Stress, you know.”
“But you think you might be?” He ducked his head, trying to catch her eyes.
She swallowed hard, nerves mixing with an unaccustomed nausea. “I’m afraid to look.”
“Is this a bad thing?”
She finally looked at him, but he didn’t seem judgmental at all. She asked, “Is it?”
“No,” he breathed. “No, it’s not bad. Or, it wouldn’t be. You don’t know yet?”
“No. I followed the directions, but I’m afraid to look. I don’t know what I would do about college,” she admitted.
“Xan can’t keep up this breakneck pace much longer, and then we’ll have a sane touring schedule, like a month on the road and a month off, plus extra time between legs or projects, like a year or more. You’ll go to college, then. We’ll handle it. We’ll take a nanny on the road. Your time horizon for college was a couple years anyway, right?”
“Yeah, I guess it was.”
“Come on.” He held her hand. “Let’s go look together. You’re not alone. You’re my wife, and I’m your husband.”
She slid her arms around him, clinging to him, because she had been scared deep inside.
He kissed her. “Let’s go look.”
They stood in front of the sink, and Elfie lifted the washrag.
Two blue lines showed up on the little plastic thing.
She said, “That means—”
But Tryp had already picked her up and was kissing her, and he carried her back to the bed.
He said, “It means that I’m the luckiest man in the world. I love you, Elfie.” His big hand splayed over her stomach. “And you, too, whoever you are.”
Elfie looked up at Tryp, and his eyes seemed darker because his thick, black lashes were moist, and he cradled her to himself, rocking her, murmuring how much he loved her.
The tension in his voice seemed gone, and his brawny body curved around her. After a while, after he had said every right thing, he dropped off to sleep for just a few minutes, just dozing with her in the bed.
The clock flickered through numbers, and Tryp slept, his body quiet under the sheets.
While he slept, he didn’t twitch, he didn’t jump, and he didn’t have nightmares, even though he wasn’t drunk. His soft breath fluttered in his chest. His lips barely curved in a smile.
He was happy, Elfie realized. This was what Tryp Areleous looked like when he was happy.
A warm glow spread in her, and she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face against his chest. His scent—warm man and the last remnants of citrus aftershave—brushed her nose. She was lying in his arms, and everything would work out because they were together, and safe, and alive, and she was happy, too.