CHAPTER TWO

“GODDAMMIT, MAISY . . . REALLY? Even you’re usually not this weasel-y. And my maid of honor dress is not unflattering, it’s just a little loose!”

I tore off the offending garment, a fluffy concoction of yellow chiffon I had admittedly purchased two sizes too big just in case. Then I tossed it on the floor of my and Nate’s bedroom, trying not to fixate on the fact that I was talking to myself.

I supposed we should have known Maisy Kane wouldn’t settle for merely observing a wedding she hadn’t been invited to. The tenacious human-demon hybrid gossip blogger/lingerie shop proprietor was always causing trouble, rumor-mongering in the name of building her platform. And now she’d uncovered her juiciest rumor yet.

After we’d seen Maisy’s post, Team Tanaka/Jupiter had snapped into crisis mode. Lucy and Rose insisted on one of Rose’s Demon Unit colleagues driving me home in a squad car, sirens blazing. It wasn’t quite as embarrassing as the time in third grade when I’d ingested too much Gatorade during gym class and promptly pissed my pants during Math because the teacher was mean and I was scared to ask for a hall pass.

But it was perhaps a close second?

Of course, both Nate and Aveda had to come with me. And Lucy almost did, until I reminded her that she should probably stay for the rest of her own wedding reception.

Back at Tanaka/Jupiter HQ—a crumbling Victorian in the lower Haight where the team lived and worked—I scuttled up to my and Nate’s bedroom. After shucking off my dress and talking to myself for a bit, I took my anti-nausea and blood pressure medications and curled up in bed, prepared to spend the rest of the evening careening between wondering if I was about to throw up or just hungry or maybe both. My usual favorite foods—including my beloved Lucky Charms—currently made me gag, so it was always a toss-up.

I took a deep breath and tried to shove down the panic wriggling itself into a tight knot in my chest. The whole city knew I was pregnant now, and I was already envisioning paparazzi showing up on our doorstep, overzealous fans trying to ask me a zillion questions, and Nate’s worrywarting ratcheting up to eleven.

I heard Aveda and Nate talking downstairs in hushed tones, then in slightly more intense tones. They were probably arguing over who would get to come up and fuss over me. I was staying out of it. I’d have my fake smile ready to go whenever they sorted it out.

The knot in my chest tightened into a hard little ball. I pulled a pillow over my face and screamed into it, then attempted to go into the breathing I’d learned to stave off panic attacks. Big breath in through the nose. Hold it for three counts. Out through the mouth. Nice and slow. Steady, steady . . .

How had I spiraled into this stressed-out state?

When I first learned I was pregnant . . . well, I’d like to say it was just like I’d always imagined it, a beautiful moment of puppies and rainbows, lit in soft focus. But the truth was, I’d never actually imagined that moment at all.

For so much of my life, I’d been focused on survival. Keep Bea alive, make it to the next day, don’t destroy everything with your fire power. I’d only been snapped out of that pattern when my powers had refused to be tamped down and I’d been forced to take on the superheroine mantle. I’d learned how to let my emotions out—that doing this was actually healthy and fulfilling and wasn’t going to literally burn my entire world down. I’d found a purpose, protecting the people and the city I love. And I’d realized that maybe I could have a life that went beyond just surviving. I could finally believe I was going to make it past the next day—and the next and the next and the next.

Still, I’d never planned on falling in love or getting married or . . . any of that. I think I always felt, deep down, that I wasn’t meant to find those things, to be happy that way. Fantasies of that kind of future never even entered my brain space.

Then Nate happened.

We had a whirlwind courtship that started with sex, progressed to love, and culminated in him proposing after we’d only been together for four months.

When he sank to one knee in front of me, it was right after Aveda and I had taken down another demon threat. My cheeks were flushed from the heat of battle, my heart was pounding with amped-up adrenaline . . . and all of a sudden this big, beautiful man who’d captured my entire heart was presenting me with a sparkly ring and the promise of a lifetime together.

For once, I hadn’t tried to tamp down anything. I’d let the overwhelming surge of emotions sweep me away. I’d known immediately, in my deepest heart of hearts, that this was right.

And I’d said yes.

Aveda had asked me later if I was sure. She wanted to make sure I wasn’t being totally consumed by something I wasn’t really thinking through. But honestly, that was the best part. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have to overthink every possibility, worry my way through all possible tangents, and question whether or not I was making a mistake. I felt that yes more deeply than I’d ever felt anything. I just knew.

We’d been together for five years now, and I loved him more fiercely with each passing day, month, year. We’d talked about kids over the years—but it was always in a sort of abstract way, as if we were discussing something that was way, way in the future. We were both interested, but we also had reservations. Neither of us had great parental role models. I’d already spent most of my twenties raising a surly tween/teen.

We’d both been through a lot, we were both a little broken, and we’d had to fight hard to be together. Finding each other felt like such a miracle, I think we were scared to do anything that might disrupt that.

And as the years went by, my superheroing schedule with Aveda only seemed to get busier, more taxing, and more dangerous. The thought of having a baby always seemed to drift to the background.

Especially since I wanted to be really and truly prepared. All of my other big life moments had been wild and sweeping and unexpected, altering my personal world in a matter of seconds. This would have to be different. It wasn’t something I took lightly, and I didn’t want to be like my dad, abandoning his kids and fucking them up because he just couldn’t deal.

But when it actually happened . . . well, I can honestly say I was not prepared at all.

I was on birth control, and my period was late. My period is usually like clockwork, but I gave it a few extra days. Then a week. Then two weeks.

When it had been absent for three whole weeks, I took a test.

I didn’t tell anyone I was taking the test. I was still imagining that it was a false alarm, that my period was just being shy and would probably arrive as soon as I peed on the stick. Team Tanaka/Jupiter always had so much going on, and I didn’t want to add another possible bit of chaos to the hurricane—especially if it ended up being nothing.

Standing over the cracked porcelain of the clawfoot sink in one of Tanaka/Jupiter HQ’s charming, tiny bathrooms, staring at that little piece of plastic . . . I honestly wasn’t sure how to feel. I didn’t know which way I wanted it to go. I wondered if my ambivalence meant I didn’t want this, that I was only comfortable with it in the abstract, that this was my sign that Nate and I should forego kids and spend the rest of our days just being thankful we’d found each other . . .

Then, like magic, those two little lines appeared.

And I burst into tears.

I dropped the stick in the sink and collapsed to the floor, bawling my eyes out. That was how Nate found me.

“Evie?” he said, crouching down in front of me. “What’s wrong?”

I was crying too hard to answer, so he’d simply gathered me in his arms and held me close, his lips brushing against my hair.

This was one of the things I loved most about him. He had the most gruff, grumbly exterior and his words were never something one would deem mushy. But once we’d decided to be together, he was all in. He never wavered, he gave his heart so fully, and he never hesitated to show me how much he loved me, in ways that were immediate, selfless, and so tender they brought tears to my eyes. If I hurt in any way, he only wanted to make it better, however he could.

Considering that he’d never really experienced love before, that his only family was an evil demon mom who wanted to hurt him . . . that felt like an extra miracle. I could never stop marveling at how deeply he loved, how he went all in without hesitation.

“Evie,” he repeated, his voice soft against my hair. “What’s going on? Please talk to me.”

“I . . . hic . . . pregnant,” I managed through sobs. “Me. Baby. Test . . . hic . . . positive. I’m pregnant.”

“I . . . I see. And you’re distressed about it?” His tone was neutral, giving nothing away.

“N-no.” I swallowed hard, trying to get the tears under control. Then I made myself turn my face up to him, meeting his eyes. “I’m happy. I was . . . I just got so overwhelmed. It was like . . . all these feelings exploded. I don’t think I ever thought I could imagine this, even though we talked about it, I . . .” I hiccupped again, and his arms tightened around me. “I’m so happy right now. And I’m usually afraid to let myself feel happy about anything, I’m too busy second guessing it or overthinking it, but . . . yeah. It’s like the feeling is so big, I can’t do any of that. I just have to let it happen. And yeah . . . happy.” A goofy smile stretched across my face and a warm glow blossomed in my chest. “But Nate, how do you feel? You can be honest. I know we’ve talked about this, but it’s never been this real. I don’t think I ever thought it could be real . . .”

My eyes searched his, trying to figure out what he was thinking. A tiny note of uncertainty pinged through me—what if he didn’t feel the same way? What if my happiness was a silly momentary reaction, not founded in anything and not something he could ever reciprocate?

What if, what if, what if . . .

Then the biggest, goofiest grin broke out across his face too.

“I am having a similar reaction,” he said.

“Does that mean you’re happy too?”

“Yes,” he said, pulling me closer. “Yes, I am. I . . . it’s as you said. I’m overwhelmed. I can’t overthink it, I can only . . . feel.” His smile got wider, the warmth in my chest surged, and I snuggled closer to him—reveling in his solidness and the familiar scent of his skin. Fresh and clean, like the air after a rainstorm. I loved feeling surrounded by him. No matter how out of control my life was, he always made me feel safe.

He stroked his thumb down my cheek, wiping away my remaining tears. Then he kissed me, his lips soft and sweet and searching. Almost tentative, like he was asking me for the answer to an unspoken question, his hands gentle against my face. I responded by deepening our kiss, winding my arms around his neck and pulling him closer, parting his lips with my tongue.

We eventually—barely—made it back to our bed and there were no more words for a while. Just his big hands, hot against my bare skin. His mouth, exploring every inch of my body. Our eyes meeting when he slid inside of me, something unspoken passing between us. I think in that moment we both felt so free. Like we’d been released from all the hurt we’d endured to get to each other, and we could finally just exist in joy, pleasure, passion. We could just be.

I wish I could have preserved that moment forever. Because after that, reality set in.

When we were lying together later, tangled in the sheets, I’d mentioned I needed to make a doctor’s appointment.

“Yes,” Nate said, his fingertips tracing idle patterns down my back that made me shiver. His voice was relaxed, sleepy. So content. That glow bloomed in my chest again. I was on my side, nestled against him, warm all over. “I assume you’ll want to go to Doctor Goo?”

“For sure, she’s the best,” I said.

Doctor Rebekah Goo was the city’s leading OB-GYN to supernaturally enhanced humans—her practice had flourished over the last decade, as those of us who had been blessed with superpowers often needed someone who understood the unique effects on our physiology. Nate served as my and Aveda’s general physician, but Doctor Goo helped us with all gynecological needs.

I knew she’d successfully birthed many babies of superpowered people. So far, none of those babies had showed any sign of possessing their own powers, but potentially powered offspring was an area she’d taken great pains to study, research, and write papers on, keeping the medical community up to date on the latest and greatest in superhero reproduction.

But this would be an entirely new thing for her.

“Hey, are we the first people to have a baby with both superhero and demon DNA?” I murmured, snuggling closer to Nate. “I think we might be. I bet Doctor Goo will be really excited about that.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized they were momentous. Not the idle chit-chat I’d thought they were.

They echoed back in my head, each syllable landing with a thud.

The first people to have a baby with both superhero and demon DNA.

The first baby with both superhero and demon DNA.

The first complete disaster baby delivered to people who aren’t ready to be parents and definitely did not think this through and have enough of their own problems already and—

This was another thing we’d talked about, of course—how demon DNA and superhero DNA might combine. But it had been in that same abstract way we’d discussed having kids, period. We hadn’t really thought through what it would mean.

“You’re right,” Nate said. His voice had changed in an instant—now it wasn’t sleepy at all. Now he sounded uncomfortably alert. His hand went still against my back, his palm flattening between my shoulder blades like he was trying to anchor himself. “It is the first.”

“It’s going to be okay, though,” I said hastily. I shoved the worry percolating in my chest aside and turned my face up to look at him. “I’m sure Doctor Goo will have a lot of useful thoughts.”

“Of course,” Nate said, his voice sounding far away. “Doctor Goo is very smart.”

His brows drew together as he sank into deep thought. His hand, I noticed, fell away from my back entirely.

“Hey.” I sat up a little and took his face in my hands, making him look at me. “Nate. Maybe we should talk about this more—are you sure you . . .” My throat tightened, but I made myself get the words out. “Are you sure you want this?”

Surprise flashed over his face, and he met my eyes, his gaze focusing. “Yes,” he said with conviction. “Yes, I absolutely do.”

“Me too,” I said, relaxing a little. He was all in, just like he had been with us. “And seriously. We’re going to be all right. The baby’s going to be all right. Remember how we both felt in the bathroom earlier . . .” I flashed back to that moment, trying to call up that feeling of overwhelming happiness again. “All that joy. Let’s try to hold on to that. I love you, and this is incredible.”

“I love you too,” he said, smiling slightly at me. It wasn’t quite his goofy, out-of-control grin from earlier, but it was enough for me to feel momentarily soothed.

And for a bit, we were able to hold on to some of that happy.

Doctor Goo assured us that everything was fine, I seemed perfectly healthy, the pregnancy was progressing as normal. But I could tell Nate was still worried. It was the way he gripped my hand at our first appointment. The way his brow never seemed to unfurrow. The way his voice got extra serious whenever he asked Doctor Goo a question. I didn’t want him to know I was worried too because that would make him even more worried, so I tried to put up a good front. I pasted on that smile with all my might.

I think we kept trying to grab back on to that sensation of overwhelming joy we’d felt at first. But then . . . other stuff happened. Bea was going through a crisis both personal and supernatural, and that stoked all my worries. If I’d totally failed to set her up for successful adulthood, why did I think I was fit to be a parent? Why had I let myself be swept away by that initial giddiness? Why had I thought I could do this at all?

On the other side of it, I was frustrated that I couldn’t simply return to that giddiness. That I couldn’t glow as an expectant mother should. The fact that I was so conflicted made me feel like there was something wrong with me.

Our joy kept slipping away, replaced by silence and both of us retreating into the spiral of our own thoughts.

Then my blood pressure spiked, and that’s when Nate’s worrywarting really kicked in.

Ever since then, he’d been looking at me with constant concern, as if he expected me to collapse on the spot. He called Doctor Goo every time I had so much as a headache, he encouraged me to go to bed if I felt even a little lightheaded, and he went into full protective mode whenever I threw up.

And we hadn’t had sex in weeks—over a month, actually. My overactive pregnancy hormones were protesting hard.

I kept trying to initiate, thinking it might take us back to that moment again—our eyes meeting when he slid inside of me. Us feeling so connected, so together, so free.

But he kept shutting it down. And he always said something about my health, how I shouldn’t be engaging in strenuous activity.

All I could really do . . . was just keep telling him how totally okay I was.

Maybe if I kept saying it, he’d believe it.

Maybe I would too.

I heaved a mighty sigh, shoved down the queasiness that was still hanging out, and looked around for things to distract myself. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and scrolled around, idly clicking on things. I was trying to avoid anything having to do with Maisy’s big “scoop,” but it was already everywhere. My and Aveda’s fans (the EVEDA hive) were gushing about possible Insta-worthy superbaby showers and birthing plans and speculating on what would happen once the baby arrived. Would it affect my superheroing career?

Y’all, trust in Evie, she knows what she’s doing, one starry-eyed post read. She is proof positive that you can have it all!

“Yeesh,” I muttered, recoiling and trying to breathe through the panic. An email notification popped up and I clicked over, fully expecting it to be Maisy asking me for an exclusive interview. Which I would relish saying no to.

But it was something else. Something containing the name of an institution I hadn’t thought about in a long time.

Greetings, esteemed alum, from Morgan College! We are ever so pleased to invite you to your class reunion, taking place this coming weekend. Activities include . . .

Wait, what?

I hadn’t even graduated from Morgan. Why was I getting a class reunion invite? Just seeing the school’s name provoked such an immediate, visceral response, I nearly dropped the phone.

But hadn’t I come a long way since then? Hadn’t I experienced, as Aveda said, a “glow-up”? Why did simply seeing the school’s name still bother me so much?

It was so weird to think about that time now—and that girl, struggling her way through a challenging program and trying to balance all the other parts of her increasingly chaotic life. I’d had hopes and dreams that hadn’t come true—but they’d given way to hopes and dreams I’d never even imagined.

I pictured myself back then, sleep-deprived and stumbling across the beautiful, tree-lined campus: dark brown hair a messy tangle of curls (not that it was much different these days), impressive bags ever-present under my cloudy hazel eyes, wearing the same clothes as the day before. Even the smattering of freckles across my nose had looked tired.

I remembered sitting in the tiny office I’d shared with two other grad students/teaching assistants—we hadn’t been super close, but for some reason, we had a running joke about all the odd and illicit things people must have done in that office after hours. Maybe because the office was located in such an odd little nook, tucked away in one of the corners of Morgan Hall, a majestic, multi-story building replete with high ceilings and swirling architectural flourishes. At night, after the undergrads had gone back to their dorms, it wasn’t hard to imagine all kinds of strange things happening there—and indeed, there were always stories about weird noises or ghostly figures or stuff moving around with no explanation. The college, with its heady mix of beautiful nature, crumbling old buildings, and shadowy nooks and crannies, had a reputation for being extremely haunted.

Of course, my fellow TAs and I also wondered about people using the office after-hours for sex. For the most part, we were all too tired and overworked to even think about such things. But near the end of my grad school career, I’d entered into an ill-advised relationship with the professor I TA-ed for, Richard. I was twenty-two and he was twenty-six, so he was only a few years older than me (he’d gone to college young, something he reminded me about on a near daily basis), and sometimes we felt like colleagues . . . even though we technically weren’t.

We’d had a moment after class one day, discussing gender roles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and . . . I don’t know. Looking back now, it felt very unlike the Evie of the time—the Evie who was so quiet and studious and practical, always exhausted and fading into the background and trying to suppress her fire power with all her might. Scared Mouse Evie. But I guess I’d needed an escape, and an illicit romance had seemed thrilling at first. Decadent, like a shiny treat I was allowing myself amidst the gray of my daily life.

We’d never actually done it in anyone’s office, but I’d developed a fantasy around the idea, something I only indulged when I was so tired that my exhaustion somehow worked the opposite way, making me wired and antsy and unable to fall asleep. I always imagined a tall, dark stranger sauntering in—maybe he was a new TA in the department or a professor I’d never met or just some hot guy who happened to be visiting the campus of a women’s college late at night for some reason . . . um, ew. Okay, never mind that part—but in my fantasy, this tall stranger and I didn’t talk. Because the idea of talking just contributed to my overall exhaustion.

This stranger would come into my office late at night, we’d exchange smoldering gazes, and then he’d reach over and brush his fingertips lightly against my collarbone . . .

Oddly enough, the stranger in my fantasy never looked like Richard—perhaps that should have been a sign we weren’t meant to be. I’d told him about the fantasy once, thinking maybe he’d want to help me make it real. Instead he spent forty-five minutes lecturing me on how I should try to develop “more empowered” sexual fantasies, where I was “a woman warrior who consummates only after the male has proved himself worthy and confessed his undying love.”

“You’re a strong woman of color,” he’d said, giving me one of the self-satisfied smiles that meant he was particularly proud of all that enlightened thinking he was getting to show off. “Don’t you want to have representationally strong fantasies?”

I wanted to tell him that being a strong woman of color was wearing me out on a daily basis, and sometimes I just wanted a hot, mysterious stranger to fuck me against my desk.

Hmm. Thinking about that hot stranger now was enough to send my pregnancy-fueled hormones into overdrive.

Especially since my husband hadn’t touched me in a month.

Okay, maybe this was the way to distract myself.

I slid under the covers, grabbed my vibrator from the nightstand, and closed my eyes. Then I tried to settle myself into the fantasy—remembering the soft darkness of the office, the scent from the eucalyptus trees wafting in through the window next to my desk. It was easy to imagine Nate as the stranger—his big, broad frame taking up most of the doorway as he strode in, brushed his fingertips over my collarbone, then allowed them to trail downward . . .

“Evie?”

I let out an embarrassingly loud scream, my eyes flying open. Luckily I hadn’t actually turned the vibrator on yet, so I shoved it more fully under the covers. Nate—the real Nate—was striding into our bedroom, but he didn’t look like he was in the mood for what I’d just been imagining. His face was lit with concern. As it always was these days.

“Sorry I startled you,” he said, sitting down next to me on the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” I said automatically, pasting that big smile across my face. “I took my anti-nausea medication. And my blood pressure medication. And now I’m just . . .” I trailed off, studying him. He still looked worried, his eyes scanning me for something amiss. Even though I’d shucked off the bridesmaid dress, I was still in my underwear—a matching set in bright coral lace. But that didn’t seem to be doing anything for him. He was still looking at me like I was a particularly fragile lab specimen, something that would shatter if he so much as touched me.

I, on the other hand, was probably looking at him like I was a drooling cartoon dog and he was a big, tasty steak. He’d taken off the jacket and tie he’d worn for the wedding, but he was still wearing his crisp white dress shirt, unbuttoned just a bit at the top. It was a little tight around the arms—just enough to hug the well-defined muscle of his biceps and to stoke the fire of my already revved-up hormones.

“You know,” I said, leaning forward in a way that I hoped really showed off my slightly bigger pregnancy boobs, “I was just thinking about earlier. In the closet. When you . . .”

Rejected me. Again.

“When we were starting to have a good time,” I amended. I reached over and grazed my fingertips over the exposed skin of his neck. “Doctor Goo said some strenuous physical activity is a good thing, you know. For both me and the baby. And since I’ve taken the blood pressure med now . . .”

I trailed off suggestively. Well, as suggestively as one can when using blood pressure medication as foreplay.

He’d gone very still, but I could feel goosebumps pebbling his skin. Could see how his posture stiffened and his eyes went to my cleavage, so enticingly displayed in bright coral lace.

I let my fingertips drift lower.

“Evie,” he said, his voice husky.

“Yes?” I said, leaning in more.

“I . . . need to get back to work.” He shook his head like he was trying to get clear of whatever sexytimes fog had temporarily descended over us, gently removing my hand from his neck and scooting away from me on the bed. “I have some important analyses I’m in the middle of. And after everything today, you should be resting.”

I slumped back against the headboard. “Right,” I said, unable to keep the deflated tone out of my voice.

He didn’t appear to notice. He gave me a slight smile and patted my hand. “I’ll check on you later.”

“I’m sure you will,” I murmured, as he stood and left, not bothering to look back at me.

I slumped down further and sighed, pulling my vibrator out from the tangle of blankets.

“Just you and me now, friend,” I said to the vibrator. I waggled my eyebrows suggestively. “Whaddya say we elevate my blood pressure?”

---

Much later, Aveda came stomping in (luckily, I had finished my strenuous physical activity by then), waving her phone around.

“Emails!” she sang out. “We need to clean out our Tanaka/Jupiter business mailbox. There are already several hundred requests for interviews about—”

“I’m not talking to anyone about being pregnant,” I said flatly. “Maisy can post all the garbage she wants—no press about this until I’m ready.”

“Of course,” Aveda said, plunking herself down next to me. “I’ll put those emails in a special folder for later. We also have a ton of requests for baby product endorsements and special appearances and—”

I gave her a look.

“Let’s just put those in the ‘for later’ folder too,” she said hastily. “We have plenty of other important correspondence to deal with.”

“If you’re trying to distract me from feeling off-and-on gross, busy work is one way to go,” I groaned.

“All part of my job as your best friend!” she sang out, tapping on the screen with vigor.

“Did you happen to see Nate downstairs?” I said. “He said he had a bunch of analyses he was working on, but I was trying to figure out what those were in relation to—we don’t have any active or unresolved supernatural incidents, do we?”

“At the moment, no,” Aveda said, gnawing on her lower lip as she moved another hefty list of messages into the folder. I tried to resist scrutinizing the screen too hard. I didn’t want to know how many there were. “Although it could have something to do with whatever Bea’s working on in Maui. She regularly sends him her reports to get his take on everything. Or perhaps he’s taken some new samples from the Pussy Queen portal.”

The Pussy Queen portal was a big, black pit on the floor of the local lingerie boutique owned and operated by Maisy. It was the very portal I’d pushed my future mother-in-law Shasta into during our fight. Though it was closed and mostly dormant, it was the source of the supernatural energy that kept leaking into our world, causing various demonic disturbances.

Bea’s recent adventures had led her to come up with a new theory about all that energy. She’d encountered a demon posing as our dead mother who had been trying to trap a certain number of human souls in the Otherworld in order to gain control of the Bay Area. My sister had nearly driven me to an early grave while she tried to puzzle out what was happening, jumping into the Otherworld several times—leaping without looking.

Luckily, Bea had stopped the Mom-Demon—and developed a theory that all that supernatural energy leakage had rubbed the walls between our world and the Otherworld perilously thin in certain places. That meant there were possibly other ways demons could get through. And in locations that weren’t San Francisco. Maui had recently played host to a string of bizarre events, which was why a Demon Unit had been set up there.

But so far, we hadn’t encountered much out of the ordinary—well, our version of ordinary.

Usually, I was grateful for a little downtime, but at the moment, I kind of wanted something to do. Something to take my mind off the trepidation—and okay, sheer panic—I felt whenever I thought about the baby. And whenever I pasted on my big, fake smile to cover it up.

“I’m sure it’s something like that,” I said, pasting on that very smile. “He’ll always find an analysis of something to do.”

Although right now, I wish he was doing me instead.

Jesus Christ, Preggo Hormones Evie—get it together.

“Maybe we should actually hire someone to do this,” Aveda said, gesturing to the email screen.

“Now that Bea’s gone?” I said, trying to shoo away my lingering horny thoughts. “I mean. Not gone. But not really . . .”

“Doing this anymore, being our assistant-type person?” Aveda supplied. “But she hasn’t done it for a while, has she? And before her . . .”

“It was me,” I said, smiling faintly and resting my head on Aveda’s shoulder. “Checking the email, cleaning up all the messes, dealing with you.” I elbowed her in the ribs. “How far we’ve come.”

She smiled back at me. “Indeed.”

We sat in silence for a moment while Aveda scrolled through emails, deleting some and flagging others to get to later. A pleasant, companionable silence—a silence that truly did represent how far we’d come. It was nice to feel bonded to her like this, to feel like we could simply exist in our friendship rather than needing to discuss it to death or renegotiate its boundaries or . . .

And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about that niggle of doubt that kept making itself known at the most inopportune moments. I couldn’t show her how I really felt about Nate being worried and the baby and what was going to happen after the baby—

“Hey, what’s this—a grad school reunion?” Aveda’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. One of her perfectly manicured nails—done up in a badass matte black—hovered over the email invitation. “Wow, look at that, Evelyn—you’re an esteemed alum!”

“I’m not an alum, I didn’t even graduate,” I groaned. “I dropped the hell out. I don’t know why Morgan invited me, I’m not exactly the kind of model student example they need to sell their program. And they sent this to my personal inbox, too, why are they so thirsty?”

“Of course they invited you,” Aveda said, rolling her eyes. “You’re a badass superheroine who saves San Francisco from demons on the regular—they want the shine of that local-girl-makes-good fame. And isn’t Morgan an all-women’s college? So it’s also, like, empowering.”

“Undergrad is women and non-binary students, grad is all genders,” I clarified.

“Well, anyway, what are your classmates doing now, being boring old professors?” Aveda said.

“Yes, shaping and educating the fine young minds of our next generation,” I said, throwing her an amused look. “Not important at all. At least, I assume that’s what they’re doing, I haven’t kept in touch with anyone.”

“I’m sure they’d love to see you again,” Aveda said.

“I doubt it,” I said. “It’s not like I made any lifelong friendships while I was there—I was always way too busy, with classes and work and trying to keep both myself and Bea alive.”

“Anywaaaay,” Aveda trilled, giving me a look that meant I was most definitely being a spoilsport.

“Fine, let me see that.” I took the phone from her and scrutinized the invite, which promised a big party and lots of interacting with old classmates and professors—all things I wasn’t particularly excited about. “Eh. I kind of left in disgrace, remember?”

“They don’t know you’re the one who burned down the library,” Aveda countered. “And anyway, it was an accident. No one knows you left in disgrace, they just know you left.”

“I’m surprised they even know that,” I snorted.

The path that led me away from grad school was actually one of the more dramatic chapters in my personal history. It had involved the end of my relationship with Richard, when it had all come crashing down—literally.

Because I’d entered the Morgan College library—another old, beautiful campus building—and spied Richard totally doing it amidst the stacks with Ms. Clarion, the effortlessly cool professor of Human Sexuality.

I’d been so angry—and for once, my anger wasn’t something I could shove down or repress or talk myself out of. Pure mad consumed my entire body and fire was shooting out of my hands before I even knew what was happening. No one had died, but people had gotten hurt. The library had crumbled to the ground and I’d fled grad school, terrified that my power would do something even worse the next time I couldn’t control it. I showed up sobbing on Aveda’s doorstep—she’d hired me as her personal assistant and that was that.

Once we’d started making a good living off of our combined sponsorships and such, I’d sent the school a very generous, anonymous donation to rebuild the library.

“I’m saying, it’s not really disgrace if they don’t know you were responsible,” Aveda said. “You never told anyone that was you, correct? Didn’t they end up blaming it on faulty wiring and the building being really freaking old?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Most people outside of Team Tanaka/Jupiter don’t know my true origin story.”

“And have you been back to campus—you know, since the whole . . . incident?”

“No,” I said, still staring at the email. “There was never any need.”

“Well, then! I’d say there’s definitely a need now,” Aveda said.

I turned to look at her—and was dismayed to see she had her Idea Face on. Usually Aveda’s Idea Face meant she was about to suggest something I most definitely wasn’t going to like.

“You’re about to embark on a new chapter of your life,” she said, taking the phone back from me. “You need closure from this one. I’ve noticed you looking rather introspective recently, Evie, and you know I can read you like a book. I think you’re suffering from . . .” She leaned in, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “A loss of superheroine mojo.”

“Um, what?” I said. “What is that?”

“Every accomplished superheroine goes through it.” Aveda patted my hand and gave me a sage look. “We haven’t had much to battle since Bea defeated her Mom-Demon and that means you’re starting to doubt your ability to do this thing you were meant to do.” She set the phone down and laid a hand on my arm, her eyes widening earnestly. “Believe me, I completely understand. I went through the very same thing right before your wedding. And that means I know exactly how to help you through it.”

I studied her, trying not to shake my head in disbelief. That wasn’t what I was feeling at all.

“This reunion will help you get your confidence back—showing off to your former classmates, letting them fawn all over you.” She grinned and picked up the phone again. “Plus . . .” She cocked an eyebrow as she scanned through the email. “It’s all the way over in the East Bay and it takes place over a long weekend—this coming weekend, in fact!”

“Why are they sending me an invite now for an event that’s in a week?” I said, shaking my head. “Are dropouts on the C List?”

“It can be like a fun little vacation,” Aveda persisted. She nodded approvingly to herself, her Idea Face getting more intense.

I’d been gearing myself up to protest, but her last few words lodged themselves in my brain, stopping me.

A vacation.

Hmm.

I had to admit—the idea of being by myself, away from HQ and the smothering attention of the rest of the team and the paparazzi that were probably about to camp out on our doorstep was . . . appealing. I wouldn’t have to pretend like I was simply overjoyed about the baby. I wouldn’t have to reassure everyone nine million times that I was fine. I wouldn’t have to dodge press.

And most importantly, I wouldn’t have to act like I was glowing.

I would not be visiting the library. Aveda was wrong, I didn’t need any more closure there. But maybe a few days in a totally different environment would give me the chance to collect myself, focus my thoughts, get my head in the right place so I could finally be genuinely happy about this next chapter of my supposedly perfect life.

Bonus: I wouldn’t have to try to not look hurt when my husband rebuffed my latest advances and looked at me like I was some kind of fragile-ass lab rat.

“I think you’re right,” I said, nodding at the phone.

She blinked at me. “What? Are you seriously . . . agreeing with me?”

“You expected me to disagree with you? Just like that?”

“I have my Idea Face on.” Aveda shrugged. “I was prepared for a fight to the death.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Pass me the phone, I’ll respond in the affirmative. A vacation sounds nice.”

“Already done—look, now I’m your personal assistant!” Aveda said, tapping away on the phone. “And don’t worry, I included all the info about your plus-one.”

I stopped laughing, the frozen smile I was more accustomed to these days overtaking my face. “Plus . . . what, now?”

“Plus! One!” Aveda said, gesturing grandly to herself. “We’re going to have so much fun!”

My frozen smile disappeared entirely. “What do you mean ‘we’?”