It’s too early for Sky. Way too early. “No,” she says. “I’m just tired.”

Matt looks up at Paul like he’s waiting for assurance. “This is a first baby,” Paul says. “It could be awhile. You should go home and sleep for a couple of hours. Take a nap. I’ll call if things go faster than that.”

Sky shrugs. “We need to go check on the girls and Seth anyway.”

Matt nods. “Call us if anything goes wrong. Or faster. Or just goes.”

Paul takes my hand and pulls me toward the exit. The volunteers have agreed to dismantle our tables and hold on to our tips from the day. I already counted it twice, and we made just over eleven thousand dollars with tips and a few very generous donations. It was a good day.

“You should be very proud of yourself,” Paul says as we go down the stairs to the subway. “You made a lot of money for the charity.”

He squeezes my hands, so I squeeze his back. “We made a lot of money. Not me,” I correct. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

“That’s what family is for,” he says. He watches my face closely as we get on the subway. There are no seats, so he stands up, grabs one of the handles, and wraps his free arm around my waist. He pulls me against him, and I am so close that I can feel the beat of his heart against my chest. “Where’s your family?” he asks me quietly.

“Right here,” I say. I look up at him, and his blue eyes are clear and bright. And curious. But not in an intrusive kind of way. In an intimate kind of way.

“I like that answer,” he says, and a chuckle moves through him and into me. “But before us, who did you have before?”

“No one,” I say. I look everywhere but at his face. I lay my head against his shoulder so I don’t have to look into his eyes. Because he might find the truth in them, and that’s the last thing I want Paul to know. He cherishes his family, and if he found out that mine gave me away, and then that I did the same thing, he might hate me. I really don’t want him or his brothers to hate me.

“One day, do you think you could tell me?” he asks. He turns me in his arms and leans down by my ear.

I don’t want to answer him, so I step onto my tiptoes and press my lips against his instead. He freezes, and I immediately think that I have made a huge mistake. But then a growl vibrates against my lips, and he kisses me back. He licks across the seam of my lips, and feeling like I have never been kissed before today, I tentative reach out my tongue to touch his. His hands bracket my face, and he makes little noises as he kisses me. I can feel him all the way to my toes. I grab his T-shirt in my fists and lift myself up higher, pressing against him as I try to crawl inside his heart.

A loud cough jerks us apart. I startle, and he looks into my face. His eyes search mine, and I’m worried that he’ll find my fears there, all my anxiety about my past, and then I worry even more that he’ll find my feelings for him shining back at him. Then he’ll know too much. And he could use it against me. I don’t ever want him to be able to go that deep.

“Damn,” he grunts.

A grin tugs at the corners of my lips. “Something wrong?” I ask.

“I like it when you kiss me, but I don’t like it when you use your kisses to evade my questions,” he says quietly. He squeezes me in a gentle hug.

“I wasn’t evading,” I choke out. But I swallow hard trying to get past the lump in my throat.

“Yes, you were. And I don’t hate it.” He chuckles softly. “I might even understand it, if you’d let me in. But don’t use my feelings for you as a smoke screen for what’s really going on between us, okay?” He squeezes me again.

“What’s going on between us?” I ask, my voice cracking only slightly.

“I’m getting to know you,” he says, very matter-of-factly. He tips my face up with the gentlest of touches. “I want to know you,” he says directly. “Everything.”

I shake my head. “You wouldn’t like what you find out.” He would hate me. Family is everything to him and I gave mine away.

“Try me,” he says.

I hold on to his waist—he still has his arm around me—as the subway comes to a stop. He looks down at me for a second too long, long enough for me to see his brow furrow and the little vee form between his eyebrows.

“What are you hiding?” he asks.

“Everything,” I whisper. But I say it more to remind myself than to tell him anything he doesn’t know. I’m hiding everything.

I pull him out the door and into the station, and we race to the top of the steps. “Friday,” he calls when I’m a few steps in front of him. “You have to at least give me a chance.”

I pretend like his voice gets caught on the wind, but it doesn’t. It sinks deep inside my heart, and hope blooms. Hope blooms in a place where no light has lived in a really long time.

I thought it was difficult being on the subway and having Paul ask me so many questions, but that was nothing compared to the memories that swamp me when walk into the maternity ward.

Paul

I let Friday walk ahead of me into the hospital because I feel like she needs to take a break from my probing. Don’t get me wrong. I want to know everything about her. But I don’t think she likes my prying.

I feel as though I’m opening the plastic top on a brand-new can of coffee grounds. I open it and the sweet essence of what’s inside seeps out and makes everything smell nice, but then someone comes along and slams it shut again. The bad thing is that Friday is the one who keeps slamming her own f**king coffee can lid closed. I get one second of the essence of her, and then she slams it shut again. Then the wonderful smell of her is gone, and all I can see is this really pretty can. The can is full—I know that much. But opening the can and having it stay open… That’s going to be a lot harder.