Cosmopolitan

Part 2: And your infamous mouth once again fucks you over.

You could panic.

No, scratch that. You were panicking.

Not neatly. Not cinematically. There was no tasteful close-up of your trembling fingers, no melancholy indie song swelling in the background while you stared bravely into the middle distance. This was ugly, full-bodied panic. The kind that sat behind your ribs wearing steel-capped boots and kicked everything within reach.

Your hands were cold and your face was hot and your stomach had dropped so violently that several important organs appeared to have left the premises without submitting notice.

You didn’t know whether you were about to throw up, cry, turn around and walk straight back through the door, get into your car and drive all the way to San Francisco on terror and spite alone.

This absolutely was not how you had planned to tell him.

Actually, that wasn’t true, you hadn’t planned it at all.

You had spent several days imagining ways to tell him, which obviously was not the same thing. Planning implied progress. Decisions. Possibly a numbered list. What you had done was mentally stage seventeen different versions of the conversation, hate every one of them and then avoid choosing until your mouth took matters into its own hands.

You could have sat him down.

Made tea.

Held his hand.

Led gently with, So, I went to the doctor.

Or, I need to tell you something.

Or even, Before you panic, I’m not dying, although that admittedly risked setting the bar dangerously low.

Not this; Not you blurting it out the second he stepped into the cabin like a woman announcing you had once again lost his socks.

Not Shane stopping in the middle of the room with one hand still on the open door, his entire body locking as though someone had unplugged him.

Not the silence afterward.

And definitely not him blinking once and saying, “Excuse me?” in a tone that suggested his brain had received the information but rejected the file format and you needed to repeat what was being said.

Newsflash: you did not want to repeat it.

Unfortunately, your mouth had unionized with your anxiety and was now taking independent action.

“I’m pregnant,” you said again.

The words hung between you.

Awful.

Small.

Real.

Shane did not move.

The porch light caught one side of his face while the rest remained in the cabin’s dim warmth. His jacket was still zipped halfway up, his hair pushed out of place by the wind, the cold clinging to him in the smell of pine, damp earth and clean night air.

Usually you loved that smell. Usually you wanted to bury your face against his neck and breathe him in until your city-poisoned lungs remembered how to function.

Tonight it made your stomach roll.

His expression hardly changed, which somehow made it worse. No visible horror. No joy. No immediate attempt to escape through the nearest window. His eyes remained fixed on you as though looking away might cause the room to rearrange itself into an even less manageable reality.

“It’s yours,” you added, because apparently the situation lacked humiliation.

His brow barely moved.

“In case you were wondering,” you continued as a laugh slipped out of you.

Thin. High. Wrong.

The sort of laugh usually heard from someone standing beside a burning vehicle and insisting everything was under control.

Shane’s hand remained on the door.

The silence settled over the room again, thick enough to lean against. You could hear the heater humming near the wall, the faint rattle of the window in its frame and the irritatingly peaceful movement of branches outside.

“Say something,” you whispered.

Shane finally moved as he shut the door with deliberate care. The latch caught with its familiar, precise click. Of course it did.

The man could be told he was going to become a father and still remember basic cabin security.

He crossed the room slowly and sat on the edge of the bed. Not collapsing exactly, but close. The mattress compressed beneath him. He leaned forward, planted his forearms on his thighs and dragged one hand over his mouth.

He looked down at the floorboards.

That was what broke the little remaining structure holding your panic upright.

Not his silence; The fact that he couldn’t look at you.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked.

Normally, that question would have made you laugh.

Normally it would have been after sex, both of you tangled in sheets, overheated and half asleep. Shane would be lying on his back with one hand behind his head and the other moving lazily over your spine while you tried to extract verbal praise from a man who believed showing up with chopped firewood was a sonnet.

What do you want me to say?

Thank you would be a start.

Thank you.

With feeling. And praise. Because I’m good at what I do for you.

Then he would look at you with the tired affection of a man who had willingly adopted a difficult stray and say, You’re exhausting.

You would tell him he looked good exhausted.

He would roll you underneath him to prove a point neither of you had formally identified.

This was not that.

There was no warmth hidden beneath the words. No rumpled sheets. No playful escape route. There was only the tightening knot in your stomach and the sudden certainty that if he stayed quiet for another five seconds, you might start screaming simply to give the room something else to do.

“How about how you’re feeling?” you snapped. “Because this is what adults do.”

His gaze finally lifted, “You’re pregnant?” he offered.

“Yes.”

“How far?”

The practicality of the question caught you harder than it should have. It was reasonable.

Very Shane actually. Dates. Facts. Terrain. Establish the known variables before moving into hostile territory. But it led directly to all the other questions you had hoped to avoid for at least another century.

Why hadn’t you told him immediately?

Why had you gone to the doctor without him?

Why were you standing here now, after having known for weeks, delivering the news with all the tenderness of an overdue utility notice?

You twisted your fingers together until one of your knuckles cracked, “Like… eight weeks,” you said. “Around that.”

His eyes sharpened slightly.

“So it’s still really small,” you continued, because once you started talking, stopping would most likely require sedation, “Like a bean. Maybe a raspberry. The doctor said something, but I was concentrating very hard on this poster on the wall about measles where the guy looked like—"

“You saw a doctor?” He interrupted and there it was.

Not accusation exactly, but the first edge of hurt.

You swallowed, “After the test. I took one because I got sick at work and Mark made me go.”

“Mark knows?”

“He knows I went to the doctor. I didn’t exactly come back waving an ultrasound and handing out cigars.”

Shane looked back down. The news appeared to land in separate pieces.

The test.

The appointment.

Mark.

The fact that you had known long enough to build an entire fortress of dread around it while he had walked into the room thinking Brian’s cooking had finally developed a body count.

His jaw shifted, “You’re okay?”

The question hit you directly in the chest, because of course that was his first real concern.

Not whether it was planned, not what it meant for him, not even why you had kept it from him.

You.

Were you all right?

It was so painfully, infuriatingly Shane that you wanted to cry, laugh and shake him until a more emotionally useful sentence came loose, “Okay enough about me.” The plea in your voice arrived before you could hide it. “Talk to me, Shane.”

He rubbed his thumb against the side of his hand, gaze still lowered.

“Please,” you added.

He sat up a little, but the weight in his expression remained, “This is a lot and I don’t know how we’re going to make this work.”

It wasn’t the worst thing he could have said, that was the problem.

Because it was honest, because it was the exact thought you had spent days refusing to complete.

“But we can,” you said quickly, “We can make it work.”

Shane watched you for a long moment, and you almost shifted under his gaze. Then he asked, “Do you want to keep it?”

Everything inside you stopped.

There it was.

The actual question.

Not the nausea or the dates or the test currently tucked inside your handbag like the world’s least festive party favour.

The choice. You had imagined tiny socks hanging in the Yosemite sun. Shane’s hand spread over your stomach. His face bent over a sleeping baby, softer than anyone else ever got to see him.

You had also imagined yourself in San Francisco, sick and furious and alone while he tried to make the drive around emergency calls, wounded animals and tourists with no sense of self-preservation.

A cot in a tent.

A child you could never put in it.

Two homes three hours apart.

A baby spending half its infancy strapped into a car seat while its parents pretended petrol receipts were romantic.

You opened your mouth and at first nothing emerged but breath; but then: “This is something we both need to decide,” you said finally. “It can’t just be me.”

The room went still again. And there, at last, was the real shape of the thing sitting between you.

Not only a pregnancy.

A future.

A decision.

A whole human life waiting somewhere beyond the next few minutes while the two people responsible for it stood in a rented cabin glaring at each other with the emotional skills of frightened wildlife.

Shane leaned back and dragged his hand over his face. His palm rasped over the stubble on his jaw before dropping heavily onto his thigh and you realised then that he looked tired.

Not ordinary tired.

Not fourteen-hour-shift tired. Not spent-the-night-tracking-an-injured-bear tired. Not dragged-himself-to-the-city-after-work-and-then-listened-to-Trevor-upstairs-remix-the-same-bass-line-until-dawn tired.

This was older.

The deep, old-bone exhaustion that came over him when his mind started mapping ten miles of difficult terrain at once and found cliffs everywhere he wanted roads.

Because the problem was not only inside this room.

Both of you knew that; Every argument you had avoided resolving during the past year and a half had just climbed out of its grave and joined you.

The distance.

The driving.

The cancelled weekends.

The quiet resentments.

The insecurities that grew teeth whenever you spent too long apart.

A few months earlier, Kelly Miles had returned to Yosemite for another wildlife project, and you had handled the news with all the grace and emotional stability of a woman who absolutely had not searched through a biologist’s professional website at one in the morning.

Shane had mentioned it over the phone while you were putting groceries away; “Kelly’s back for a few months,” he had said. “She’s working on the deer monitoring.”

You had stopped with a jar of pasta sauce halfway into the cupboard.

“Oh,” you’d replied. “That’s nice.”

Shane knew your that’s nice. It was rarely nice.

“She got in yesterday,” he had continued after a pause.

“How convenient.”

“For the deer?”

You had shut the cupboard harder than necessary, “You two have so much in common.”

Silence.

Patient. Wary. Dangerous.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”

You had looked around your apartment and hated every empty part of it. The suitcase still sitting near the bedroom door from your last trip. His mug beside yours in the cupboard. The basil plant he’d bought because you said supermarket basil tasted like damp disappointment, now wilting on the windowsill because apparently even herbs struggled with long-distance relationships.

“I’m just saying,” you’d replied, “she likes wildlife. You like wildlife. She likes living in the middle of nowhere. You’ve built your entire personality around owning three shirts and identifying different kinds of faeces.”

“Scat.”

“See? Soulmates.”

He had heard the jealousy then, buried beneath several layers of sarcasm and a personal attack on his wardrobe. He had tried to reassure you.

Kelly was a colleague.

Nothing had ever happened.

He loved you.

She could stand naked in the ranger station holding a baby deer and a perfectly organized topographical map and he would still come home to you.

That last part had nearly worked as well but then your stupid arse had said, “Except you don’t come home to me, do you?”

And that had done it.

He had gone quiet and you had continued talking because stopping while ahead had never been one of your spiritual gifts.

Eventually he’d said, “I’m not doing this tonight.”

Then he’d hung up.

Which had naturally confirmed every irrational belief in your head because nothing calmed an insecure person like the sudden disappearance of the person they were insecure about.

The fight had resumed the next morning and become about everything except Kelly.

Your trust.

His patience.

Your tendency to poke at a bruise until it became a wound.

His habit of withdrawing the second emotion stopped following a logical path.

And inevitably, the same central problem every argument circled.

You lived three hours apart on a good day.

Three hours if the roads cooperated, nobody crashed, the weather behaved and California collectively decided not to be California.

Fortnightly visits had sounded romantic in theory.

In practice, they were exhausting.

There were Fridays when you finished dinner service, changed in the staff bathroom and got into your car only to sit behind the wheel trying to remember whether Yosemite was north or merely emotionally inconvenient. There were weekends when it was Shane’s turn to travel, but a search ran late, a storm damaged a section of trail or someone left food in a tent and summoned a bear like it was a woodland delivery service.

Sometimes one of you called and admitted you couldn’t manage the drive.

Those conversations always started reasonably.

I’m exhausted.

I know.

I don’t think it’s safe.

Then don’t come.

Then came a pause.

Just a little too long.

One of you would say, Okay.

And somehow that single word contained disappointment, resentment, loneliness and a minor accusation nobody had technically made.

Shane hated San Francisco.

He hated the traffic, the noise, the crowds and the fact that finding somewhere to park required divine intervention or a willingness to commit a felony. He hated that your apartment never became fully dark. He hated the shouting in the street and the delivery trucks before dawn. He hated that he couldn’t identify where every sound came from.

Once he had spent forty minutes circling your block before calling you.

“There’s nowhere to put the truck.”

“It’s a city, Shane. Not a stable.”

“Where do people park?”

“They don’t. They continue driving until they die clearly.”

He hadn’t found that funny.

You, meanwhile, maintained that Yosemite was beautiful in the same way a large predator was beautiful: preferably observed from behind reinforced glass with access to room service. You hated the silence when Shane wasn’t there to soften it. You hated the unreliable reception. You hated waking in the dark because something moved outside and not knowing whether it was a squirrel or a creature capable of opening your abdomen.

A bear had once tried to eat you.

Technically, no.

A bear had gone through the outdoor kitchen bins during your first few weeks at Ridgeview while you stood behind a locked door holding two bags of rubbish like a medieval villager drafted into war.

Shane had arrived, assessed the situation and later informed you the bear had shown no interest in you.

Which seemed unnecessarily insulting. He still referred to the event as “the dumpster incident,” and you still referred to it as attempted predation.

Neither of you had compromised.

But you could not turn this into another running joke.

There might be a baby now.

A baby needed a home or at least two homes close enough that travelling between them did not require a full tank of petrol, several snacks and an updated weather forecast.

You would have to look directly at the future you had spent a year discussing only in soft, hypothetical fragments.

Where would you live?

Who would leave?

Who would sacrifice?

Was there some magical town halfway between Yosemite and San Francisco where you could run a serious kitchen while Shane tracked wildlife, repaired fences and frightened tourists away from elk?

Would one of you become quietly miserable and pretend not to be because sacrifice was supposed to look noble when it was done for love?

And beneath every practical question sat the one you could no longer avoid, “Do you want this?” The words came out abruptly.

Shane raised his head and he looked at you properly then. His eyes moved over your face as though searching for the answer you needed and comparing it with the one he could honestly give.

“I don’t know.”

Your stomach didn’t drop, it plunged, taking several vital organs and the last scraps of your dignity with it. Your heartbeat accelerated. Your ears began to ring. For one awful second, the floor seemed to tilt sideways.

He didn’t know.

He didn’t know if he wanted a baby with you.

He didn’t know if his future had room for a child.

Maybe he didn’t know if it had room for you once loving you required more than long weekends, borrowed shirts and sex in whichever home had won that fortnight’s custody battle.

“Okay,” you said flat. “Don’t do that,” He said firmly.

“Do what?”

“Shut down.”

“I’m not shutting down.”

“You are.”

“I said okay.”

“You say okay when you’ve stopped listening and started planning an escape route.”

Annoyingly accurate. You hadn’t packed a bag yet but you could feel yourself wanting to just walk back out that door. You could picture it. Clothes shoved into the suitcase without folding. Toiletries swept off the bathroom counter. Keys clutched between your fingers.

You could drive back to the city tonight; you could text him from Mariposa and say it didn’t matter.

You wouldn’t ask him for anything. You could raise the baby alone.

Stop.

The more reasonable part of your mind, small and badly funded, threw itself across the controls.

He had not said he didn’t want it. He had said he didn’t know. Which was objectively acceptable considering you had dropped this on him less than twenty minutes ago and he had not even enjoyed the luxury of throwing up first.

You had known for weeks.

He had known for the length of one deeply unpleasant conversation.

But fear preferred cruelty to patience, it found every vulnerable place and pressed.

The cruelest thought arrived before you could stop it.

He killed someone.

The knowledge remained inside you like something buried beneath floorboards. Shane had never given you a clean confession. Never sat you down and said plainly what Jill Turner had paid him to do to Sean Sanderson after Sanderson murdered Caleb.

But you knew enough.

You knew Sanderson had disappeared, you knew Jill had gone to Shane, you knew the history between Shane and Kyle Turner was not about an affair, no matter what everyone had assumed.

You knew what Shane could do when he decided someone deserved punishment.

The frightened part of your mind seized on it.

Why would you raise a baby with someone capable of that?

The thought made you feel ill, because dragging his darkest secret into this moment simply because you feared rejection would be ugly and cheap. Reaching for the nearest weapon and pretending you didn’t know where to aim.

You inhaled to calm the nausea you could feel building, “I want it,” you said.

Shane’s gaze snapped fully to yours.

The words surprised you too.

But once spoken, they settled somewhere deep and frighteningly certain, “I want it,” you repeated. “I think—no. I do.” Your hand moved toward your stomach before you caught yourself and curled it against your side, “And if you don’t, that’s fine.”

His brows drew together.

You continued.

Of course you did.

Once panic got access to the microphone, removing it required trained professionals and possibly a tranquiliser of some sort, “We can work something out where I have the baby alone. I won’t be alone alone. I have my parents. Friends. Mark will create a deeply invasive spreadsheet. Gabe will buy it a pink vape before it can walk, but we can establish boundaries.”

“Stop.”

“It’ll be fine,” you insisted, your voice climbing. “People do it all the time. I have a job. I have an apartment. Admittedly the second bedroom currently contains three boxes of cookbooks and a chair covered in clothes, but babies are small. It won’t need much space initially.”

“Stop.”

“And I wouldn’t expect anything from you. I’m not trying to trap you or force you to move or make you give up Yosemite. You could just—”

“Stop.”

This time Shane stood, the word cracked through the room loudly enough to close your mouth. He unfolded from the bed in one sharp movement, the mattress lifting behind him; For the first time since you told him, his expression was no longer careful.

He was angry.

Shane’s anger was rarely wild. It lived in the rigid line of his shoulders. The muscle shifting in his jaw. The way his hands opened and closed once at his sides as though he had to choose deliberately not to reach for something or move before he knew where he was going, “You don’t get to decide this for me.”

“You said you don’t know.”

“I said I don’t know how I feel yet.”

“That sounds remarkably similar.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“It does from where I’m standing.”

“Then listen to what I’m actually saying instead of translating it into whatever hurts you most.”

That landed.

Your face heated, “I’m not translating anything. You asked whether I want to keep it and then told me you don’t know if you do. Forgive me for not hearing wedding bells.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“I know.”

“Then stop making jokes.”

The command struck directly at your defences. You folded your arms, “Sorry. Should I start screaming? Would that be more productive?”

“Talking to me would be productive.”

“I am talking.”

“You’re planning a life where I don’t exist.”

“Because you told me you don’t know if you want to exist in it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t say the opposite.”

“I found out twenty minutes ago!” His voice rose not by much, but enough to make the cabin shrink around you. Shane dragged a hand over the back of his neck and turned toward the window, “I walked in here thinking you had food poisoning,” he said. “Then you told me you’re pregnant. You told me you went to a doctor without me, that you’ve known for weeks and that you want to keep it. Before I can understand any of that, you’ve decided you’re raising my kid alone.”

My kid.

The words caught inside you. They sounded unfairly good coming from him. You looked down before he could see, “I panicked.”

“I can see that.”

“You don’t have to say it like I’m irrational.”

“You are being irrational.”

“Oh, excellent. Exactly what every pregnant woman wants to hear. Strong survival instincts there, Officer.”

He turned back, “Don’t call me that right now.”

“Why? It’s what you are.”

“You know what you’re doing.”

“And what’s that?”

“Pushing until I get angry. Then you can tell yourself you were right to be afraid of me.”

The breath left your lungs. For once, you had no immediate reply. That was rare enough to qualify as a medical emergency if you were being honest.

Shane saw the words land. Regret flickered in his expression, but he didn’t take them back.

So you reached for something sharp, “You walked away before.”

His brow tightened. “When?”

“The kitchen. After we kissed.”

“That was a year and a half ago.”

“And?”

“And I came back.”

“Eventually.”

“I was scared.”

“So am I.”

“I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” You unfolded your arms. “You get to say you need time because this is new for you, but it’s new for me too. Knowing for a few weeks doesn’t mean I processed it. It means I’ve spent weeks vomiting, lying to everyone and imagining seventeen versions of you leaving.”

“I’m standing here.”

“For now.”

His face became completely still. You knew immediately that the words were wrong.

Not because they weren’t born from something real but because they had been designed to hurt.

Shane stared at you for a long moment then he nodded once, “All right.”

The quietness frightened you more than shouting, “That’s not what I meant.”

“Sounded clear.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No.” He shook his head. “That’s the problem. I don’t. You tell me I’m allowed to feel whatever I feel, but the second I don’t give you the answer you want, you start preparing for me to abandon you.”

“I’m preparing to take care of myself.”

“You’re cutting me out before I get the chance to step in.”

“I’m trying not to ask you for something you don’t want to give.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“Neither do you!”

“That doesn’t mean you decide for me,” His voice struck the walls.

Outside, something moved through the brush. A twig snapped. The heater clicked on with offensively ordinary timing.

You were breathing too quickly now, “You want honesty?” you demanded. “Fine. I don’t know how this works. I don’t know where we live. I don’t know which one of us gives up everything. I don’t know if you’ll resent me every time you’re stuck in traffic or if I’ll resent you every time I’m out here listening to a raccoon break into the walls.”

“Raccoons don’t break into walls.”

“Not the point.”

“You keep saying one of us has to give up everything.”

“Because one of us probably does.”

“No. We find another way.”

“What way?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Exactly.”

You threw your hands out. The movement made your head swim, “There’s a baby coming, and apparently it has no respect for our existing logistical issues.”

“If you’re eight weeks, we have time.”

“Oh, good. Seven months to solve housing, employment, childcare, the structural integrity of our relationship and whether our child will grow up believing a three-hour drive is a normal custody exchange.”

“Stop talking about custody.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re still together.”

“Are we?” The question escaped before you could stop it.

Shane looked as though you had struck him.

The anger disappeared for one bare second, leaving something worse behind.

You felt sick, “Shane—”

“Are you asking me that?”

“I’m asking what happens if we can’t agree.”

“We haven’t even tried.”

“You hate the city.”

“You hate it here.”

“Exactly.”

“So we talk about somewhere else.”

“And what do you do somewhere else? What do I do? Take over a diner in some halfway town while you commute back here and miss half the baby’s life because elk don’t respect paternity leave?”

“That isn’t fair.”

“No. None of this is fair.”

“To you?”

“To either of us.”

“You’re not acting like it.”

Your eyes narrowed, “What does that mean?”

“You keep talking like you’re the only person whose life is changing.”

The words found every tender place at once, “My body is changing.” Your boobs hurt, everything made you nauseous, you cant eat, you were tired, you kept getting headaches; you were so hungry all the time but nothing wanted to stay down.

His anger faltered.

You continued before he could answer, “I’m the one who’s sick. I sat alone in that doctor’s office while she told me how far along I was. I’m the one who has to decide if I can physically and emotionally do this.” Your voice trembled, which only made you angrier. “So forgive me if it’s felt like it’s happening mostly to me.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I know I’m not carrying it.”

“You’re not carrying any of it right now,” The second the sentence left you, you wanted to swallow it whole.

Shane’s face shut down.

The barrier rebuilt itself in real time.

Jaw set.

Shoulders lowered.

Everything open in him disappearing behind control, “That’s what you think?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You think because I don’t know how I feel after twenty minutes, I’m not carrying any of this?”

“I’m scared.”

“So am I.”

“Then say something other than that you don’t know.”

“What do you want?” he demanded. “You want me to say I’m thrilled? That this is perfect? That I’ve secretly been waiting for you to get pregnant so we can put a crib in the corner and pretend none of our problems exist?”

You flinched.

His expression tightened, but he was too angry to stop, “I can’t lie to make you feel better.”

“I’m not asking you to lie.”

“You’re punishing me for telling the truth.”

“I’m trying to understand if you want a future with me.”

“I have a future with you.”

“A fortnightly future.”

“That isn’t what this is.”

“Isn’t it?” Your laugh was brittle. “You visit me. I visit you. We keep toiletries in two bathrooms and argue about petrol money without technically arguing about petrol money. That isn’t a home, Shane. It’s a schedule.”

He stared at you.

You could see the hurt.

You hated yourself for saying it and you hated him for making it feel true.

“We were working on it.”

“We were avoiding it.”

“I asked you to move closer.”

“To you.”

“Yes.”

“You never offered to move closer to me.”

“I can’t do my job in downtown San Francisco.”

“And I can’t run the kind of kitchen I want from a town with one grocery store and a seasonal pancake house.” No matter how good that pancake house was.

“I never asked you to give up your career.”

“You assumed mine was more portable.”

“I didn’t assume anything.”

“You did. Every time you talked about moving closer, you meant closer to Yosemite.”

“Because you said you liked it here.”

“I said I liked mornings with you.” You gestured toward the window, where several thousand trees stood around contributing nothing useful. “That isn’t the same as wanting to be held hostage by forestry.”

Normally that would have earned something.

A twitch at the corner of his mouth.

A tired shake of his head.

Maybe a muttered, Trees don’t take hostages.

Then you would have reminded him trees blocked phone reception, dropped branches without warning and housed bears, making them accomplices at minimum.

Tonight he didn’t smile, he looked at the floorboards and pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek.

Then he nodded to himself, “I can’t do this right now.”

Your chest tightened, “What does that mean?”

“It means I’m angry.”

“So am I.”

“I know.”

“And if I stay, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.”

The warning should have stopped you. A mentally healthy person might have heard it and thought, Space. Sensible. Let’s cool down before we use our deepest insecurities as blunt-force weapons. You had never been accused of becoming mentally healthy under pressure.

As he moved toward the door, panic shot through you.

He was leaving. He had told you he didn’t know if he wanted the baby, and now he was leaving before you could force the uncertainty into something definite.

Your brain did not interpret this as a man stepping outside to control his temper, your brain interpreted it as the opening scene of a devastating breakup montage, “Say it.”

Shane stopped with his hand near the door, his back tightened beneath his shirt.

“Say what you want to say,” you demanded.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Push me.”

“I’m asking you to be honest.”

“I am being honest.”

“No. You’re walking out.”

“Because I’m trying not to hurt you.”

“Bit late.”

He turned enough for you to see his profile, “That’s why I need to leave.”

You should have let him but if he walked outside, he could decide he didn’t want this.

If he got into his truck, he could disappear. If you gave him space to think, he might realize you were difficult, demanding and inconveniently pregnant, which felt like a fairly damning combination.

“Say it,” you repeated. “Whatever it is.”

Shane turned around.

The restraint wasn’t completely gone—this was still Shane—but it had worn thin enough for you to see what lived underneath it. Anger sharpened his eyes. His jaw was locked hard enough to make the muscle jump beside his ear. One hand remained curled around the doorframe, like he needed something solid beneath his fingers before he said whatever had been building behind his teeth.

“You can move here.”

The bluntness made you blink. “What?”

“You can move here,” he repeated. “You could get your job back at Ridgeview tomorrow. You know Justine would take you.”

You stared at him.

“Brian would hand you his shifts. Gabe would throw some obnoxious party that somehow involved glitter and a fire-code violation. Mark would help you move.”

“Mark lives in San Francisco.”

“Then he’d drive.”

“He’d complain the whole way.”

“He complains when he’s happy.”

Annoyingly true.

Completely irrelevant.

“You have people here,” Shane continued. “You know the lodge. You know the kitchen. You know the area. You wouldn’t be moving somewhere you’ve never been.”

“You think knowing where the staff toilets are qualifies me to relocate my entire life?”

“We could make it work.”

“I don’t think we could.”

His expression tightened. “You keep acting like the only options are me moving to San Francisco or you raising the baby alone.”

“Those are the options that currently exist.”

“They aren’t.”

“Then what’s your brilliant third option?”

“You move here with me. Like I’ve been saying.”

The words landed with all the grace of a brick through glass.

“Right.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“That tone where you act like I’ve suggested you live in a cave and survive on berries.”

“I’ve seen your original housing arrangement. A cave would’ve had better insulation.”

Nothing.

Not even the smallest twitch.

Your jokes had officially lost all market value.

“I can’t transfer my job to the city,” he said. “You can do yours here.”

“My career isn’t a library card.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know what you think you mean. Kitchens are interchangeable. I can walk into any building with an oven, insult the stock levels and rebuild my career around whatever postcode happens to suit you.”

“You did it here.”

“Temporarily.”

“You rebuilt Ridgeview.”

“And then I left.”

“Because you chose to.”

That struck harder than it should have.

“You chose the city,” he said. “You chose to go back.”

“I had a life there.”

“You had one here.”

“For six months.”

Admittedly, they had been six of the best and worst months of your life. Six months of mud, bears, broken equipment, terrible phone reception, Shane calling you Princess like he wanted to start a fight and then looking at you like he wanted to finish it in bed.

Still.

Six months.

“And after,” he said.

“Visiting every second weekend isn’t living here.”

“No. But you could.”

There it was again.

You could.

So simple in his mouth.

As though your life were a coat you could lift from one hook and hang on another. As though the shape of you wouldn’t change depending on where you were forced to fit.

“You think I’m refusing because I enjoy making everything difficult?”

“I think you refuse to seriously consider it.”

“I have considered it.”

“When?”

“Every time I’ve driven home.”

“That isn’t considering moving. That’s being sad the weekend ended.”

“Thank you for clarifying my own thoughts for me.”

“You asked for honesty.”

“I didn’t ask you to be a patronising dickhead," You snapped.

“You asked what I was thinking,” he said.

“And immediately the solution is me giving up my home.”

“The city isn’t your only home anymore.”

You stopped.

Something changed in his face. The anger remained, but something raw shifted beneath it.

“You’re my home too,” he said, quieter now. “And Yosemite is part of your life whether you want to admit it or not.”

Your throat tightened.

That was unfair.

He wasn’t allowed to say things like that while you were trying to remain furious. There should have been rules. Laminated rules. Posted somewhere visible between the fire evacuation map and the instructions for what to do if a bear entered the property.

“That doesn’t mean I have to move here.”

“No.”

“Good.”

“But stop acting like I’m asking you to live somewhere you hate.”

“I do hate it sometimes.”

“I know.”

“The silence makes me insane.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to live three hours from my parents.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want the highlight of my week to be whether the general store received decent avocados.”

“They had avocados yesterday.”

“They were rocks.”

“They ripen.”

“Not before the baby graduates.”

His nostrils flared.

For one brief, stupid second, you thought you might have cracked the anger.

You hadn’t.

Shane’s walls were still standing, higher now than before.

“You have an answer for everything.”

“Occupational hazard.”

“No. Defence mechanism.”

You flinched. “Don’t psychoanalyse me.”

“Stop turning everything into a joke.”

“Maybe jokes are the reason I’m not screaming.”

“Maybe I’d rather you scream.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“At least it would be honest.”

“You think I’m not being honest?”

“I think you decide what I mean before I finish speaking.”

“And I think you’ve waited for an excuse to tell me I should’ve stayed.”

“I wanted you to stay.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“No,” he said sharply. “Because wanting you to stay meant respecting that you chose not to.”

“And now?”

“Now there’s more to think about.”

Your hand moved unconsciously towards your stomach.

Shane saw it.

His gaze dropped, and for one second his anger tangled with something else—fear, wonder, disbelief. The stunned expression of a man trying to comprehend that something of his existed inside you.

Then the walls came back down over it.

“You have a choice,” he said. “I don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“I can’t move my job to San Francisco.”

“You can find another job.”

His expression went still. “Doing what?”

“I don’t know. Wildlife management exists outside Yosemite.”

“Not what I do.”

“You aren’t the only wildlife officer in California.”

“I know.”

“Then why are we pretending you’re legally bound to one mountain?”

“Because this is my career.”

“So is mine.”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“You said mine could move.”

“Because it can.”

A sharp, disbelieving laugh left you. “You genuinely don’t hear yourself.”

“What am I supposed to hear?”

“That your work is specific and important and tied to this place. Mine is just cooking. Something I can pack into a box with my knives and transport wherever your life happens to be.”

“I didn’t say ‘just cooking.’”

“You didn’t have to.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“No, Shane. It isn’t.”

Your next breath shook too much to settle anything.

“I spent years building a name in the city. I have suppliers who answer my calls. Staff who trust me. People book tables because my name is on the menu. For once, I’m not fixing someone else’s disaster. That kitchen is mine.”

“You could have that here.”

“No. I’d have Ridgeview.”

“You loved Ridgeview.”

“I loved what I did there. That doesn’t mean I want to do it forever.”

“You could build something else.”

“So could you.”

Silence.

Shane looked at you.

“I don’t want to,” he said.

You nodded slowly. “Right.”

“You don’t want to leave either.”

“Apparently mine matters less because I know how to operate an oven.”

“That isn’t what I’m saying.”

“It’s exactly what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying there’s a path for you here.”

“And there’s one for you in the city.”

“What? Leave everything I’ve spent my adult life working towards and do what?”

“I don’t know. Consult. Teach. Work for parks closer to the city.” You threw one hand into the air. “Become an influencer. Film videos where you glare at tourists who try to pet wildlife.”

His face remained thunderous.

The influencer suggestion had not helped.

The adult part of your brain told you to stop. Go to bed. Sleep. Talk about this in the morning like two people who loved each other and possessed functional frontal lobes.

Unfortunately, you had never been particularly good at listening to authority figures, even when the authority figure was the one sensible neuron left in your skull.

“You have no idea what I do,” Shane said.

“I know exactly what you do.”

“You know the parts you make fun of.”

“That isn’t true.”

It was a little true.

“You think I fix fences and lecture tourists about food storage.”

“You also criticise my kitchen.”

His hands dragged through his hair. “I know what your work means to you. I’ve never acted like it doesn’t matter.”

“You are now.”

“I’m asking why your career automatically wins.”

“It doesn’t.”

“It does every time you say I should be the one to move.”

“And yours wins every time you say I should.”

“Because you already have a place here.”

“And you already have a place with me.”

The words tore out of you.

Both of you went quiet.

Your apartment rose between you in fragments.

His heavy green mug in the cupboard beside yours, bought after he declared your matching cups decorative thimbles. His boots lined up beside the door, positioned so neatly that apparently even footwear needed tactical discipline.

The drawer you had cleared for him four months into the relationship had somehow become two. One held rolled shirts, socks and three pairs of underwear he seemed determined to own until death. The other contained pants and clothes he tells you not to wear but doesn't stop you wearing when you do.

His jacket lived behind your bedroom door.

His toothbrush stood beside yours, dark blue. His razor occupied the bathroom cabinet. His preferred coffee appeared automatically on your shopping list. A charger sat behind the sofa because he kept forgetting his, though you privately suspected he had begun leaving things deliberately.

Small pieces of Shane had accumulated throughout your city life until the apartment carried his shape even when he wasn’t there.

Not enough to call it moving in.

Too much to call it visiting.

Like he had been testing whether he could belong there one object at a time without ever having to admit that was what he was doing.

“That isn’t the same,” he said.

Your chest cracked another inch, “Why?”

His gaze shifted away.

“Why isn’t it the same?”

The heater hummed beneath the window. Outside, the wind moved through the pines, branches whispering together as though the entire forest had decided to listen.

“Because I don’t feel like myself there.”

The admission came low and rough.

You stared at him. “And you think I always feel like myself here?”

“No.”

“Then why does your discomfort matter more?”

“I didn’t say it did.”

“You keep not saying things while somehow making them perfectly clear.”

“And you keep hearing whatever proves I don’t love you enough.”

That stopped you.

Shane looked almost startled by his own words.

For half a second, the anger loosened enough to reveal the hurt beneath it.

Then the walls went back up.

“That’s not what this is about.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.”

“You’ve been waiting for me to fail this conversation since you told me.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to say whether you want our baby.”

“I said I don’t know yet.”

“And now I’m supposed to move here because it’s easier for you.”

“I’m telling you there are options.”

“One option. Yours.”

“One you won’t consider because you prefer your comfortable life in the city.”

For one second, you could only stare at him.

Something inside you went cold with impressive efficiency.

“My comfortable life.”

“I meant familiar.”

“That isn’t what you said.”

“You know what I meant.”

“No.” Your voice dropped low enough that most sensible people would have begun locating emergency exits. “Explain it. Explain my comfortable life.”

His lips pressed together.

That should have warned you.

It did not.

“Is it the twelve-hour shifts? The burns? Supplier calls at six because a grown man can’t understand that twelve kilos of salmon doesn’t mean twelve individual fish?”

“That isn’t—”

“Staff shortages? Working weekends while customers send back fish because it looks too much like fish?”

“I never said your job was easy.”

“Maybe it’s the rent. Very soothing, watching half my income vanish so I can live in a box while Trevor plays electronic music above my bedroom.”

“You’ve never mentioned Trevor.”

“Because I refuse to give him more relevance.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I know the bass drop to four songs against my will.”

“This isn’t about Trevor.”

“No. It’s about you calling my life comfortable because I won’t volunteer to move into the woods and become Mrs Ranger Danger.”

His nostrils flared again.

It sharpened his face. Made the line of his jaw harder, the tendons in his neck visible beneath the open collar of his shirt.

You should not have found it attractive.

You were furious. He was furious. You were pregnant and possibly standing at the beginning of a catastrophic relationship collapse.

Still, some treacherous hormonal corner of your body noticed the width of his shoulders and the way his shirt tightened across his chest when he folded his arms. Apparently your reproductive system had chosen violence in several different forms.

“I didn’t mean your life was easy,” he said. “I meant you know how to live there.”

“And you know how to live here.”

“Yes.”

“Exactly.”

“But you also know how to be here.”

A humourless laugh escaped you. “I know how to visit.”

Shane huffed a breath and planted both hands on his hips. He looked down at the floorboards, shoulders rising once.

Then he lifted his head.

“From day one, I sacrificed for you.”

The words caught you off guard.

Not because he hadn’t.

Because he had never kept score aloud.

Shane did things and acted like they cost him nothing.

He drove three hours after long shifts, arriving close to midnight with stiff shoulders and tired eyes, then insisted he was fine. He slept badly in your apartment but still reached for you whenever you moved.

He attended restaurant openings where chefs in immaculate whites looked at him as if he had tracked mud across their family crest. He stood through conversations about fermentation and the moral collapse of truffle oil wearing the expression of a man trapped in a very polite hostage situation.

He wore collared shirts because you liked him in them, even though he tugged at the neck all evening like the fabric was trying to kill him. He remembered your staff’s names. Carried boxes. Fixed hinges. Sharpened every knife in your apartment because he found your home set depressing.

He had never told you any of it was hard.

Until now.

“I made sure you were safe and comfortable even when you made it nearly fucking impossible.”

Your eyebrows rose. “Nearly?”

His face didn’t move.

Right.

Not the time.

“I never asked you to move here in the beginning. I knew what your career meant. I knew what your life there meant.”

“You asked me to stay.”

“I wanted you to stay. That’s different.”

“Convenient.”

“It is different. I watched you pack. I loaded your car. Then I followed you back to San Francisco and spent a year and a half trying to make this work because I loved you more than I loved being comfortable.”

The sentence stole some of your breath.

He didn’t let you answer.

“Your apartment?” Shane said. “I don’t sleep there.”

“You sleep there all the time.”

“I lie there.”

“That’s generally the opening stage.”

“I lie there listening to the refrigerator, Trevor playing the same six seconds of music, people shouting in the street and trucks unloading at four in the morning.”

“That’s the city’s natural soundscape.”

“I can’t breathe there.”

The words were quiet.

Too quiet.

Your anger faltered.

“There’s no space,” he continued. “Not only in the apartment. Anywhere. I walk outside and somebody’s touching me. Cars on every side. I can’t track where half the noise comes from. I don’t know who’s behind me.” His jaw shifted. “I don’t sleep.”

You stared at him.

You knew he hated the city.

You knew about his complaints over traffic, parking and people who walked four abreast on the pavement. You knew he always chose the restaurant seat facing the entrance. That he took the side of the bed nearest the door, no matter which home you slept in.

You knew sudden shouting from the street made his body tense before his face reacted. That footsteps outside the apartment woke him. That an engine backfiring had once sent him upright, one hand reaching beneath the pillow for a weapon that wasn’t there.

You had watched him scan crowded rooms.

You had felt his shoulders tighten on packed trains, his body shifting until you stood safely in front of him and no one could approach either of you from behind. After loud dinners, he often insisted on walking several blocks before returning home. Sometimes you woke at two in the morning and found him beside the open window, breathing slowly while San Francisco roared below.

You had called it restlessness.

Shane being Shane.

You had never assembled the pieces because he had never asked you to.

The traffic wasn’t simply irritating.

The crowds weren’t merely inconvenient.

The noise, the closeness, the inability to identify every movement around him—it scraped against instincts built in places where failing to know what was behind you could get someone killed.

The city triggered him.

And every time he came to see you, he swallowed it because he loved you. Your anger hesitated, suddenly unsure of where to stand, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you’d feel guilty.”

“Well, this is much better.”

“That’s what I mean.” Frustration broke through again. “I do things that make you happy because that’s what you do for someone you love.”

“So do I.”

“Do you?”

The question landed harder than anything else.

You went still.

Regret flashed in his eyes, but he had gone too far to stop without finishing.

“I drive after work. Sit in traffic for hours. Circle your block until I lose the will to live.”

“I offered to pay for a garage.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“You’re very focused on parking for a man who claims this isn’t about parking.”

“We eat where you want even when the menu requires translation and the food comes on a piece of slate.”

“It happened once.”

“It was a rock.”

“Ceramic.”

“A ceramic rock.”

“And you survived.”

“I make myself fit into your life,” he said.

“And I don’t?”

“You visit.”

The word struck like a shove.

“You visit Yosemite. Stay for the weekend, complain about reception, cook enough food for twelve people and then go home.”

“I come every second weekend.”

“When nothing comes up.”

“That applies to both of us.”

“Yeah. It does.” His voice stayed steady, but his eyes were bright with everything underneath it. “But when you’re here, you act like you’re enduring this place for me.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“You count down until you have reception.”

“I run a restaurant.”

“You complain about the mattress, shower pressure, groceries and silence.”

“The grocery store sells avocados capable of blunt-force assault.”

“Every noise outside becomes a bear attack.”

“One bear went through the bins.”

“Fifty feet away.”

“That isn’t far in bear measurements.”

“It didn’t even look at you.”

“Rude, considering the effort I’d put into my hair.”

His face stayed flat. Even the bear material couldn’t rescue you apparently.

“I’ve made room for your life here,” Shane said. “I bring your things down from the tent. I rent this cabin because you hate sleeping on the ground. You use half the wardrobe and the entire bathroom.”

“You own one bottle of soap. That isn’t a fair comparison.”

“It works on everything.”

“That is deeply upsetting.”

“You have people here. Justine. Gabe. Brian. Becca. Marco. People who care about you. You could walk into Ridgeview tomorrow and have a job.”

“I don’t want that job.”

“Then build something else.”

“Like what? With what money?”

The words left before you could soften them.

Shane recoiled slightly.

You regretted it immediately. Neither of you lived in the kind of financial bracket where property appeared through positive thinking. Shane had savings, but not enough to casually purchase a family home in California. And given the shadow of Sean Sanderson, suggesting Shane find a large amount of money was not a road your imagination needed to travel.

“I’d figure it out,” he said.

“That isn’t a plan.”

“It’s more of one than deciding I’m not involved.”

“I didn’t completely decide that.”

The heater clicked off and the sudden silence widened the cabin.

“I’ll keep doing it,” Shane said.

“Doing what?”

“Driving. Staying in the city. Eating off construction materials.” His eyes held yours. “I’ll make sacrifices for the rest of my life if it keeps you happy.”

Your throat tightened. It sounded like love but also sounded like a prison sentence.

“But you can’t stand there and tell me you’ve put the same effort into this relationship.”

There it was.

The ledger.

Every long drive, sleepless night and uncomfortable evening stacked neatly on his side. Your failures apparently scattered on yours like unpaid bills.

“You’ve been keeping score.”

“No.”

“You just gave me an itemised receipt.”

“I’m trying to make you understand.”

“You’re telling me I haven’t loved you well enough.”

“I said you haven’t made the same effort.”

“Because I haven’t?” His silence answered before he did.

“No.”

Heat rushed up your throat and into your face. There it was. Not just an argument anymore, but a verdict. Shane had been measuring the relationship in miles driven, nights slept badly and shirts with buttons, and somewhere along the way you had come up short.

“Right.”

“Don’t.”

“What?” You folded your arms tighter. “You want me to agree?”

“I want you to admit it would be easier for you to move here.”

“Easier for who?”

“For us.”

“For you.”

“For the baby.”

The room changed around the word.

Not it. Not the pregnancy.

The baby. Your hand twitched towards your stomach before you stopped it. Eight weeks and already it had weight. Not physical weight, exactly. Something heavier. A future pressing down on every choice you had spent years believing belonged only to you.

“And what?” You scoffed because tenderness felt dangerous. “We put a cot in your tent?”

“I’d buy us a place.”

You laughed once. “How?”

“I’d figure it out.”

There was that sentence again.

Once, you had loved those words. You had lived by them. I’ll figure it out meant freedom when the only person who could be disappointed was you. But Shane made lists for day hikes. Checked weather reports three times. Carried spare batteries for equipment that already had full batteries. Hearing him say it now sounded less like a plan and more like a plea.

Trust me.

Let me try.

“With what? Good intentions and ranger points?”

“I’d talk to a bank. Pick up extra work. Sell the truck if I had to.”

“You’d sell your truck?”

“If I had to,” He told you firmly. You lifted one thumb, “Excellent planning, Captain OSHA.”

Shane closed his eyes. For one long second, he stood completely still. Then he nodded slowly, as though you had just confirmed something he had been trying very hard not to believe, “Here we go.”

“What?”

“Every time I try to talk to you, you make it a joke.” Lies. But also the truth. He needed to stop saying it like it was shameful, “Because your plan is ‘buy house somehow.’”

“At least I’m trying to make one.”

“And I’m trying to find out whether you even want the child who’s supposed to live in this imaginary house.”

His eyes opened, you could see the anger was still there, but something beneath it had gone cold, “I can’t do this tonight.”

Your stomach dropped, “Of course.”

He turned towards the door.

“Shane.”

“I’m sleeping up the mountain,” He said it like he was announcing incoming weather. Practical. Final. A decision already made.

“Because that’s healthy.”

“Because I need space.”

“You have an entire national park. How much more space could you possibly need?”

His hand closed around the handle.

“Naturally,” you muttered.

He stopped, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Notice the pattern?”

He looked over his shoulder. “What pattern?”

“Things get difficult and you disappear into the mountain.”

“I’m trying not to say something worse.”

“You’ve already told me I don’t put enough effort into loving you. I’m fascinated to hear the encore.”

Regret flickered across his face, then it was gone, “And you told me you don’t trust me to stay.”

“I’m standing here watching you leave.”

“For one night.”

“Still leaving.”

He turned fully then; for a moment, neither of you spoke.

You wanted him to argue. You wanted him to cross the room, tell you that you were impossible and take your face in his hands. You wanted him to promise he would come back. That none of this was bigger than the two of you. That love could solve distance and work and trauma and a baby neither of you had expected. You wanted something dramatic and romantic and completely unrealistic from a man who had survived his entire life by knowing when to retreat.

Instead, Shane opened the door.

Cold mountain air swept into the cabin, carrying pine, damp soil and darkness. The smell usually meant him. Safety. Home, in whatever strange divided form the two of you had managed to build it.

Tonight it only made your chest ache.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.

You wrapped your arms around yourself, holding everything in place, “Don’t strain yourself.”

His jaw shifted and for one terrible second, you thought he might say something. Something angry enough to break what was left between you.

Then he stepped outside.

The door closed behind him with a careful click.

Not a slam; Shane never slammed doors. Even furious, even hurt, he made sure the latch caught properly.

You listened to his footsteps cross the porch, move over the gravel and fade towards the trees.

The cabin felt too large without him.

Then too small.

His jacket was still draped over the chair. Two mugs sat beside the sink. One of his shirts hung over the end of the bed where you had dropped it that morning. Your hand settled over your stomach. A raspberry. A bean. A tiny collection of cells with impeccable timing and absolutely no respect for existing relationship problems.

You stared at the closed door as the latch’s soft click echoed in your head.