She was a liar. A beautiful, wicked liar.

It hadn’t been twenty minutes. It had been fifteen, maybe twelve. His heart rate had barely returned to double digits, and his body was still humming with the aftershocks of wrecking her on the floor.

But looking at her now—sprawled out on the messy sheets, wearing nothing but his tour shirt, her legs falling open with that casual, devastating confidence—he wasn't about to check a watch.

He sat up, the movement slow and deliberate. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing the damp curls off his forehead, and let his gaze travel over her. The distance between the floor and the bed felt like a magnetic field he had to cross.

He was still semi-soft, his body needing a minute to catch up to the sudden spike in his blood pressure, but the visual of her was working fast. She looked like the morning after a rock show. She looked like trouble.

"You’re impatient," he murmured, the words rough with a lingering exhaustion that was rapidly turning into something else.

He stood up. He didn’t cover himself. He didn’t rush. He walked toward the bed with a lazy, predatory stride, letting her look at him, letting her see exactly what she was waking up.

When he reached the mattress, he didn’t climb over her. He moved to the foot of the bed.
He gripped her ankles, his large hands circling the delicate bones, and gave a gentle tug, pulling her down the mattress until her feet were dangling off the edge, right where he stood.

"Keep them open," he commanded softly.

He stepped in between her knees.

The view was obscene. The hem of his black t-shirt was bunched up around her waist, providing a stark frame for her pale skin and the flushed, damp center of her. She was still slick from him. The sight of his own fluids on her, the evidence of what they’d just done, sent a jolt of possessive heat straight to his groin.

He wasn't ready to be inside her yet—not deep, not the way she needed—but he knew exactly how to get there.

He dropped to his knees.

The mattress dipped under his weight. He rested his hands on her thighs, thumbs brushing against the soft inner skin, feeling the muscles twitch under his touch.

"Soft mattress," he agreed, his voice a low rumble against her skin. "Means I can keep you here for hours."
He leaned forward, but he didn’t kiss her center. Not yet.

He pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her knee. Then another, higher up. He moved with agonizing slowness, treating her thighs like a pilgrimage. He licked a stripe up the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, savoring the shudder that ran through her frame.

He could smell her—musk, vanilla, and the sharp, metallic tang of sex. It was intoxicating. It was the only air he wanted to breathe.

He reached up, his hands sliding under the t-shirt to grip her waist, thumbs digging in to hold her steady. He buried his face in the soft juncture where her thigh met her hip, inhaling deeply, letting his breath ghost over her wetness without touching it.

He felt her hips buck slightly, an instinctive demand for contact.

He smirked against her skin.

"Clock’s stopped, Cleo," he whispered, the vibration humming through her pelvis.

He finally moved inward. He didn't use his tongue yet. He just used his lips, soft and maddeningly gentle, brushing against her swollen folds. He kissed her there, a chaste, reverence-filled kiss that was completely at odds with the dirty, spread-eagle position she was in.

Then, he blew on her.

The cool air hitting her sensitized, wet skin made her gasp, her thighs clamping vaguely against his ears.
He chuckled darkly, the sound muffled by her body. He felt himself thickening, the blood rushing south, fueled by the power of having her completely at his mercy. He pulled back just an inch, looking up the length of her body, locking eyes with her over the landscape of her own desire.

"I’m gonna take my time," he promised, his eyes dark and heavy. "I’m gonna taste every single second of this until you’re begging."

He lowered his head again, and this time, he extended his tongue—flat, broad, and slow—and dragged it from the very bottom to the very top, tasting his own claim on her.

The shock of his tongue—broad, wet, and relentlessly slow—tore a gasp from her throat that sounded too much like a sob. Her hips lifted off the mattress instinctively, seeking more friction, but his hands on her waist were iron, pinning her down, forcing her to endure the slow-burn torture he was inflicting.

She threw her head back into the pillows, her eyes rolling back as the sensation arced through her nervous system like a live wire. He was right; she was impatient. She was greedy. The first round on the floor had only sharpened her appetite, stripping away the nerves and leaving only this raw, exposed nerve ending that only he knew how to soothe.

Her hands found his hair again. It was automatic. She needed to anchor herself, and he was the only solid thing in a spinning room. She curled her fingers into the thick, dark strands, tugging just enough to let him know she was with him, that she felt every inch of what he was doing.

But when his words filtered through the haze—Clock’s stopped, Cleo—something in her spiked. It wasn’t anger, but a fierce, possessive need to blur the lines even further.

"Benjamin," she breathed, the name falling from her lips like a prayer and a claim all at once.

She didn't use the name the marquee lights used. To the thousands of screaming girls in stadiums, to the interviewers, to the world that wanted to consume him, he was Ben Wilder. He was the rockstar. He was the icon. But here, on his knees, serving her with a devotion that bordered on worship? He wasn't Ben. He was Benjamin. Her Benjamin. The boy who wrote songs in notebooks and held her like she was made of glass.

Using his full name was her way of stripping the stage persona away, reminding him that he wasn't performing right now. He was just a man. Her man.

She tightened her grip in his hair, tugging his head back slightly—not to stop him, never to stop him—but to make him look at her, or at least to break his rhythm for a heartbeat so she could speak.

"And don't call me Cleo," she managed to get out, her voice trembling but laced with a delicious, heavy authority. She looked down at him through lowered lashes, her chest heaving. "

She guided his head back down, her thumbs pressing into his scalp, urging him closer, deeper.

"Babe," she corrected him, the word a ragged whisper. "Or baby. That's it. Especially when your head is between my thighs. You know the rules, Benjamin."

She let her legs fall wider, surrendering to the "soft mattress" he had promised, her body softening, opening, demanding.

"Now stop talking," she whined, a desperate, needy sound. "And finish what you started."

Benjamin.

The name hit him like a physical blow, stripping the air from his lungs. It wasn't the name on the tickets. It wasn't the name screamed by the crowd. It was the name his mother used. The name she used when they were lying in the dark at 3 AM, talking about fears that had nothing to do with record sales.

Hearing her claim it now—claiming him—while her fingers tightened in his hair made his vision blur.

"You know the rules," she’d said.

Fuck.

He didn't answer. She told him to stop talking, so he obeyed.

He grabbed her hips, his fingers digging into the soft flesh so hard he knew he was leaving marks, and buried his face in her.

He didn't tease her this time. He wasn't gentle. He ate her like a man who hadn't seen food in a decade.

He clamped his mouth over her clitoris, sucking hard, using the strong suction to pull a cry from her throat. He loved the taste of her—salt and sweet and heavy musk. He loved the way she tasted like him. He lapped at her with a frantic, messy rhythm, his tongue broad and flat, slapping against her wetness.
He wanted to be covered in her. He wanted to drown in this.

He slid two fingers inside her, curling them immediately, pumping into her with a rough, insistent rhythm that matched the assault of his tongue. She was so tight, so wet, clamping down on his fingers in little spasms that nearly drove him insane.

He worked her, slurping loudly, not caring about the noise. In fact, the wet, sloppy sounds of his mouth feasting on her only made him harder. He spread her wider with his thumbs, opening her up so he could get deeper, pressing his nose right into her entrance, inhaling the scent of her arousal until it coated his lungs.

He felt her bucking against his face, her thighs trembling violently against his ears. She was close. He could tell. She was unraveling, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, her fingers tightening painfully in his hair.

He pulled back, just for a second, gasping for air. His face was wet, his chin slick with her juices. He looked up at her, his eyes wild and blown out, seeing the way she was writhing on the bed, ruined and beautiful.

He needed to be inside her. God, he needed to shove his cock into that wet heat and pound into her until neither of them could move.

He started to rise, his hips snapping forward, his cock throbbing painfully against his stomach.
Then he remembered.

The wallet. The foil wrapper on the floor. The empty slot.

He froze.

"Fuck," he hissed, the realization landing like a bucket of ice water.

He looked up at her, his chest heaving, his voice rough and guttural.

"Don't kill me, baby," he rasped, seeing her eyes flutter open, confused by the pause. "But I only brought one."

He saw the realization hit her face—the disappointment warring with the need.

"I’m out," he admitted, his voice dropping to a low, apologetic growl. "I can't fuck you. Not safe. Not yet."
He saw her hips jerk, a silent protest, a body craving to be filled.

"I know," he groaned, running his thumb over her wet, swollen pearl, making her hiss. "I know. I want inside you so bad I can barely see straight."

He leaned back in, his eyes dark with a new, filthy resolve. If he couldn't use his cock, he was going to use everything else. He was going to destroy her with his mouth until she forgot his name, her name, and the damn cabin.

"Spread your legs wider," he commanded, his voice thick. "I’m gonna make you come on my face. I’m gonna drink every drop of you."

He didn't wait for her to comply. He hooked her knees over his shoulders, locking her open, exposing her completely. He dove back in, his tongue swirling, stabbing, devouring her with a punishing intensity, determined to make up for his lack of preparation by giving her the hardest orgasm of her life.

The disappointment of the missing condom was a sharp, fleeting pang, barely registering before it was obliterated by the sheer, unyielding force of his mouth.

He wasn’t asking anymore. He wasn’t teasing. He was devouring her, and the sudden shift from the heavy weight of his body to the wet, hot suction between her legs made her gasp, her back arching off the mattress as if pulled by a wire.

"Baby," she choked out, the name tasting like a prayer on her lips.

He had hooked her legs over his shoulders, spreading her so wide she felt completely exposed, vulnerable in the most delicious way possible. But there was no shame, only heat. The friction of his stubble against her inner thighs was a rough contrast to the slick, relentless work of his tongue. He was drinking her in, humming against her sensitive skin, the vibration traveling straight to her spine.

It was too much, and it wasn’t enough.

Her hands found his hair again, fingers tangling in the dark strands, but instead of pulling him up, she shoved him down. She needed more pressure. She needed to feel him everywhere. She pushed his face harder against her, a silent, desperate demand for him not to leave a single inch of her untouched.

"Yes," she hissed, her head tossing back against the pillows, her vision swimming with bursts of light. "Right there. God, right there."

He groaned in response, a guttural sound that vibrated against her clit, and the sensation sent a jolt of electricity through her veins that nearly shattered her. The coil in her belly tightened, winding tighter and tighter until the tension was unbearable.

She was close. She was falling.

"Benjamin—please—"

He didn't let up. If anything, he sped up, his tongue flat and punishing, sucking the climax right out of her.

When it hit, it wasn’t a wave; it was a crash.

Her hips bucked violently, grinding against his face as the pleasure ripped through her. She cried out, a broken, high-pitched sound that was swallowed by the room as she came apart, her release soaking his chin, her body convulsing in delicious, terrifying spasms. Her toes curled so hard they cramped, her thighs trembling as she rode out the aftershocks, totally and completely at his mercy.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was her ragged breathing and the wet, slick sounds of him licking up the last of her release.

Slowly, the world stopped spinning. Her heartbeat hammered against her ribs, but the frantic urgency began to bleed away, replaced by a heavy, liquid warmth.

She felt the mattress shift as Ben finally pulled back, crawling up the length of her body. He hovered over her for a second, his face wet and glistening, his lips swollen, his eyes dark with satisfaction. He looked like a man who had just won a war.

She didn't care about the condom. She didn't care about the sex they didn't have. She just wanted this.

She reached up, her hand cupping his jaw, thumb brushing over the wetness on his chin.

"Come here," she whispered, tugging him down.

He collapsed beside her, heavy and warm, instantly wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her backward until her back was pressed flush against his chest. It was the only place in the world that made sense.

She felt him bury his face in the crook of her neck, his breathing slowly syncing with hers. The darkness of the room felt protective now, a cocoon woven just for them. She entangled her legs with his, seeking his warmth, seeking the solid, grounding weight of him.

She wasn't ready to sleep. She didn't want to close her eyes and lose this feeling, this reality where he was just Benjamin and she was just Cleo. She just wanted to lay there, awake and alive in the quiet, listening to his heart beat against her back, safe in the knowledge that he wasn't going anywhere.

He tasted like her.

He licked his lips, catching the lingering salt and sweetness of her release, and the flavor went straight to his head faster than the weed or the whiskey ever had.

He stayed between her legs for a long moment, just breathing against the damp skin of her inner thigh, feeling the tremors slowly fading from her muscles. His jaw ached—a dull, thrumming tension from how hard he’d worked her, from how wide he’d opened his mouth to consume her—and he loved it. It was a trophy. A physical reminder that he had taken her apart.

When her hand tugged at him, he moved.

He crawled up the mattress, his limbs heavy and loose, feeling like he was moving through water. He didn't bother wiping his face. He wanted the scent of her on him. He wanted to wake up smelling like her.
He collapsed beside her, the mattress groaning under his weight, and immediately hauled her back against him.

He wrapped his arm around her waist, his hand splaying flat over her stomach, pulling her flush against his chest. She fit. She always had. Like a puzzle piece he’d been carrying around in his pocket for years, finally snapping back into place.

He buried his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling sharply. Her skin was hot, damp with sweat, and smelled like vanilla and the raw, earthy scent of sex.

Benjamin.

The name echoed in his head, louder than the ringing in his ears after a show. She hadn't called him that in a long time. It felt like she’d reached into his chest and grabbed his heart with her bare hands. It stripped away the leather jacket, the sunglasses, the persona he wore like armor.

Here, in the dark, he wasn't the guy on the billboard. He was just the guy who knew exactly how she liked to be touched.

He pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck, his lips brushing the fine hairs there.

He was still hard—a dull, throbbing ache pressed against her lower back—but he didn't push it. He didn't grind against her. The disappointment of the missing condom had faded into a satisfied hum. Watching her come undone on his face, hearing that broken, high-pitched cry... that was enough.
For now.

He thought about the cabin. Two weeks. No service. No cameras.

He pictured it: waking up next to her without an alarm. drinking coffee on the porch while she painted. Pulling her into the bedroom whenever he wanted, with a bedside drawer full of condoms so he wouldn't have to stop.

He tightened his arm around her, possessive and grounding.

He let his eyes drift shut, the darkness of the room feeling less like a void and more like a blanket. The silence wasn't lonely anymore. It was heavy with her. It was full.

He breathed in, his chest expanding against her back, and for the first time in months, he truly exhaled.
"Hey," he whispered into the dark, his voice rough with sleep and vibrating against her spine.
He felt her hum a soft, sleepy response against the pillow.

"Keep calling me that," he murmured, pressing his mouth to the shell of her ear. "Benjamin. I missed hearing it. I missed him."

He squeezed her waist, anchoring her to him.

"And the cabin?" he added, his tone dipping lower, heavy with a promise. "I'm holding you to it. Two weeks. Just us."

The vibration of his voice against her spine sent a fresh wave of warmth through her, a different kind of heat than the one that had just consumed her. It was softer, deeper—it settled in her bones.

Benjamin.

Hearing him admit how much he missed the name, how much he missed the man he was underneath the fame, cracked her chest wide open. She didn't want the rock star right now either. She wanted this. The man who needed to be held just as much as he needed to possess.

Slowly, fighting the heaviness in her own limbs, Cleo shifted. She turned in the circle of his arms, the friction of skin on skin electric and grounding, until she was lying flat on her back. She didn't let him pull away; instead, she guided him with her. She tugged at his shoulders, urging him up and over until his heavy head found a resting place on her chest, right over the steady, calming beat of her heart.

She wrapped her arms around him immediately, locking him against her. She held him with a fierce, protective tenderness, cradling him like he was something rare and precious—something that the rest of the world tried to consume, but only she got to keep.

"Benjamin," she whispered into the darkness, the name tasting like a secret and a vow all at once. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere."

Her fingers drifted into his hair, nails lightly scratching against his scalp in a slow, soothing rhythm, combing through the messy strands. She could feel the tension slowly bleeding out of his shoulders, his breathing syncing with hers.

"And the cabin..." she murmured, her voice thick with sleep but absolute in its certainty. "Two weeks. Just us. I'm already packing in my head."

A shiver of cool air brushed against her skin, a reminder that the heat of the moment was settling into the cool quiet of the night. Reluctantly, she released him with one hand just long enough to reach down and grab the tangled edge of the duvet. She pulled it up over them, tucking the fabric around his shoulders and hers, sealing them into their own private, warm cocoon.

"Go to sleep, Benjamin," she breathed, her hand returning to his hair. "I'm right here."

He went willingly.

He was used to being the one in control—the one driving the rhythm, the one holding the weight, the one steering the ship through the chaos. But when she pulled at his shoulders, guiding him up and over her body, he folded.

He let his full weight drop, trusting her to hold him.

His head landed on her chest, his cheek pressing against the soft, yielding warmth of her breast. It was the perfect pillow. He let out a long, ragged exhale, the last of the tension leaving his body as he felt her arms lock around him.

Benjamin.

She whispered it into the dark, and he felt the vibration of it rumble through her chest, straight into his ear. It settled there, soothing the constant, low-level static that had been buzzing in his brain for months.

He closed his eyes, listening.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

Her heart was beating right against his ear. It was steady. Unwavering. It was the best rhythm section he’d ever heard. It was a metronome counting time in a world that usually moved too fast for him to catch.

He felt her fingers scratching lightly at his scalp, and he melted. He felt heavy, anchored, and completely safe.

"Two weeks," he mumbled against her skin, his voice barely a slur of sound. "Pack the paint. I’ll carry the bags."

He felt the duvet settle over his shoulders, a physical barrier sealing them in. The warmth was instant, enveloping them in a cocoon that smelled like her vanilla and his sweat.

For a second, his mind flickered to the outside world—the tour dates, the managers, the noise waiting for him when he turned his phone back on. But it felt distant now. Muted. Like a TV playing in another room.

Here, under the blanket, with the weight of her arms holding him down and the sound of her heart in his ear, none of that mattered.

He shifted slightly, nuzzling closer into her warmth, his arm draping heavily across her waist to keep her there.

"Right here," he echoed her whisper, his consciousness finally slipping.

He wasn't the rockstar. He wasn't the icon. He was just a man sleeping on the only shore that had ever felt like home.

And for the first time in a long time, Ben Wilder fell asleep without a single dream, because he was already holding the only thing he wanted.

Cleo had told herself she was not going to do this today.

That had been the plan when she woke up with the same low, fluttering sensation in her stomach she had spent the last three mornings trying to explain away.

Jet lag, at first.

Then nerves.

Then too much coffee and not enough breakfast.

Except the jet lag from Australia had long since faded. Their suitcases were unpacked. Ben’s guitars were leaned carefully against the exposed brick wall beside her drafting table. His duffel bag no longer sat half-open near the radiator. The apartment had settled around them again after weeks of movement and airports and hotel rooms and soundchecks and family visits and all the fragile, hopeful trying they had done since Iceland.

And she was late.

Not dramatically late.

But enough.

Enough that the unopened box in the bathroom cabinet had started to feel less like a practical purchase and more like a living thing waiting for her.

So now she stood barefoot on the cool hex-tile floor of the tiny bathroom attached to her studio apartment, the door shut, her oversized cream T-shirt hanging off one shoulder, her hair piled into a loose knot that was already slipping apart.

Morning light filtered through the narrow frosted window above the clawfoot tub, turning the room pale and quiet.

Beyond the door was the apartment she had built into a life.

Her unmade bed tucked into the sleeping alcove by the tall warehouse windows.

Shelves crowded with sketchbooks, ceramics, and jars of paintbrushes.

Her drafting table scattered with charcoal pencils and unfinished ideas.

The compact kitchen with yesterday’s coffee mugs still in the sink.

Ben’s acoustic guitar resting on a stand beside the record player as if it had always belonged there.

The entire apartment was only a few hundred square feet, but over the past three weeks of being home together, it had somehow stretched to hold both of them.

On the counter beside the sink sat two tests.

One digital.

One traditional.

Because if she was going to do this, she needed certainty.

She needed the bluntness of a word.

She needed lines she could stare at with her own eyes.

Her hands trembled as she set both tests down on a folded hand towel and forced herself to step away.

Three minutes.

It sounded so small.

Three minutes after months of hope and disappointment and carefully timed calendars and laughing at ovulation strips and trying not to turn intimacy into obligation.

Three minutes after Iceland.

Her throat tightened.

Iceland had changed everything.

Not in one grand cinematic moment, but in the accumulated quiet of being together with nowhere else to be. Snow against the windows. The mineral warmth of the Blue Lagoon. Ben’s arms around her in the middle of a cold so vast it made the world feel clean. Talking about the future in the dark after making love, his fingers tracing lazy patterns over her bare back while they lay tangled beneath thick duvets.

He had said he wanted a child with her in the same steady tone he used when he said things he meant completely.

Not as an abstract someday.

Not as a vague possibility.

As a real desire.

As a life he wanted to build.

After that, they stopped pretending they were “not not trying.”

They started trying.

Really trying.

Then had come the weeks that followed.

Flying home.

Then Australia.

A short leg of Ben’s tour.

Sydney sunsets from hotel balconies.

Melbourne mornings wrapped in his T-shirt while he rehearsed lyrics under his breath.

Brisbane, where they had slipped away to the beach for two precious hours and he had carried her sandals while they walked barefoot at the edge of the water.

Trying in borrowed hotel rooms.

Trying when they were exhausted.

Trying when they were hopeful.

Trying when they were afraid to hope too much.

Then home again.

Three uninterrupted weeks of waking up together in her apartment.

Three weeks of domestic life that felt so achingly ordinary it bordered on sacred.

Coffee brewed in the tiny kitchen while she sat cross-legged on the counter.

Ben tuning a guitar at the foot of her bed.

Takeout containers balanced on their knees while they watched old movies.

His hand resting absentmindedly on her stomach as they slept in the narrow bed that somehow fit them both.

And now—

Now.

The timer on her phone buzzed.

The sound was so abrupt she flinched.

Her pulse thundered in her ears as she stepped toward the counter.

For one suspended moment, she couldn’t make herself look.

Her fingers curled around the edge of the sink.

Her breathing came shallow and fast.

Then she forced her eyes downward.

The first test.

Two pink lines.

Clear.

Undeniable.

Her hand flew to her mouth.

“No,” she whispered, though the word held no denial, only stunned disbelief.

Tears blurred her vision instantly.

Her gaze jerked to the digital test.

The screen was bright and impossible.

Pregnant.

The word hit her like a physical force.

The tiny bathroom tilted.

A sharp, strangled sound escaped her, half laugh and half sob.

Her knees nearly gave out, and she caught herself against the sink.

“Oh my God.”

The words broke apart as tears spilled over.

This was what she wanted.

This was what they wanted.

What they had whispered to each other in Iceland under heavy blankets and northern skies.

What they had carried across continents.

What they had kept reaching for even when every negative test had quietly hollowed out the rest of the day.

She pressed both hands over her mouth as sobs overtook her.

Joy came first.

Pure and bright and overwhelming.

Then fear rushed in just as quickly.

Fear of how much she already loved something she could not yet see.

Fear of the enormity of it.

Fear of the fact that everything was about to change.

Her body shook with the force of it.

A baby.

Ben’s baby.

Their baby.

The thought cracked her open completely.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror—tear-streaked, wild-eyed, trembling—and saw a woman standing at the edge of the life she had secretly wanted for years.

The intensity of it was too much to contain alone.

Her chest tightened until it hurt.

And before she could think about how to tell him, before she could compose herself or plan anything sweet or cinematic, his full name tore out of her like a prayer.

“BENJAMIN!”

The scream echoed through the small apartment, carrying past the bathroom door, over the exposed wood floors, into the single room that held their whole world.

Her voice broke on the second syllable.

She was crying too hard to stop.

Laughing and sobbing all at once, one hand pressed to her flat stomach, the other clutching the digital test as if it might vanish if she loosened her grip.

“BENJAMIN!”

This time the word came out shakier, soaked in wonder and terror and a happiness so large it felt impossible to survive.

And standing there in the morning light, tears falling unchecked, Cleo knew only one thing with absolute certainty.

No matter how frightened she was.

No matter how much the future suddenly dwarfed everything she thought she understood.

She had never wanted anything more.

Ben heard his name and lost all sense of scale.

One second he had been standing near the kitchenette in yesterday’s sweatpants, barefoot on the old wood floor, trying to convince the coffee maker to cooperate while a melody circled uselessly in his head. The apartment had felt morning-soft around him—mugs in the sink, one of Cleo’s charcoal pencils under the table leg, his guitar waiting by the record player like it had learned to be patient.

Then her voice cut through all of it.

Not irritated. Not playful. Not the particular tone she used when she found one of his socks somewhere offensive.

This was different.

His body reacted before his mind had time to translate it. The spoon clattered into the sink. Coffee splashed against the counter. His bare feet were already moving.

“Cleo?”

It came out rough, too sharp, his heart slamming so hard it seemed to take the rest of the apartment with it. He crossed the room in seconds, knocking his hip against the corner of the table and not feeling it until later, one hand catching the bathroom doorframe as he reached her.

For one terrifying instant, he saw only fragments.

Pale morning light.

Her face wet with tears.

The hard tremor in her shoulders.

Her hand at her middle.

Something white gripped in her fingers.

The world narrowed so violently he almost missed the rest.

“Hey—hey, what happened?” His voice was careful because panic wanted to make it loud. He swallowed it down with effort, stepping inside the tiny bathroom like the floor might fall out beneath them. “Are you hurt?”

His eyes moved over her, fast and frantic, searching for blood, broken glass, anything that made sense of the sound she’d made. Then his gaze dropped to the counter.

Two tests.

One with lines.

One with a word.

Everything stopped.

Not dramatically. Not like music cutting out.

More like the universe pulled in one long breath and forgot to let it go.

Ben stared.

His mouth parted slightly, but nothing came out. All the noise in his head—the unfinished melody, the coffee, the tour dates waiting somewhere in the distance, the thousand small worries that usually jostled for space—went suddenly, impossibly quiet.

He read it once.

Then again.

His hand, still braced against the doorframe, tightened until his knuckles blanched.

“Oh,” he said.

That was it.

One useless little sound.

Then his face changed.

The panic didn’t vanish so much as transform, breaking apart into something too big for him to hold in a normal expression. His brows drew together. His eyes went wet before he could do anything about it. A laugh caught in his throat and came out broken, disbelieving, almost silent.

“Oh my God.”

He looked at her then—not at the test, not at the counter, not at any proof outside of her.

Her.

Standing in the bathroom in that oversized cream shirt, hair half-falling out of its knot, tears running freely down her face, looking like the whole future had just arrived and handed itself to her without instructions.

He took one step closer.

Then another.

Slowly now, because this moment felt delicate enough to bruise if he rushed it. His hands lifted and then hovered for half a second, torn between wanting to hold her everywhere at once and being afraid of overwhelming her when she already looked full of lightning.

“Baby,” he breathed, the word shaking loose before he could stop it.

It was for her.

It was for the impossible little truth between them.

It was for both.

He reached for her face first, because that was where he always found her fastest. His thumbs brushed beneath her eyes, catching tears he had no hope of keeping up with. He laughed again, softer this time, utterly wrecked.

“Okay,” he whispered, nodding like someone had asked him a question, like if he kept nodding he might convince his body to stay standing. “Okay. Yeah. Okay.”

Brilliant. Historic. His finest lyrical work.

He would have made fun of himself if he had enough brain left.

Instead, he looked back at the counter, just to make sure he hadn’t invented it out of wanting too badly. The tests were still there. The word still there. The lines still there.

A sound escaped him then, low and stunned, almost a laugh and almost something else entirely.

“We did it.”

He said it like he didn’t trust it yet. Like the sentence was made of glass.

Then it hit again, harder.

They had done it.

All those careful calendars. All those jokes to keep the disappointment from getting teeth. All those mornings where they had pretended to be casual about hope because hope, handled too tightly, could cut. Iceland. Australia. Home. Her body under his hand in the dark. The way she had gone quiet after each negative, even when she tried not to let him see the exact place it hurt.

And now she was here.

They were here.

He sank to his knees before he realized he was doing it.

Not gracefully. Not with any plan. One second he was standing in front of her, and the next he was on the cool tile, arms wrapping around her middle with a reverence that made his chest ache. He pressed his forehead carefully against her shirt, just below where her hand had been, and closed his eyes.

He didn’t know what to say to something that small.

Something that wasn’t even visible yet and had already rearranged every room inside him.

So he started with the truth.

“Hi,” he whispered, voice wrecked and warm against the fabric. “Hi, tiny thing.”

A breath shook through him. Then another.

He tipped his face up toward Cleo, his chin still near her stomach, eyes bright and helpless and so full of wonder it almost hurt to look at her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and a laugh broke through the tears in his voice. “That was probably not the cool first impression. I’m your dad, apparently. I panic in bathrooms and I make extremely good pancakes sometimes.”

His smile trembled.

“Not every time. We should be honest early.”

The attempt at humor barely held together, but it steadied him enough to rise again. He stood slowly and took her in his arms, all of her this time, pulling her close with the kind of care that was almost clumsy because his hands couldn’t decide where they were needed most. Her back. Her hair. Her waist. Her face.

He kissed her forehead first.

Then her temple.

Then the wet curve of her cheek, tasting salt and morning and something like a miracle.

“You’re pregnant,” he murmured, like saying it softly might help him survive it. His hands framed her face again. “You’re pregnant.”

His eyes searched hers, not for doubt, not for permission to be happy, but for her. The woman inside the enormity. The one whose fear would arrive right alongside joy because she was alive and paying attention and understood the size of things.

His thumb moved along her cheek.

“Hey,” he said, quieter now, steadier because she needed him steady and because he wanted to be. “Look at me. We’re okay.”

His own breath hitched immediately after, undercutting the confidence a little. He let out a watery laugh.

“I mean, I’m obviously not okay. I’m about three seconds away from calling your sister and saying something completely incoherent, so we should maybe take my phone away.”

He leaned his forehead against hers, breathing with her in the pale bathroom light.

“But we’re okay,” he said again. This time it landed stronger. “You and me. And…”

He couldn’t finish for a second.

The word was too much.

He looked down between them, his hand sliding slowly—carefully—to rest over her shirt, not pressing, just there. His palm covered the place where nothing had changed and everything had.

“And this,” he whispered.

His eyes closed.

For once in his life, Ben didn’t want a stage. Didn’t want the perfect line. Didn’t want a chorus big enough to hold the feeling.

He wanted this tiny bathroom.

This woman.

This impossible morning.

His coffee going cold on the counter.

The whole world reduced to a hand towel, two tests, and Cleo shaking in his arms while his own heart tried to become something worthy of what had just been handed to them.

He kissed her again, soft and lingering, right at the corner of her mouth.

Then he pulled back just enough to see her.

“We’re having a baby,” he said, and the smile finally broke through fully—terrified, radiant, boyish, all his. “Holy shit, Cleo.”

A beat.

His eyes dropped to the tests again, then back to her.

“I’m gonna need, like… a chair. Or a helmet. Or both.”

Another beat, softer.

“But mostly you.”

His arms tightened around her carefully, like he was already learning a new kind of gentleness.

“I need you.”

The first thing Cleo felt was the force of his panic.

It came into the bathroom ahead of him—his voice rough and too sharp, his footsteps hitting the old floorboards hard enough that she could hear the urgency in every stride. For one terrifying second, she saw herself through his eyes: crying, shaking, clutching a plastic stick like it might explain why the world had suddenly become too large to fit inside her body.

Guilt flashed through the joy.

She hated that the sound she made had frightened him.

Then he was there.

Breathless.

Barefoot.

Hair sleep-tousled and eyes wide with a fear so naked it split her open all over again.

The tenderness of it undid her.

Her mouth trembled as he searched her face and shoulders and hands, looking for injury before he understood the real reason she had called for him. That instinctive need to make sure she was safe landed with such devastating clarity that fresh tears spilled over.

“I’m okay,” she tried to say, but the words caught on a laugh and came out broken.

His attention shifted.

She watched the exact instant comprehension overtook alarm.

The silence that followed felt enormous.

Not empty.

Sacred.

His small, stunned sound moved through her like a bell.

When his expression changed—when disbelief gave way to something bright and fragile and unbearably human—Cleo’s chest tightened so hard it almost hurt.

There he was.

The man she had fallen in love with in fragments and layers and impossible, ordinary moments.

The man who had held her in Iceland and spoken about children with a kind of quiet certainty that made her believe in futures she had been afraid to name.

The man who had crossed oceans and stages and hotel rooms with her and never once treated this hope like something inconvenient.

The father of her child.

The thought struck with fresh force, and her fingers curled tighter around the digital test.

When he stepped toward her more slowly, as though the moment itself required careful handling, she felt her breathing hitch. His hands hovering in the air before finally settling against her face made her heart turn over inside her chest.

His thumbs brushed away tears she hadn’t even noticed falling.

The shaking in his voice unraveled what little composure she had managed to gather.

A soft, watery laugh escaped her as he struggled for words.

The imperfectness of them made everything feel more real.

More theirs.

Then he looked at the tests again.

And spoke the truth.

Her eyes closed.

The sentence landed somewhere deep and permanent.

“We did,” she whispered, the words barely audible, but saturated with awe.

When he dropped to his knees, Cleo gasped.

Not because she expected grand gestures.

Because she knew he wasn’t performing.

There was nothing calculated in the movement. No attempt to make the moment bigger than it already was.

Just instinct.

Just reverence.

The feel of his arms circling her middle sent a shudder through her body. She brought one trembling hand to his hair, threading her fingers through the soft dark strands while his forehead rested against her shirt.

The pressure was so gentle.

So careful.

When he spoke to the tiny life inside her, Cleo’s breath fractured.

A sob broke loose before she could stop it, but it was softer now, threaded with wonder instead of fear.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, her fingers tightening in his hair.

The ridiculousness of his introduction, the nervous honesty, the mention of pancakes—all of it cracked something warm and helpless open inside her. She laughed through tears, the sound shaky and wet and full of love.

“Our baby is going to know exactly what they’re getting into.”

Her voice wobbled on the word baby.

She still could not quite believe she was saying it.

When he rose and gathered her fully into his arms, Cleo folded into him with no resistance at all.

Her body seemed to know where to go before her mind caught up.

Against his chest.

Into the familiar warmth of him.

His kisses to her forehead, temple, and cheek steadied her more effectively than anything else could have.

Each touch said the same thing in a different language.

I’m here.

I’m not going anywhere.

When he repeated the reality aloud, she felt the truth settle more firmly beneath her skin.

She was pregnant.

His searching gaze found her, and she understood immediately what he was asking without saying it.

Not whether the test was accurate.

Not whether he was happy.

Whether she was all right.

Whether the fear still pressing against her ribs was swallowing the joy.

Cleo drew in a shaky breath.

His attempt at composure, undercut by his own tears and humor, made her smile despite the tears still slipping down her face.

The moment his forehead touched hers, the frantic energy in her chest began to slow.

Not disappear.

But organize itself into something she could carry.

When his hand rested over her abdomen, her own hand slid over his.

The warmth of his palm against the place where their child already existed sent another wave of emotion through her—less chaotic this time, deeper and more rooted.

His words settled over her like a promise.

Then came the sentence that finally broke her open in an entirely different way.

I need you.

The rawness of it stole her breath.

Cleo lifted her face just enough to meet his eyes.

What she saw there—terror, devotion, joy, and complete vulnerability—left no room for doubt.

He was as overwhelmed as she was.

As scared.

As changed.

And he was still reaching for her.

Her fingers slid to his jaw, brushing over the faint roughness there. She studied his face as if committing this exact version of him to memory: barefoot in her bathroom, eyes wet, smile trembling, the whole future visible in the way he looked at her.

“I’m scared,” she admitted, the confession quiet but steady.

Her thumb moved along his cheek.

“But I have never wanted anything more than this.”

The truth settled between them, clear and unadorned.

A tear slipped free, but this one felt lighter.

Her lips curved.

“And I need you too.”

Cleo drew him closer until there was no space left between them at all. She kissed him slowly, with all the gratitude and wonder and trembling certainty she did not yet have language for.

When she pulled back, her forehead remained against his.

Her hand stayed over his where it rested on her stomach.

“Our baby,” she whispered, and this time the words no longer felt impossible.

They felt real.

Her smile widened, still damp with tears, but unmistakably radiant.

“You’re going to be such a good dad, Benjamin.”

The words settled between them and changed shape.

Our baby.

You’re going to be such a good dad.

Even after she said them, Cleo felt as though she were listening from a slight distance, as if the bathroom had become too small to contain what was happening inside it. Ben’s face—wet-eyed, astonished, utterly unguarded—seemed to glow in the pale morning light. His hand remained over hers against her stomach, and the steady warmth of it anchored her long enough for a practical thought to break through the emotion.

They had to tell them.

Not the world.

Not his fans.

Not managers or labels or publicists or anyone who would turn this into a headline before they had time to breathe.

Their people.

Her family.

His family.

The realization brought a fresh burst of happiness so sharp it made her laugh.

“Oh my God,” she said, the words tumbling out on another breathless smile. “We have to tell them.”

Her fingers squeezed his hand once before she reluctantly stepped away, still touching him as long as possible. The loss of contact lasted only seconds, but she felt it immediately, like moving away from a heat source in winter.

She snatched the digital test from the sink and carefully picked up the traditional one with her other hand. The plastic felt absurdly ordinary in her hands, two tiny objects that had somehow redrawn the entire map of her life.

Ben followed her out of the bathroom, and the apartment looked different now.

Not physically.

The same unmade bed.

The same paint-splattered drafting table.

The same coffee half-made in the kitchen, forgotten in his panic.

But everything held a new significance, as though every familiar object had shifted a fraction of an inch to make room for someone else.

Their child.

The thought still hit her with dizzying force.

At the small wooden dining table by the windows, Cleo set both tests down side by side. Morning light spilled across the surface, illuminating the word Pregnant and the two pink lines with such blunt certainty that she let out another disbelieving laugh.

Her hands shook as she reached for her phone.

She crouched slightly, framing the image with care. The tabletop still held faint charcoal smudges from her work, and the sunlight fell over the tests in a way that made the whole scene look almost too perfect to be real.

She snapped one photo.

Looked at it.

Burst into tears again.

It was the simplest picture imaginable.

And the most important she had ever taken.

Her thumb moved to the family group chat.

A thread that had existed for years.

Her sister.

The people who had known her before she knew herself.

Ben.

Jax.

Because neither of them had ever stood outside the family circle, not even during the years when she and Ben were apart and pretending history could be erased by distance. They had remained woven into the fabric of her life so thoroughly that this moment did not feel surprising.

It felt inevitable.

As though everyone in that chat had, in some quiet way, been waiting for this right alongside them.

Her throat tightened.

Without adding a single word, she sent the photo.

The message whooshed away.

Then she looked up at Ben, another wave of emotion rising.

“Your family,” she said, voice catching. “They have to know too.”

She crossed to him in two quick steps and held out her hand.

He handed over his phone without hesitation, his expression still dazed and luminous.

Cleo unlocked it and opened the family thread with his parents and siblings. Her vision blurred with tears as she attached the same photo. For a second she hovered over the send button, struck by the enormity of what this meant—not just for the two of them, but for everyone who loved him.

Then she pressed send.

The image disappeared into the conversation.

A fresh laugh escaped her.

“Okay,” she breathed, shaking her head in disbelief.

She set both phones on the kitchen counter and toggled each one to Do Not Disturb, silencing the flood she knew was already beginning—texts, calls, screaming voice memos, his mother crying, her sister absolutely losing her mind.

The apartment fell quiet again.

Just the hum of the refrigerator.

The faint hiss of the forgotten coffee maker.

Ben’s breathing.

Her breathing.

Their future waiting in the stillness.

Cleo turned.

He stood a few feet away, barefoot on the old wood floors, hair unruly, eyes shining, his whole expression transformed by wonder.

For half a heartbeat she simply looked at him.

This man.

This impossible, beautiful man.

The father of her baby.

Joy surged through her so suddenly that she could not contain it.

A high, delighted squeal burst out of her as she launched herself toward him.

Her arms flew around his neck, and she collided with him hard enough to force a startled laugh from her chest. She clung to him, half laughing, half crying, practically vibrating with happiness.

“We sent it,” she gasped against his cheek, words tumbling over breathless laughter. “They know. Your mom knows. My sister knows. Everyone knows and we’re having a baby.”

The sentence still felt impossible.

And yet there she was, wrapped around him in the middle of her sunlit apartment, grinning so hard her face hurt.

Cleo pulled back only enough to look at him, her hands framing his face, her eyes bright and overflowing.

“We’re really doing this,” she whispered, wonder softening the edges of her voice.

Then her smile widened until it became pure, incandescent joy.

“Benjamin,” she breathed, another squeal escaping before she could stop it. “We made a person.”