Chapter Four

His voice was thick with sleep, rough around the edges in a way that made my chest tight. I shifted, pressing my feet further under the covers to hide the chill that had nothing to do with the room temperature.

“You felt?”

He chuckled, and the vibration of it went through the mattress, up my bones. His fingers brushed a strand of hair away from my face, light as a moth’s wing. “Of course I felt it. I can feel every little move you make when you’re in my arms.”

I sat up, pulling the sheet up to my chest like a shield. The early morning light slanted through the curtains, pale gray, turning the edges of the furniture soft. “I was just feeling hot. Leave that. Let me help you to get shower.”

He reached out before I could stand, his hand closing firm and warm around my hip, pulling me back down against the mattress.

I felt my breath catch in my throat. A playful smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, his fingers brushing slow up the side of my ribcage, just under the curve of my breast.

“Wait a minute, baby. Why rush? We’ve got all morning before breakfast. Can’t we just stay like this a little longer?”

I looked at him, at the way his sightless eyes were turned just a little to the left of my face, the faint scar along his temple from the accident that took his vision. His skin was still flushed from sleep, stubble dark along his jaw, and his hand on my side was steady, trusting. I swallowed, the lump in my throat too big to push down easily.

“Okay then. If you want then we can stay in bed for sometimes.”

He pulled me closer until I was lying flat against his chest, his heart beating steady and strong under my ear. One of his arms wrapped around my back, the other coming to rest light as a feather on my lower stomach. His thumb started those slow circles again, right over the place where he imagined a baby might grow. His voice turned soft, warm, hopeful, the kind of hope that felt like a knife twist in my ribs.

“I’ve been thinking… Maybe we should stop trying to wait, huh? What if we try for a baby now? I want our little one, Rachel.”

My body went rigid, every muscle locking up at once. I could feel his heartbeat under me, steady, unaffected, while mine started hammering so hard I was sure he could feel it.

“What? Baby? Why?”

He ran his fingers gently through my hair, nails scraping lightly against my scalp, a habit I’d learned he loved when he was half-asleep. His chest rose and fell slow under me, each breath deep and even. “Because I love you, and I want a little piece of us. If anything happens to me before the transplant, I want you to still have part of me with you.”

“Nothing will happen to you, Kai. You’ll be fine. We can wait until your transplant, can’t we?”

He went quiet. His hand didn’t move, still resting gentle on my stomach. I could feel him thinking, turning my words over in his head, and I held my breath waiting for him to push, to insist, to make me confront this lie I was living. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, soft, and his breath stirred the hair at my crown.

“I just… I want something that’s truly ours, right now. I can’t wait forever, baby. I’m already blind, I don’t want to wait for anything good anymore.”

His words hung in the quiet air, thick and heavy. I could taste the bitterness of them, the fear that laced every syllable. I’d been hired three weeks ago, just after he’d woken up from his coma with his memory fragmented, his mother telling me all I had to do was be Rachel for a few months, until he was strong enough for the cornea transplant, until he could handle the truth that she’d left him. I’d said yes for the money, had told myself it was just a job, just helping a poor kid who’d lost everything. But I hadn’t counted on this, on the raw, open vulnerability of him, on the way he trusted every word that came out of my mouth.

“I… I was just thinking we could wait until your birthday, can’t we?” I managed, my voice thinner than I meant it to be. “It’s not long now.”

He loosened his hold on me slightly, his fingers still lingering on my waist. He let out a quiet, understanding sigh, and brushed a kiss over the bare skin of my shoulder. The warmth of it burned. “Alright, baby. If that’s what you want, I’ll wait until my birthday. I trust you, always.”

“Kai, you want a baby that bad?” I whispered.

He turned his head slightly, a faint, soft smile touching his lips, and his fingers curled around my hand, lacing them together. His palm was warm, his calluses rough against mine, from the guitar he still played even when he couldn’t see the frets. His voice was quiet, sincere, stripped of all pretense. “I just want a real family with you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, even before I lost my sight.”

“But we aren’t married yet,” I said, and my voice shook just a little on the last word.

He chuckled softly, rolling me onto my back beside him, and brushed his thumb lightly over my knuckles, one by one. The corner of his mouth tugged up into that warm, hopeful smile that made my chest ache. “We can get married whenever you want, baby. I already have everything ready, I’ve just been waiting for you to say yes to setting a date.”

“Oh is that so.”

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