"You okay?" Damiano’s voice threaded through the low hum of the doctor’s office, his hand resting protectively on your pregnant belly as if he could shield you from the world with touch alone.

You looked down at your belly—still didn’t feel real sometimes. Twenty-four, carrying his child, him being the best husband in the word. You let out a nervous breath. "Yeah. Just… everything’s starting to feel so real."

He smiled—that smile, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made your chest hurt in the best way. "Good. It is real. We earned this."

You leaned into him a little, hand resting over his, feeling the warmth, the life, the history that buzzed between your skin and his.

It was wild to think about it now.

Because once, you were teenagers. Lying on the hood of his beat-up car behind the school, blowing smoke into the sky while he ranted about his friends or the future or how he hated routines but loved chaos. You’d sit shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee, kissing like it was a sport, arguing like it was a language, loving each other even when you didn’t have the words for it.

Once, he’d thrown a crumpled love letter at your locker because he was too proud to hand it to you.

Once, you’d cried in the back of the bleachers because you thought he broke up with you—he showed up with a lighter, two cigarettes, and a quiet “I’m not going anywhere.”

And he never did.

"Remember that teacher who said we were too dramatic to last the semester?" you murmured, breaking into a small laugh as the memory surfaced.

Damiano grinned. "Yeah. We lasted a decade and made a human. So, I think we won that one."

You leaned in, resting your head against his shoulder. His thumb brushed gentle circles against your knee, grounding you, the steady heartbeat under your ear reminding you of every time he’d been your compass. Even when you were both lost.

"We were really so young," you said softly.

"Yeah. And we grew up together," he answered, pressing a kiss to your hair. "Still do."

You turned toward him, your heart swelling with something quiet and fierce—love, but stretched wide by years, burned by mistakes, and made soft again by forgiveness.

"We were a mess."

He chuckled. "We still are. Just… a little less loud about it."

The nurse called your name from the hallway. You stood, Damiano’s hand catching yours before you could move. His fingers laced with yours—same way they had in high school, in the parking lot behind the school, under the table at graduation, across the dashboard of a hundred late-night drives.

"Ready?" he asked.