The soft hum of an electric screwdriver echoes faintly through the nursery. The sound isn’t jarring, it’s rhythmic, steady, like a heartbeat you’ve known forever. The room smells like fresh wood and lavender baby detergent. New blankets still in their packaging. The window is cracked open just enough to let in the scent of distant rain and streetlight warmth.

You’re curled on the couch just outside the nursery door, tucked into the corner with pillows propped beneath your swollen ankles, a soft blanket covering the curve of your thighs. The stretch of your belly rises high, a big bump now beneath your tank top, soft and warm and unmistakably full. Seven months along and glowing. You’re tired, but not in a bad way. You’ve stopped trying to be graceful when you move. You’ve earned every waddle and sigh.

And he makes you feel like a goddess for it.

Jason is shirtless, trying to assemble both the bassinet and the crib. The bassinet is already in place, positioned precisely between the crib and the rocker. The crib, of course, had sixteen steps and thirty nine parts. He tackled it like a damn mission. Cargo pants low on his hips, back muscles shifting with every twist of the screwdriver, tattoos curling around broad shoulders that glisten in the warm nursery light.

He’s barefoot, hair tied back messily, ring shining gold on his left hand. That one makes your chest ache in the best way. Still new. Still gleaming. Still real. Every time he glances down at his hand, and he does often, it’s like he can’t believe it either.

He doesn’t talk much while he works. Just curses occasionally when a piece doesn’t line up right, lips twitching when he figures out how the diagram connects. You know that expression well. Focus sharpened to a blade, jaw set in quiet determination, eyes narrowed slightly. It’s the same look he wears when disarming a bomb or hot wiring a car. Same energy, except now he’s cross referencing a YouTube video titled “How to Assemble an Adjustable Crib With Drawer” like it’s life or death.

You reach down to rub the side of your belly, fingertips brushing over the faint stretch marks blooming like silver across your soft skin. You’ve gotten rounder. Softer. Heavier in your hips and chest and thighs. You hadn’t expected him to be so obsessed.

But Jason is entranced.

Every new curve is sacred. Every softness, every line, every sigh that escapes your mouth when your feet ache or your back twinges, he treats it like a prayer. You’ve caught him tracing your stretch marks like constellations, kissing your hips in the mornings before you’re fully awake, whispering things against your belly like the baby is his world.

Right now, he’s muttering under his breath, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of one thick arm before checking the instructions again. You watch the muscles in his back flex. His shoulders. The scar that crosses his side and vanishes into his waistband. He’s all power and precision, and yet… you’ve never felt safer.

The crib finally clicks into place. Jason exhales and rolls his neck, then moves to double check the bassinet bolts again like the baby might arrive tomorrow and demand a structural integrity report. The gold band flashes as he adjusts the frame. It’s a thick ring, plain, solid, masculine. Yours is thinner, stacked with the engagement ring he gave you on the rooftop he almost fell off after proposing too fast and forgetting to breathe. You wore it into every prenatal appointment like a shield.

You shift slightly, wincing as your spine protests. Jason hears it immediately.

You try to wave him off, but he’s already there, crouching down, hands sliding gently under your legs, lifting them to adjust your pillows with careful strength. His fingers graze your calves, then your belly, like he can’t help touching you.

"Is she okay?" He whispered, looking up at you with piercing blue eyes framed by unfairly long, dark lashes.