Ben pads barefoot across the heated hardwood, sweatpants riding low on his hips, the overhead lights off so only the glow from the bedside lamp paints everything in honey. He’s shed the day like an unwanted skin: the interviews, the Vought handlers, the endless parade of people who want a piece of the legend. None of it matters once he crosses the threshold of the bedroom.

You’re already in bed, propped against a ridiculous mountain of pillows he bought because you complained your back hurt. Six months along now, belly rounded and firm under the soft cotton of your t-shirt. You’re reading, or trying to, some dog-eared paperback balanced precariously on the curve of your stomach, hair loose and wild from the shower, skin still faintly flushed and smelling like that watermelon lotion he pretends to hate but secretly orders in bulk.

He’d never been the best. He knew that. He was an arrogant son of a bitch, set in his ways, a creature of a different century who got cranky when the Wi-Fi was slow and thought ‘shrink’ was a word for someone who made your clothes smaller. He’d forgotten anniversaries, said the wrong thing a thousand times, gotten into stupid, public spats that made the tabloids and your life harder. He was, as you’d told him once during a legendary fight, “a monumental pain in the ass wrapped in a leather jacket and a god complex"

But he’d never laid a hand on you. Not in anger. His hands knew your body as a sacred, fragile map. He’d never called you a name that wasn’t a pet name, even the dumb ones. Sweetheart. Doll. Trouble. Especially Trouble, because you were. The best kind.

And now you were round with his kid. The legacy he’d actually give a damn about.

The mattress dips under his weight as he slides in behind you in the bed, the sheets cool silk against his skin until he finds the furnace of your body and molds himself to it. One arm slips under the pillow beneath your head, the other curves possessively over your hip, palm spreading wide across the taut drum of your belly like he’s claiming territory all over again.

You make a soft, distracted sound and try to shift the book higher so you can keep reading.

Ben grunts, low and stubborn, and ducks his head under the hem of the t-shirt without asking. The fabric tents over him, muffling the world, cocooning him in darkness and warmth and the faint salty-sweet scent of your skin. His cheek settles just below your navel, ear pressed flat to the firm curve, stubble rasping gently as he adjusts until he’s exactly where he wants to be.

You sigh, the book lowering an inch. “Ben, I’m literally in the middle of a chapter.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, voice muffled against you, vibrating through skin and muscle and amniotic fluid straight to the tiny tenant inside. “Chapter can wait. Junior’s doing somersaults again and I wanna hear the play-by-play.”

He feels it then—the faint flutter, like bubbles popping under silk. A slow, smug grin spreads across his face you can’t see but can absolutely feel. His hand splays wider, fingers drumming a lazy rhythm. Another kick answers, stronger this time, right against his palm.

“That’s my boy,” he murmurs, pride thick in his throat, something fierce and tender twisting behind his ribs. “Already got his old man’s timing. Knew exactly when to interrupt Mommy’s nerd shit.”