Grace’s POV
Six weeks pregnant, and the nausea has become my unwelcome alarm clock, dragging me from sleep at dawn with violent urgency.
I barely make it to the bathroom before my body rebels, emptying itself of whatever I managed to keep down from dinner.
Cole's already there, he's learned the schedule of my morning sickness better than I have, holding my hair back with one hand while the other rubs gentle circles on my spine.
"It’s okay," he murmurs, the same words every morning, a ritual of comfort. "I've got you."
When the worst passes and I'm slumped against the bathtub, Ryan appears in the doorway with ginger tea, steam curling from the mug like worried fingers.
He hovers with concern that makes my chest ache with guilt so sharp it rivals the nausea.
"Small sips," Ryan says, crouching beside me while Cole steps back, the two of them choreographing their care around each other. "The doctor said ginger helps most women."
"Thank you," I manage between careful sips, avoiding both their eyes because looking at either of them hurts too much.
This has become our morning routine—Cole with physical comfort, Ryan with practical solutions, me drowning in the space between them.
I haven't been to Ryan's bed in two weeks. Every night I tell myself I should, that I owe him that much after everything he's sacrificed, everything he's accepted.
But when darkness falls, my feet carry me down the hall to Cole's room instead.
To the arms that feel like home even though they're the wrong ones, to whispered confessions that we're careful to keep quiet enough that Ryan won't hear.
Tonight, standing in the hallway at the crossroads between their doors, I force myself to turn left instead of right.
Ryan looks up from his book, surprise flickering across his face when I slip under his covers. "Grace? Is everything okay?"
"Is this okay?" I ask, though the question encompasses more than just climbing into his bed. "Me being here?"
"Of course." His voice warms as he sets the book aside, pulling me close with the careful gentleness he's adopted since learning about the pregnancy.
His hand settles protectively over my still-flat stomach, thumb stroking through my nightgown. "Our baby."
The words twist like a knife between my ribs. Our baby. Not biologically, never biologically, but Ryan has claimed this child with the same determination he brings to everything else in life.
I let him touch me, let his hands wander with intent that's become familiar again these past weeks.
"I've missed you," he says against my neck, already shifting to position himself above me. "Two weeks is too long."
"I didn't want to assume," I lie, because the truth, that I've been in Cole's bed every one of those fourteen nights, would destroy everything.
Ryan moves inside me with gentle care, treating me like spun glass that might shatter from rough handling.
It's nothing like the desperate passion he showed weeks ago when he was trying to reclaim me, nothing like Cole's intensity that makes me forget my own name. This is careful, considerate, clinical almost in its precision.
"You're so beautiful," he whispers, maintaining his steady rhythm. "Pregnancy makes you glow. I've never seen you happier."
"Ryan…" I start, but he mistakes my tone for encouragement.
"Everything is finally working out," he continues, his breath warm against my ear. "We're having a baby, Cole's here to help, the arrangement is perfect. We found a solution that works for everyone."
I stare at the ceiling, biting my lip hard enough to taste copper to keep from crying. He's so confident in his assessment, so certain that we've solved all our problems with contracts and arrangements.
And he has no idea that Cole and I whispered "I love you" in a dirty motel room just yesterday, that his best friend's child growing inside me is loved desperately by its real father.
"I'm close," Ryan says, his movements becoming more urgent. "Together?"
I fake it, arching my back and moaning his name with practiced performance, because it's kinder than the truth. He follows immediately, groaning his release while I feel nothing but the weight of deception.
After, Ryan falls asleep with his arm around me, his hand possessively splayed over my stomach even in sleep. I lie awake, drowning in thoughts that chase each other in endless circles.
How can I leave him?
The thought tortures me as I watch him sleep, peaceful and content. He gave me Cole when he could have let our marriage die of neglect.
He accepted another man's baby without question, without anger, with actual joy. He's trying so hard to heal, to be the husband I need, to make this bizarre situation work.
I think of Cole down the hall, probably lying awake, probably wondering why I didn't come, probably feeling the rejection like a physical wound.
My heart splits in two different directions, pulled apart by competing needs and wants and obligations.
He's not a bad man, I remind myself about Ryan. He's sick, broken by the accident, traumatized by the loss of his identity as a future father.
His body betrayed him first with infertility he never knew about, then with the inability to want me. What kind of monster abandons their husband when he needs them most?
What kind of wife takes everything he offers, his blessing, his best friend, his acceptance of another man's child, and then leaves him anyway?
But I love Cole. The admission burns through me with undeniable truth. Desperately, completely, with a depth that terrifies me because I've never felt anything like it.
Not even with Ryan in our best days, when we were young and thought love was about plans and schedules and checking boxes on life's to-do list.
At 3 AM, I carefully extract myself from Ryan's arms, padding to the bathroom on silent feet.
The hallway is dark, but Cole's door is cracked open—he's awake, watching for me like he does every night when I don't come to him.
Our eyes meet across the darkness, and a thousand unspoken words pass between us.
"I had to," I whisper, barely audible, an explanation and an apology wrapped in three words.
"I know," he says, but his eyes say something completely different. They say: Choose me. Stop splitting yourself in half. Stop pretending this is sustainable.
"Go." He steps back into his room but doesn't close the door. "He'll wonder where you are."
I return to Ryan's bed with leaden feet, slipping back under the covers beside my husband.
He mumbles something in his sleep and pulls me closer, and I lie there hating myself for wanting to be somewhere else—someone else's bed, someone else's arms, someone else's life.
I hate myself more for not being strong enough to choose, to pick one path and walk it regardless of the casualties.
The baby flutters for the first time—so faint I might be imagining it, but there. Cole's baby, growing inside me while I lie in Ryan's arms, the perfect metaphor for this impossible situation we've created.
I press my hand over Ryan's, over the place where our lives have become so tangled that I don't know how to separate them without destroying everything.
Dawn will come soon, bringing another day of pretending this is working, another day of morning sickness and ginger tea and two men who both have claim to me in different ways.
Another day of loving where I shouldn't and staying where I can't and carrying a child who will grow up in the wreckage of whatever we're about to become.