Chapter 7 Execution Mode

Erika’s POV

Dr. Kirk didn’t sugarcoat it.

“His numbers have dropped since last week,” she said, pulling up Theo’s chart on the screen and turning it so I could see. “He’s not in immediate danger, but the window is narrower than I’d like. If we’re going to move forward, sooner is better than later.”

Damien stood beside my chair. He’d been standing since we walked in, arms crossed, reading every number on that screen before Dr. Kirk could explain it.

“How narrow?” he asked.

“Well, the sooner Erika conceives, the sooner we can plan around a delivery timeline that lines up with Theo’s treatment.”

I looked at Theo through the glass partition. He was in the playroom down the hall with a nurse, building a tower out of foam blocks. He knocked it over and laughed so hard he fell on his side.

“We’re already married,” I said. “We’ll start trying immediately.”

Dr. Kirk glanced between us. Whatever she read in the three feet of space between my chair and where Damien stood, she kept to herself.

“Good. I’ll put together a fertility-friendly protocol. I’ll have it sent over by the end of the day.”

“Send it to me,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”

Damien looked down at me but didn’t argue.

***

I handled it.

By the end of that week I had a shared calendar synced to both our phones, color-coded. I printed out a meal plan and taped it to the inside of a cabinet door.

Damien came home that night and opened the cabinet for a glass.

He stared at the meal plan for a long time.

“Erika.”

“Mm?” I was cross-referencing Dr. Kirk’s supplement list against a medical journal article on my laptop.

“There’s a spreadsheet taped to my kitchen.”

“It’s a meal plan. Tuesday is salmon. Don’t make that face, it’s good for sperm motility.”

He shut the cabinet.

“Sperm motility?” He laughed.

I stared blankly at him. “Yes. In case you don’t know, it’s a medical fact. Omega-3 fatty acids improve—”

“I know what they improve.”

“Then eat the salmon.”

He rubbed his jaw and then left the room. I heard him open a beer in the next room and decided not to mention that alcohol was on the list of things to reduce.

Not yet, anyway. I’d ease him into it.

The truth was, having a plan helped. Plans I could do. Plans made the panic manageable.

If I could organize every hour, every meal, every vitamin, then the terror, the thing underneath all of it, stayed in its box.

I couldn’t afford to fall apart. Theo needed me functional, and functional meant every last detail under control.

Damien was cooperative, mostly. He ate the salmon on Tuesday. He took the supplements without complaining. He went for a run in the mornings when I told him exercise helped, even though I was pretty sure he’d already been running before I came along.

But he wouldn’t give up the coffee.

“It’s one cup,” he said on Tuesday morning, holding it away from me when I reached for it.

“Dr. Kirk said to limit caffeine intake.”

“She said to limit. This is one cup. I’ve limited.”

“You had two yesterday.”

“The second one was decaf.”

“It was not decaf, Damien. I watched you make it!”

He took a long sip while looking directly at me and set the mug down on the counter. “Erika. I will eat your salmon. I will take your vitamins. I will run your miles. But you’re going to have to kill me for this coffee.”

“Fine.” I pulled out my phone and made a note. Damien: refuses to reduce coffee. Potential fertility impact: moderate. Revisit.

He read it over my shoulder and snorted. I ignored him.

The coffee was a lost cause. I crossed it off my list and moved on to sleep schedules.

On Wednesday I was on the phone with Dr. Kirk’s office when Damien came through the front door. I held up one finger to tell him to wait.

“—yes, we got the results,” I said. “The count is excellent. Morphology and motility are both well above average. So from his side, everything looks good for conception.”

Damien set his briefcase down on the counter. He looked at me.

“Mm-hm. And should we adjust the supplement dosage or keep it the same?” I pulled the phone from my ear and covered it. “Your sperm analysis came back,” I told him. “Everything’s great. You’re very fertile.”

I went back to the call.

He stood in his own kitchen holding his keys and his briefcase, his brows furrowed. He set the keys down very carefully and walked out of the room.

I finished the call and found him in the living room with his jacket still on, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“What’s wrong?”

“Did you just announce my sperm results to me in a hallway while I was holding groceries?”

“Well…” I licked my lips. “The results are good. I thought you’d want to know.”

“I do want to know. Privately. In a room. With the door closed. Not while you’re on speakerphone with a nurse.”

“Fine.” I crossed my arms. Why was he being so difficult? “Next time I’ll text you the numbers!”

“Please don’t text me the numbers.”

“Then how do you want to receive your sperm results, Damien?”

He looked at the ceiling. He looked at the floor. He took off his jacket and hung it on the back of a chair.

“Dinner,” he said finally. “Just tell me at dinner.”

I swallowed hard.

***

I woke up Thursday morning pressed against him.

My face was in his neck. My hand was flat on his bare chest. My leg was hooked over his thigh, knee tucked between both of his, and his arm was under me, curled around my waist like it had been there all night.

I froze.

His heartbeat was under my palm. He smelled like skin and the soap from last night’s shower.

Move, I told myself. Right now. Before he wakes up.

I peeled my hand off him and inched my leg back, rolling onto my own side as slowly as I could. The mattress shifted under me and he stirred. I closed my eyes and faked sleep so hard I gave myself a headache.

He went still again. I cracked one eye open.

He was awake. He was looking at the ceiling. His jaw was set and he hadn’t moved his arm—it was still stretched across the space where I’d been lying, the warmth of me probably still in the sheets under his forearm.

He didn’t say anything.

I didn’t say anything.

After a minute he got up and went to the bathroom. I heard the shower turn on and I lay there with my heart slamming against my ribs and his warmth still on my skin.

That night I put a pillow between us.

He came to bed, looked at the pillow, and looked at me.

“It’s a boundary pillow,” I said.

“A boundary pillow.”

“I move in my sleep. This will help.”

“Help with what?”

“With the moving.”

He got into bed on his side of the pillow. I lay on mine. The pillow sat between us like a small, stupid wall.

“This doesn’t bother you?” I asked.

“Nothing you do bothers me, Erika.” He turned off the lamp. “I am completely unbothered.”

He did not sound unbothered.

And me?

I could still feel his heartbeat under my hand, even though my hand was on my own stomach now, and the pillow between us smelled like his shampoo.

None of that was on any spreadsheet I’d ever made.