JaxonRena directs me to the nursery as soon as I arrive for my weekly visit with Skye and our unborn pup. She doesn’t walk me through, assuming I know the way. Odd, since normally I’m treated like a spy attempting to steal state secrets the minute I show up to the gate.The nursery door is partially open when I make it upstairs. I hear them before I see them—Skye's voice, dry and patient, and Nicolai's, which carries the tone of a man arguing with an inanimate object and losing.I push the door open quietly. I know I shouldn’t eavesdrop, should announce myself. I don’t. Skye is in the nursing chair, both hands resting on her belly, watching Nicolai on the floor with the expression of someone managing a situation they find equal parts frustrating and entertaining.Nicolai is surrounded. A baby swing, it appears, in component form. Pieces arranged on the floor in what might be an attempt at the diagram's layout, or might be the aftermath of something that started organized and devolved
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