"Teddy, no, no, no, it's a sweeping motion. Like this."
"Arizona, I love you, but if you tell me it's a sweeping motion one more time—"
"It's not my fault you started doing YouTube tutorials fifteen minutes before Owen was supposed to pick you up. And liquid eyeliner? Are you serious? It's like paint. You're just going to get it everywhere you don't want it. And for the love of God, the combat boots. We talked about this. They don't match everything just because they're black. Purple dress. Black flats. And honey, lose the eyeliner. No eye makeup tonight, your dress makes your eyes pop enough already. I—Teddy? Are you…crying?"
Damn hormones.
"I'm fine." I looked up and Arizona gasped. "What?"
"Nothing!" she said in a false cheery voice. "Nothing, you just—nothing. I can fix this. Can you hand me those makeup remover wipes—no, don't look in the mirror yet! Just…take some deep breaths. Calm down. I'll fix your eyes and then we'll do your foundation again, okay?"
"Which one was that again?"
"The one you thought was sunscreen, even though it was tan."
"Right. I was wondering why you were making me wear that at night. In Seattle."
"It's just to cover the jet lag until you get back and can get some sleep."
"That noticeable, huh?" I laughed as she started taking the evidence of my eyeliner fiasco away. "It's okay. Makeup crisis, wrong shoes, I couldn't get my dress to zip all the way…it can only get better from here, right?"
"There. All fixed. Look in the mirror, I think I did a pretty good job on such short notice."
I took in my reflection—Arizona was right. My skin, which had been ghostly pale all day because of the Tiny Human, was lightly tanned and almost glowing (she had used something called highlighter which, as it turned out, was not an office supply). As much as I hated to admit it, she was right in telling me to skip the eyeliner—my dress alone did all of the work in bringing out the green of my eyes. I had done my own hair, the one thing I wasn't completely incompetent with—it now fell in loose waves that brushed my shoulders.
"You look incredible," Arizona said.
"I'll go on a date with you next if you want," I teased, walking out of the bathroom and into her living room.
"WAIT," she called, chasing after me. "Boots off. Flats on. Nice try, I'm not letting you get away with that one."
I had just slipped the second shoe onto my foot when the doorbell rang.
"Your soldier's here." Arizona winked.
"Soldier or baby daddy?"
"Both, I guess. You're not still mad at him, are you? It's been a month and a half."
"I'm always mad at him," I said, straightening myself up and silently thanking everything I could possibly thank that I hadn't been nauseous since the plane ride that morning.
"Wow," Owen said when I opened the door. "I…wow."
"Have her home before midnight, she's exhausted," Arizona called from the living room.
"You got it, Robbins," Owen said with a smile, taking my hand to walk to his car. I got in the car biting my lip nervously, hoping it was dark enough that he hadn't seen me blushing when he opened the door for me.
"Ready for the twinkly lights? Haven't you been waiting years to go to this place?"
"Life happened," I said, hoping he wouldn't press any further.
"How's work?" he asked, sensing the need to change the subject. "More importantly, how's your roasted chicken place?"
"Both are good," I said. "The Tiny Human isn't a fan of the roasted chicken place, though. Can you believe that?"
"How dare she."
"She?"
"Or he."
I was laughing more easily than I had in weeks, but thinking about Germany felt like someone had dropped several ice cubes down the back of my dress. Just cold enough to hurt like a bitch.
Dinner passed uneventfully—even sitting down, I managed to go weak in the knees every time I caught Owen gazing at me, and I kicked myself mentally for not having more of a guard up against him. Right on cue, my face burned red when he opened the car door for me again as we left. I told him every detail of every work week I'd had since I had seen him last, not even paying attention when he drove right past Arizona's neighborhood.
"Owen, that was—weren't you supposed to turn there?"
"She said to have you back before midnight. I still have five hours and one more stop left to make."
I could hear where he was taking me before I saw it—we were going down to the waterfront, and I felt every nerve in my body go numb as he put his jacket around my shoulders.
"Just in case you forgot how cold Seattle beaches get," he explained.
"I remember," I said, letting him take my hand as we walked to the shore.
"I wanted to ask you something."
"You want to know what my plan is for the baby." I took the pained expression on his face as a sign that I was right. "To be honest, I don't have one. I was hoping you could help me out with that."
"What do you mean? Six weeks ago, you made a speech about the 'big life' you have at MEDCOM. Am I hearing things or are you telling me your life there isn't so big?"
"It's too big," I admitted. "The job is great. The friends…I made them up. I have coworkers who are too afraid of talking to their boss to come within five feet of me. The truth is I've been really lonely for a long time. I kept telling myself I wasn't, because this job is willing to bend over backwards for me. They took my research, they were going to let me open a clinic—but the longer I've stayed, the more restless I've gotten. When you came to see me, you looked more like home than anything I'd seen since I flew here to see Megan. And when you left, I kept looking for reasons to not be there anymore. I don't have a biological family to come back to, you know that. The only reason I haven't felt like an only child has been because I've had you and Megan for most of my life. But I figured you wouldn't want to see me after I closed the door in your face without giving you enough time to put your shoes on. LA is at least on the west coast, but Megan and Nathan would never let me hear the end of it if I showed up after kicking you out."
"You thought you were trapped."
"Exactly. Until I was sitting on my bathroom floor with three positive pregnancy tests."
"Do you think that was a sign?"
"For me to get the hell out of Germany? Absolutely. First of all, there isn't a child in the world that would get through having me as a single mother unscathed. Not one. I get scared when I think about having kids. Scared that they'll grow up and join the military like we did, and we'll lose them the way we lost our guys. I would be supportive, but Owen…it's worse when it's your child. It has to be. And when I lose things, when I lose people, I get angry and bitter and I replace sleep with coffee until I'm asleep at the nurses' station using a bunch of charts as a pillow and I fell down a rabbit hole with Henry and—"
"Teddy, breathe."
I was crying again. I hadn't been able to tell while I was talking, but I could feel the tears on my face now that Owen's hand was around my arm to ground me again.
"This baby needs both of us, okay? I cannot raise this child on my own."
"You don't have to. I'm here."
He reached out and let his hand brush my shoulder, pulling me into a tight hug, and I let myself collapse into him. I knew what he was doing—the pressure of his arms around me had calmed panic attack after panic attack in the past.
Would you look at that, I thought, still works.
"And you need to be with your child," I said after a minute, his shoulder muffling the sound of my voice.
"What?" He pulled me back.
"All you've wanted since we left Iraq was to settle down and have a family. If you give me about 32 business weeks—I can't take that away from you. You just can't leave, okay? You have to promise me that you won't leave. We need you to be in this."
"We?"
"I'm speaking on behalf of myself and the tiny human who won't be able to talk in full sentences for a year or two."
"I am in this," he insisted. "For you and the tiny human."
"You have a big heart and it's one of my favorite things about you. It just makes you do crazy things sometimes. And I—we—can't do crazy right now."
He bent down and kissed my forehead, the only part of my face that he knew I wouldn't object to him kissing if I was upset.
"No crazy. I promise."
"So what do we do now? I resign from my job and move home and we go from there?"
"Move in with me."
I stepped back, twisting to free myself from his arms.
"What did I just say about crazy?"
"We don't have to act like a married couple immediately. Roommates first? Roommates that go on dates sometimes?"
I laughed nervously. "You really want more dates after this?"
He kissed my forehead again.
"I want a lifetime."
We didn't speak the rest of the way back to the car, but there was a definite shift in the atmosphere between us. We were not back to normal, but we'd had some kind of breakthrough. And it had drained the life out of me.
Owen drove like he was guarding something, much slower and more carefully than he had before, and I leaned against the window and let myself drift off. In and out of dreams, I felt the car stop, and a minute later, Owen's arms reached over to unbuckle my seatbelt and lift me up. Before I could even stop myself, I wrapped my arms around his neck.
"What the hell did you do to her?" Arizona hissed as she opened the door.
"Nothing," Owen said defensively. "We just…it's been a rough night. Emotionally. Do you mind if I stay here with her? Just until she wakes up and I know she's okay, and then I'll be out of your hair, I promise."
"Fine," Arizona said. "But I want you gone before Sofia gets up."
"Deal," Owen said, and I snuggled even closer into his chest.
He tucked me into bed, almost as if I were, I realized, his wife. And since I was supposed to be completely asleep, I didn't fight it when he got in bed next to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. It didn't feel weird or unnatural. It was the kind of affection I hadn't gotten from anyone since Henry. His arms were strong, but not overbearing. He was safe, and I fell asleep faster and more easily than I had in weeks.
He felt good.