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Holding down the home button on my phone, I waited for Siri to prompt me and told her to call Sincere.

“Hey, love. Got your sna?—”

“Sin, I can’t go anywhere. I’m sorry, I don’t feel good.” Every word I spoke pushed me closer to another torrent of tears and my voice cracked on the last one.

Sincere apparently heard the tears too because a silent beat passed before I heard footsteps headed down the hall to my room.

“Can I come in?” he said into the phone when he reached my door.

“Please,” I groaned.

Relief flooded me when the door opened and he rushed to my side. “Hey, love. What’s wrong?”

“I have cramps and it hurts to do everything right now.”

His hand landed softly against my back, rubbing in slow circles while his eyes darted over my face. He tried to mask the sadness in his eyes before I could see it, but I did and it made me sadder. I felt guilty for making him worry and more moisture coated my cheeks.

“What do you need right now?” Sin’s soft voice soothed me while the soft press of his fingers under my shirt gave me a sliver of comfort. The pain wasn’t the kind that could be massaged away, but having him this close felt better than being alone.

“Can you just stay here with me?”

“Of course, love.” He gingerly scooped me up and carried me to the head of the bed, placing me against a mountain of pillows before he swiped away the mess on my face.

He climbed in with me and cuddled me to his side, his soft murmurs pulling me out of my panic a little more.

Sincere stayed with me all day, brought me food when my appetite finally returned and let me nap off and on across his lap while he worked on his iPad.

“What are you working on?” I asked quietly.

“Researching vendors for if I wanted to bake on a larger scale.”

“A larger scale like a bakery?” I asked, hope swelling and pushing down some of the pain.

“Mhmm,” Sincere replied, using his Apple Pencil to write something on his screen.

“Does that mean I can hire you when my store opens?”

He hedged. “I don’t know about that yet. I’m just seeing what’s out there for now.”

“I’m proud of you,” I said, nuzzling deeper into his touch.

“Don’t say that yet. I haven’t done anything.” He tried to laugh off my praise but I cut my eyes up at him as best I could in my predicament.

“You don’t need to do anything for me to say I’m proud of you and mean it, Sincere. You don’t have to downplay who you are until you do something you think is worthy of praise. Because I’ll always find a way to remind you of how amazing you are for simply existing.”

Sincere didn’t speak, but he did set his iPad to the side and kiss along my hairline. “Okay.”

“Now, let’s try this again. Sincere, I’m so fucking proud of you.”

A dry snort of laughter escaped before he followed up, “Thank you, Goldyn.”

His acceptance lulled me to sleep that afternoon and when I woke up again, Sincere was knocked out on my left while Rome took up space on my right, quietly reading a book beside us.

The pain in my abdomen was at about a three right now compared to the raging ten from earlier, so when I sat up to greet him, my smile was real instead of a grimace.

“What are you reading?” His phone was in dark mode so I couldn’t see much more than a white blur of words on the screen as my eyes adjusted to being awake. The only light on in the room was the little lamp on my nightstand.

“The Fifth Seasonby N.K. Jemisin.”