Page 121 of Moonlighter

“Sleep well, honey. I can’t wait to meet my granddaughter.”

My stupid eyes fill. “Night dad.”

We hang up, and I shut out the light. Then I curl up in the center of my giant bed. I take one of my many pillows and tuck it between my knees. Then I grab another and hug it in my arms. Sleeping while eight months pregnant is hard. It requires props. Or the hard body of a man—

No. It does not require that.

I close my eyes.

“Alexxxxx!”someone bellows.

My eyes fly open in the dark, and my heart is already pounding.

I hear a muted thud. Like a body falling against my front door. “Alex, baby! I need to speak to you!”

As I wake up quickly, I realize that’s Eric’s voice. Eric’s very drunk voice. And he seems to be outside my apartment.

With a groan, I throw my pillows out of the way and heave myself off the bed. As I approach the front door, I hear Duff out there trying to reason with him.

“Eric, buddy, I can see that you have a few things on your mind. But maybe sleep on it? You can come back tomorrow.”

“Alex! It can’t wait!”

“Cut it out,” Duff complains. “I like you, and I don’t want to pull rank, here. But if you keep yelling, I’ll put you in a headlock and stuff you into that elevator. It’s, like, literally my job.”

I’m right outside the door now, and Eric switches to a stage whisper. “Alex! Open the door!”

I yank it open. “This better be good. I wassleeping. After the longest day of my career, I was out cold.”

“Dude,” says a man I’ve never seen before. “Rough start. But you can turn this around. I believe in you. When you know, you know.”

“When you know, you know!” crows a drunken Eric. His beautiful gray eyes are a little unfocused, but he’s grinning at me. “Alex, baby, let me in. We gotta talk.”

“Who’s that?” I demand, pointing at the stranger.

“My cousin,” Eric slurs. “He’s the newest Bayer on the Bruisers. That’s what twenty-two and optimistic looks like.”

“I’ll show them both the door,” Duff says. “So sorry about this.”

But I have a feeling that hurricane Eric won’t leave quietly. My quickest path back to bed is just to hear the man out. “You have five minutes,” I say with a sigh, widening the door. “Start talking.”

“You got this, buddy!” says the cousin in the Bruisers T-shirt. “You’re right. Sheisa hot whale.”

“Whatdid you just call me?” I yelp.

“He saidfox tail,” Duff says quickly. “They’ve been, um, drinking.”

“Gosh, really?” I wave Eric inside, and then close the door. “I was sleeping, and I’d like to do that again soon. So what did you need to say?”

Eric paces into my darkened foyer and stands in the middle of the marble floor. “You know how people say I was just in the neighborhood?”

“Yeah?” I tap my foot.

“Well, I was just nowhere near yours, but there’s always Lyft, you know? And I realized I had something to say to you, Alex. In my whole life, I thought I never would say these words.”

That’s some build up. I just cross my arms over my giant tummy and wait.

He throws his hands out to the sides. “I love you, and I think we should get married.”