The Almost Sisters(86)

That shocked me. “Birchville? You’d consider Birchville?”

“Sure,” he said. “You got strong ties here. It’s close enough to Montgomery for me to work.”

“It’s maybe not the best place for a mixed-race kid? There’s no church where—” I began, then stopped, embarrassed to realize I was about to explain racism to a black man. He’d surely noticed once or twice, with no help from me at all, that our shared homeland had some trouble in this department. “I’m sorry.” Now I was the one blushing.

He stepped in, close. “Hey, stop. That’s everywhere,” he said. “He’ll be black no matter where we raise him.”

I started to object, because Digby was half mine after all. He would not be black. He’d be— And this time I stopped myself before I got even one word out. Sel Martin was right.

My son was going to be black. Even when he was nursing in my arms, I would be a white woman with a black kid. There was no such thing as mixed-race in the South, or in America for that matter. The whole country had called a mixed-race man our “first black president.” Lou Elle Peterson, who ran Redemption’s All Sisters Service Club, had light gold eyes, and her skin was no darker than Rachel’s got in summer. But she was black. Everyone thought of her as black. I thought of her as black, and when I admitted this, a weird wave of panic washed through me. A thousand Facebook videos I’d cried over became hideously relevant to me in whole new ways. My hands went to my belly, and I shook my head at Sel, all my words stuck inside me now.

“He can never wear a hoodie,” I finally said, which was nonsensical, but I was fully freaking out.

“Okay,” Sel said, very calm. “We have a lot to talk about. But, you know, there’s time.”

I looked at him with drowning eyes, but he was so calm that I felt calmer, too. There was barely a foot of space between us now, and it was good to be this close to him. I could read his gaze, and it was kind on me. He wasn’t thinking I was stupid; he wasn’t blaming me for being blind. He could imagine Digby’s life in ways I couldn’t, and he knew the world our boy would navigate. He was present, already stepping in, stepping up for a son he’d learned only hours ago even existed.

My heart swelled up inside my chest, and he deserved the cape. He’d earned the cowl, and what baby could be safer than this nascent one, now curled up barely a breath away from Batman.

“Okay,” I said, leaning in toward him. “There’s time.”

“Oh, yeah. We’ve only got one immediate problem,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked, and he bent down and kissed me.

No body contact. Only his mouth, firm and sure, fitting itself to mine, seeking a response. My body gave it, swaying into his. Then his hand cupped my neck, reaching under my hair and tangling in it.

My stomach dropped in that weightless, roller-coaster feeling. I lost my breath, and my arms went around him, under the cloak, my fingers remembering the smooth lines of muscle in his back. His free hand was on my hip now, pulling me into him. My heartbeat left my heart and became a beat that happened all over my body. I felt its pulse behind my eyes, in my shaking hands, low down in my belly.

He broke the contact but stayed close.

I drew a ragged breath, and I said, “Damn.”

I could tell myself it was second-trimester hormones. I could tell myself that it was just the cowl. I was old-school nerd—God knew I liked a fellow in a cowl. But it wasn’t only these things, just as it hadn’t been only the tequila that night at FanCon.

Now that he was this close, I remembered his smell. Under the faint, crisp linen of some kind of aftershave was the scent of a man that was this specific man, and it was correct. When he kissed me, it was right like facts were right, like hard science, chemical and sure. I did not know much about Batman, but this part? This part worked. This part worked way too well.

He pushed the cowl off, letting it hang down behind him with the cloak.

“Oh, good. I was worried it was just my puh-problem,” Sel Martin said.

“Nope. That’s both of us,” I said, and he grinned. “Don’t grin like that. This is so scary.” His face changed not at all, so I made stern eyebrows at him. “Really. We need to be careful with each other.” He did not stop grinning.

“Leia freakin’ Birch,” he said, a world of admiration in the words, all kinds, and damn it all if my mouth wasn’t grinning back at him.

Stupid mouth. We’d actually solved exactly nothing. We were still near strangers, and pregnant, and had full lives in separate cities that were far away. We lived in different Americas. His was more dangerous than mine, and our kid was going to live there, too. We’d actually undone one solved thing, because Digby would need a real name in a few short months. But we stood too close, grinning at each other anyway like natural-born fools, like idiots who’d been kissing when we ought to have been having scary talk and making hard decisions.

Brilliant idiots. His hand was still resting on my hip like it belonged there, and I thought maybe the wisest thing I could do would be to pull his face down to my face and kiss him, just a little more.

Which, of course, was the exact same second Birchie started screaming.





20




It was a staccato burst of screams, short and sharp, echoed by a heavy thump and clatter. I ran out the door and back up the hall, spurred on by the sound of breaking glass. Batman ran with me, the deflated cowl flapping at the nape of his neck and his cloak billowing out after us. We passed the stairs, skidding to a stop behind Wattie just as Birchie’s longest scream began, an enraged, near-endless “No!”