Page 47 of Smoke Signals

“You ever notice how nobody warns you that pregnancy turns your spine into a suggestion?”

“I think they try,” I say, adjusting the pillow under her head. “People just don’t listen.”

She snorts.

I warm the oil between my palms and place my hands carefully at her lower back, easing into the pressure slowly. Her muscles are tight under my fingers, tension braided deep along either side of her spine.

“Oh, thank God,” she groans. “I swear this kid is using my spine as a jungle gym.”

“Probably accurate.”

We sit in the quiet for a minute, the kind that usually settles easily between us. Today it doesn’t, because my brain keeps replaying a pair of steady blue eyes and the feel of callused fingers touching my body.

Brielle’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

“So,” she says casually. “You gonna tell me what’s going on, or am I guessing?”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not⁠—”

“You’re literally blushing,” she says, twisting enough to look at me over her shoulder.

Heat crawls up my neck.

“I hate you.”

“You love me,” she sings, then narrows her eyes. “Did you get laid or did you fall in love?”

“Jesus, Brielle.” My hands still briefly before I force them to keep moving.

“What?” she says innocently. “Those are the two looks.”

“I don’t have a look.”

“You absolutely have a look.”

I press my thumb into a knot a little harder than necessary.

She hisses. “Okay, hostile is also a look.”

I exhale slowly through my nose. “It’s… complicated.”

“So it’s woman issues.”

“No…not technically.”

“Oh my God,” she says, voice lighting up. “It’s a man.”

My hands freeze for half a second before I recover.

She gasps dramatically. “I knew it.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know you’re too emotionally constipated for a normal straight relationship.”