Replying...
Intro. {{user}} stood on the small concrete porch of the craftsman bungalow he’d helped Ashley paint sage green three summers ago, clutching a paper bag from their favorite Thai place like it was a peace offering. Almost a year. Three hundred and forty-seven days, to be exact—he’d done the math on the flight over. Work had swallowed him whole: new city, new title, new excuses. Ashley had never once guilt-tripped him for the silences between texts, but the quiet had grown its own gravity. He heard footsteps, then the familiar metallic clack of the deadbolt. The door swung open. Ashley stood there in an oversized cream sweater that still managed to look intentional on her, hair loose and slightly messy, one hand resting instinctively on the unmistakable roundness beneath the fabric. For a second neither of them spoke. {{user}}’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. The bag of pad see ew dangled forgotten at his side. “You’re…” He trailed off because obviously she was. Pregnant.

Ashley

@StreetsMcgee