Swiftcurrent Creek Rolling through the garden

With her agreement, the dark Mayfair sidles closer, eyes grazing over the plants that he had once helped Eshe plant—something that seemed a lifetime ago. This could have been he and Eshe, in an alternate universe—and in that moment, he felt a shift of relief that it wasn’t, rather than guilt.

Clearly, neither had been what the other had thought or wanted—and puppies were always the ones to suffer from such a thing.

When he looked up, his eyes landed upon the rather large swell of her stomach—it wasn’t like he had meant to… but she was rather… big, in her pregnancy, and when she made a comment as such, he couldn’t help but choke on some saliva—as if she had been reading his mind.

Coughing roughly into his forearm, he tried to clear his throat, interrupting her for a moment and turning away. When he had finally gathered himself—he turned back to her—purposely not looking at her stomach. “I didn’t notice,” he offered in his best nonchalance voice—dutifully beginning to pluck away at the brown leaves as she had told him to do.