The room had become the designated staging area for their hospital bags.

Through the gap in the doorway, Erin saw Ben kneeling beside her open leather overnight bag.

His shoulders were rigid, tense, moving quickly with a hurried, secretive desperation.

He didn’t hear her approach at first.

She held her breath, instinctively stepping back into the shadows of the hallway, and watched him slip a heavy, cream-colored envelope into the small zippered pocket on the side.

He zipped it shut with a sharp, metallic hiss, then pressed his hand flat over it for a second as if making sure it stayed hidden, or perhaps offering a silent prayer over whatever words were locked inside.

Erin stopped in the doorway, her toe catching slightly on the threshold.

“Ben?”

He jumped so hard he nearly dropped the heavy leather bag, his knee skidding against the carpet.

He spun around, his eyes wide, his chest heaving as if he had just been caught committing a crime.

For one strange, agonizing second, they just stared at each other across the expanse of the guest room.

The air between them felt thick, vibrating with the sudden, undeniable reality that a line had just been crossed.

Then he forced a smile, though his breathing was still ragged.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” he said, trying to inject a light, breezy tone into his voice.

“The doctor said keep your feet up.”

She didn’t smile back.

She looked directly at the bag.

“What was that?” her voice was quiet, but it cut through the room sharply.

His face changed.

Just slightly.

A microscopic tightening of his jaw, a brief flicker of panic in his brown eyes.

But enough.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing doesn’t usually come in sealed envelopes,” she countered, crossing her arms over her chest.

He stood up too fast, wiping his palms on his thighs, putting physical distance between himself and the evidence.

“It’s not a big deal.”

That was the absolute wrong thing to say.

Because when a woman is days away from giving birth, heavily sleep-deprived, intensely emotional, and already carrying the crushing weight of a thousand silent fears about motherhood and labor, “it’s not a big deal” only means one thing.

It is absolutely a big deal.

Erin crossed her arms over her stomach, a deeply protective, maternal gesture, and looked at him carefully, trying to read the micro-expressions she knew better than her own face.

“What are you hiding from me?”

Ben ran a hand through his dark hair, gripping the strands at the back of his neck.

He always did that when he was utterly cornered and desperately trying not to say the wrong thing.

“I wasn’t hiding anything, Erin.

Come on.

Let’s just go lay down.”

“You literally put it in my bag when you thought I wouldn’t see,” she said, her voice rising now, the exhaustion evaporating into sharp, focused clarity.