Last Call

Marlowe is thirty-two weeks pregnant and building the communications strategy for the biggest product launch of her career. She is also lying to every person she loves. The lie started small. A single omission. A thing she didn't correct when she should have, and now the architecture of her life is load-bearing on a secret that gets heavier with every week. He doesn't know. He's painting the nursery on weekends, researching car seats with the focus of someone preparing for a mission, and talking about the future with a certainty that makes her chest hurt. He is a good man doing a good thing with information that isn't true. You know everything. You'll see every conversation from both sides. Every moment where the truth almost surfaces and doesn't. Every choice she makes to protect the lie and every choice he makes because he trusts her. The clock is biological. The due date doesn't move. And the distance between what Marlowe is carrying and what she's hiding is collapsing toward a single, unavoidable moment. Someone is going to break. You'll know it's coming before either of them does.