Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 33887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 169(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 113(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 169(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 113(@300wpm)
After he said that, he slid the wine bottle toward me to share silently that not only had my body given it away, I had.
“Though, I couldn’t be sure,” he said. “Last night, you confirmed it.”
“Are you angry?”
His head jerked. “Am I what?”
“Angry,” I whispered.
His brows drew down. “Why would I be angry?”
“You don’t want kids.”
“I don’t?”
“You do?”
“With you?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“Yes,” he stated firmly.
Yes.
He’d said Yes!
Firmly.
Fuck!
I was going to cry again.
“You thought I’d be mad?” he asked.
“You told me you didn’t want kids.”
“I said a lot of things when I was being an idiot,” he pointed out. “Is that why you didn’t tell me right away? You thought I’d be mad?”
“You told Chloe last night that her room would never be the nursery.”
“Of course it won’t be the nursery. It’s all the way across the apartment from our room. The nursery is going to be next door.”
Those butterflies were fluttering so much, it felt like they were going to explode and take me with them.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“I thought you weren’t telling me because you weren’t happy we got pregnant,” he noted.
“Why wouldn’t I be happy?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Your career is just taking off, and you kind of ride the far edge of ambition. We aren’t married yet and haven’t begun to plan our wedding. We haven’t had a lot of time together, just you and me.”
“Are those reasons why you might not be happy?”
“Who says I’m not happy?”
“Are you happy?”
“That you’re having my kid?”
Was this conversation amazing, or annoying? I couldn’t tell.
“Yes, Hale,” I said with as much patience as I could muster. “That I’m having our child.”
“The only problem I have with it is that Dad didn’t know how to be a father, but I know, working with you and me, he’d have been a great grandfather, and our kid is never going to know how great of a grandfather he actually has.”
Oh God.
It started happening again, the tears falling, this time silently.
“Baby,” he whispered, watching them trace down my face.
“So you’re happy,” I said in a husky voice, just to make sure.
“Happy isn’t the word for it,” he replied “There isn’t a word big enough for it, Elsa. I love you. I love kids. I love that our lives are going to be fuller and richer with having our own. I love that we get to give that to our families.” He cocked his head to the side and asked, “Are you happy?”
“I’m so happy I think I’m about to burst, literally in the literal sense of that word. I have butterflies in my belly, and they’re going berserk.”
“You got something else in there too.”
I sure did.
And my man was happy she (or he) was there.
More tears fell.
“Why are you all the way over there?” I asked.
“Because if I get near you right now, I might crush you with the hug I want to give you, and we can’t have that.”
God, I loved him.
More tears fell as we stared at each other.
Hale broke the silence, and he did it to say gently, “Don’t ever be afraid of telling me something, baby. No matter if you think I might get mad. And never go through anything alone. It’s what I give you, having someone to go through shit with. Don’t do that to yourself, and don’t take that honor from me.”
Oh my God!
If you’d asked me one minute ago if I could love him more, I’d say it was impossible.
But the impossible just happened in a huge way.
“I have to admit, I was so worried you’d be upset, I asked Genny how to handle it,” I confessed. “That’s why I’m late tonight, not work. I went to meet Genny.”
He didn’t get angry about that either.
He nodded and murmured, “Understandable.”
I had more to share, so I did that.
“She corralled Mika and Nora into a Wise Woman Session so they know too. But I’ve sworn them to secrecy, and Nora made up some cocktail on the spot to cement their Wise Woman Promise to me they’d keep their mouths shut, and they drank to it. I think in Nora, Genny and Mika terms that’s akin to a hand on a bible in front of a judge, so we’re good until we’re ready to share widely. I didn’t imbibe in the cocktail, for obvious reasons, but I’m looking forward to tasting it about a year from now.”
“A year?”
“I’m going to breastfeed.”
“Ah,” he murmured. “So?” he prompted.
I gave him what he didn’t exactly ask for but I knew he’d still asked for it.
“I’m two months. It happened on Turks and Caicos. March baby. Apparently, you’re supposed to abstain during fertile times, which is clearly something I blocked out when I read the prescription pamphlet. You figured it out, but I was going to tell you tonight. Having a surprise new stylist averted my path, but you need to know, I was going to tell you. And we have a doctor’s appointment next week for follow up and some pregnancy insight, and my obstetrician and I would like you to be there.”