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Mark moves over to calm my dad himself, reaching out to stop his hands from messing with the tubes that he’s hooked to but dad grabs his hand with full force, gripping him hard and holding his eye.
I hear myself gasping aloud, feeling helpless.
Exposed.
Mark draws a breath to speak, but dad cuts him off.
Like it might be the one chance he has to say anything before it’s too late at all.
“Just don’t stand here and tell me you’re stealing her away to get back at me you sonofabitch! Tell me you love her, that you’ll marry her and give her your everything or tell her the truth to her face right now!” he tries to yell but winces back in pain.
A nurse appears from behind the curtain as machines beep out of control all over again.
“That’s it,” she announces. “Everybody out, I don’t care who you are, this man needs complete rest and no excitement,” she says loudly, her wide eyes glaring at us both as Mark holds up his hands in surrender.
My dad lapsing into unconsciousness yet again as Mark guides me out by the shoulders.
I feel like an idiot.
The stupid rouse with the interview, coming back to the hospital with Mark of all people so soon.
Maybe dad’s right.
Maybe he’s always been right.
He can see through my girlish plans and dreams, but at the end of the day, he’s just being realistic.
How on earth could a guy like Dr. Mark Love fall for a girl like me?
Could he really commit to me for more than something which I figure must’ve just been a fling?
Once we’re out of the ward, Mark wastes no time in explaining my fears away.
“I love you, Evelyn. You know I do,” he tells me, gripping my shoulders and looking me square in the eyes with an intensity that far outweighs my dad’s outburst.
But he’s just as worried about the effect of my dad’s words as he must know I am.
“We’re getting out of here, just for now. Your dad will be fine,” Mark announces gruffly, telling me he’s taking me home.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mark
She doesn’t want to go home though, and she tells me so. The tears she’s held back all this time, my brave girl. They’re threatening to flow like a river now after her dad’s performance.
“I don’t mean that home, Evelyn. I mean our home. The home I promised you on our first night. The home that’s here, forever,” I insist, beating my own chest against my heart with a fist out of sheer frustration.
The elevator opens and I move her with me out of it, gripping her by the arm until I realize I don’t have a car here. Nowhere to go really.
Just us as we are.
“I love you, Evelyn,” I tell her again, turning her with both hands to face me. “I want you like nothing else on this earth. I need you like air. More than air,” I confess.
She looks confused, nearly scared until I tell her the one thing I know I should have said sooner.
“I want you to be mine forever, don’t you get it? Like man and wife forever,” I finally manage to hear myself say out loud.
Relieved when I can hear the words.
She still looks confused, but a smile curls on her lips before she looks up at me, sniffing back her emotions.
“It’s not a proposal dammit,” I growl. “It’s a… A… proposition. We can try things. Just for a while if it makes you feel better. And when you like, we can-”
“When I like?” she retorts. “So… you’re asking me to move in with you?” she coos, teasing me now, knowing how much I want her to say yes to everything.
Why is she playing with me now? I thought she was worried about her dad?
I’ve never seen her happier, I realize suddenly. Never seen her in her own element more than when she’s watching me squirm a little.
But I’m not squirming.
I’m not.
“I’m taking you home, Evelyn. That’s that. We can talk, shout or argue about anything you want but I won’t live another day without you by my side. Do you hear me?” I tell her.
She hears me, and the softness of her lips meet mine as she leaps into my arms answers everything.
A kiss is just a kiss, or is it?
Sometimes we can live a lifetime through a kiss, and each kiss with Evelyn is like a lifetime on its own. Our own world that neither of us wants to break open until we really have to.
“I love you. Dr. Love,” she says firmly as I set her down again.
“And I’ll go anywhere. Do anything, even move in with you if that’s what it takes to prove it,” she adds, growling her voice to try and sound like me when I’m pretending to be mad.
I pull her into my arms tighter than I should, hearing her squeak as I squeeze the air out of her.
