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Luke went to where my cell was charging and disconnected it from its charging station. He sat on the bed beside me and I took the phone, searching through my contacts until I found Professor Gibson’s number.
I texted her a short message that I was sick and wouldn’t be in class, asking for any readings that were assigned for the following week that weren’t on the syllabus.
Then I lay back and closed my eyes.
“This will pass,” he said and took my hand once more, stroking it. “Just another six weeks or so. Piece of cake.”
“Don’t mention cake,” I said and made a face of disgust.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said with a laugh and leaned down to nuzzle me, his nose in the crook of my neck. “I won’t mention food again. Can I get you anything? Ginger ale? Peppermint tea?”
I sighed, my eyes still closed. “Ugh.”
I heard him
chuckle. “Do you want me to leave you alone? Or do you want me to stay in here with you? We could watch television.”
“If you need to go to work, go ahead. You don’t have to stay here and look after me. I’ll be fine.”
“No way,” he said and lay down, propping a pillow behind his head. “I’m here for the long term. I’ll watch the news. John and I can text if he needs anything from me. If we need to talk, we can Skype.”
For the rest of the day, we stayed in bed, with me dozing on and off, my nausea gradually lessening as the day wore on. By three in the afternoon, I felt totally normal and was able to eat an actual meal of chicken, salad and a whole wheat bun.
“You looked hungry,” Luke said, watching while I ate my meal brought up by the room service staff.
“I was hungry. It smelled good and I actually wanted to eat it. Thank God. Maybe my morning sickness really will only be in the morning. I could work around it if so. I can talk to my advisor and see if I can switch my office hours and maybe I can drop my morning class and take one later in the day.”
“I’m sure if you explain, they’ll try to accommodate you.”
I shrugged. “They don’t expect students to get married and have babies. They expect doctoral students to be focused on study.”
“We’ll make it work,” Luke said, his voice firm. “Don’t stress about it.”
He leaned over and kissed me, then took our meal trays away and placed the serving cart they came on outside of the room.
“You’ve got to call Candace and your parents, get them to come for the wedding. Will you tell them you’re pregnant or wait?”
I made a face, not sure what to do. “Maybe we should wait. I mean, considering how many conceptions fail to come to term, I might be getting them all excited over nothing.”
“We’re still getting married,” Luke said, frowning. “I don’t want to wait. I want to marry you anyway, so we’ll go ahead, and we’ll tell everyone you’re pregnant when you’re more like twelve weeks along.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait?” I asked. “Your mother will hate it when she finds out I’m pregnant. She’ll claim I trapped you into marrying me.”
Luke took my face in his hands and looked in my eyes. “Alexa, I’m marrying you because I love you, not because it’s the right thing to do. We can get married tomorrow at the justice of the peace, and I’ll be just as happy as if we had a big formal wedding. How we do it is up to you. There’s nothing my mother can do that can stop us from marrying. She’s out of my life. It was her choice and she can live with it.”
I smiled finally. “Okay. We’ll get married. Not tomorrow. I want my parents to come and I want Candace there. Plus, Dana and James. John and Greg. Jan and Mara.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe. He’s my father’s best friend and if my father’s coming, he should have someone on his side.”
“Will your father come?”
“He will,” Luke said. “I know he’ll want to be there. He’ll want to be there to see Dana and Jamie.”
I smiled and exhaled, feeling like maybe, just maybe, it would all work out.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Luke
