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Chapter 24 - Lily: Tell Me
“What are you doing here?” I was surprised I still had my voice.
“I came for you,” he said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “There is no place I would rather be.”
My heart hammered in my chest.
“Ethan…” I started, but he lowered his head and captured my lips in his.
Our lips melded together perfectly, the feeling so familiar and right. I brought my hand up to cup the side of his face. I traced his bottom lip with my tongue, begging him for entrance. Ethan pulled away abruptly, standing to his full height.
“You are in a hospital bed, and we can’t get too carried away.”
I rolled my eyes. “You started it.”
He let out a soft chuckle but then quickly sobered. His eyes took an intense gaze, and I felt my heart falter a beat. The way he was looking at me had my chest squeezing. Usually, Ethan was unreadable and always had his mask up, but now I could see everything.
I could see all parts of him. He was letting me in.
He threaded our fingers together. His thumb rubbed the back of my hand in soothing motions. He didn’t speak at all. I wanted him to talk because I was sick of guessing what was going on in his head.
“It took me feeling like I lost you to realize that I can’t live without you.” His forest green eyes bored into mine. “When I heard what had happened to you, I lost my shit. I couldn’t think rationally. All I knew was that I needed to get to you as quickly as possible.”
I stared up at him, completely silent.
“You were everything I didn’t even know I needed in my life. From the moment I saw you in those damn biker shorts that day, I knew that I was goner. It may have taken me over a decade to finally see you, but I see you now Lily. I see you crystal clear.”
I could feel the sting of the tears growing in my eyes. I just needed him to say it. I needed to hear him say the words. Eight letters, three words, one sentence. I needed him to say it, and I would be his.
“Lilian Stone, you have captured my heart, and I never want you to give it back.” He looked away for a moment, clearing his throat. When he looked at me, I felt my whole heart swell. “I love you, Lils, with everything I have in me. You are everything I could ever want in my life and more. I am yours if you are willing to have me.”
The first tear fell from my eyes and after that, it was useless to try and hold them back.
I opened my mouth to speak. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, too, and that he was my everything and more. I wanted to tell him that it had been him, and there had never been anyone apart from him. But none of that came out of my mouth.
Instead, what came out of my mouth was, “I’m pregnant.”
That was one way of breaking the news, I guess. To be fair what was I going to do? Where would I find a cake that read ‘congrats you knocked me up and now we are having a baby’ from so suddenly? Did they even make cards that said that?
Ethan’s eyes went wide, and I swear they would have bulged out of their sockets. He blinked once looking into my eyes. He blinked twice, looking down at my flat stomach. He blinked for a third time.
“Say something,” I whispered. “Anything.”
I didn’t want him to say anything. I wanted him to tell me that he still loved me regardless of the baby. I wanted him to tell me that he wanted this baby just as much as I wanted him. I wanted him to say that none of this changed a thing.
He opened his mouth, and I braced myself for whatever was to come.
“Marry me.”
Okay. I hadn’t been expecting that at all.
“What? We can’t get married!”
“And why not?” Ethan sat down on the edge of the bed. He brought our conjoined hands to his chest. “I love you, and you love me. We are having a baby. We might as well finish this all up and get married.”
“I don’t want you to marry me simply because you want to do the right thing. We don’t have to be married to love our baby, Ethan.”
He shook his head. “You aren’t understanding me. I want to marry you because I love you. Sure, the baby would speed things up a bit, but that doesn’t mean that I am only doing it because of the baby. I want you, Lily, and I want us. You, me, and our little baby. I want us to be a family, and I want our daughter to be born having the same last name as both her parents.”
