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Melanie was definitely on her own when it came to changing diapers, she decided as she gave Mojo one last scratch behind the ears, stood up and carefully stepped over the large dog.
“What did Lucifer win?” Melanie asked her, reminding her about Lucifer’s terrifying request.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered miserably as she headed towards her bedroom.
“That bad?” Melanie called after her.
“I said that I don’t want to talk about it!” she yelled over her shoulder.
“You could have just said that instead of being a bitch!”
“I just did!” she snapped as she walked in her room, shut the door behind her, dropped down on her bed, buried her head beneath the pillow and decided that yes, yes she was going to hide here like the coward that she was, because there was no way that she was going to be able to come to terms with the fact that Lucifer Bradford had just proposed to her.
Well, demanded might be a better term, she mused only to end up shaking her head a few seconds later when she decided that blurting best described the terrifying suggestion that had sent her running.
*-*-*-*
“So, what did you do to scare off our little Rebecca?” Melanie asked when he finally managed to make it across the hallway without his knees threatening to give out on him.
“Nothing,” he said, swallowing hard as he stumbled into their kitchen, threw the refrigerator door open and grabbed the first thing that he saw, which just happened to be a can of frosting.
“Umm, what are you doing?” Melanie asked, sounding somewhat amused.
“I don’t know!” he admitted, grabbing a spoon from the drawer and viciously stabbed it into the can of frosting.
As he shoved a large spoonful of frosting in his mouth, Melanie sat there, staring at him. “Should I go get Rebecca?” she finally offered when it became clear that he’d lost his fucking mind, again.
He’d already figured out that he’d lost his fucking mind when he’d opened his mouth to suggest that Rebecca should serve him dinner, naked and on her knees only to hear himself demand that she marry him. It definitely hadn’t been intentional and it sure as hell hadn’t been pretty since he’d sort of shouted at her.
When he’d spotted that pregnancy test in her hand this morning his mind had automatically clicked into gear, knowing exactly what he needed to do and what was expected of him. He’d been raised to believe that getting a woman pregnant meant a trip up to New Hampshire to make things right. It might not be the way things were done anymore, but he didn’t a damn. He was raised to take of his family and he would have done just that if she’d been pregnant.
It had actually scared him at just how easily he’d accepted what needed to be done. Marrying Rebecca hadn’t seemed like a punishment, a chore or even an obligation. It had just felt…right, if that made sense. When his brother had walked into the exam room and explained that she wasn’t pregnant, had left him feeling…confused.
It took him a bit to realize that he was actually disappointed that he didn’t have to make a quick trip up to New Hampshire to make things right. He’d tried to resign himself to the fact that it wasn’t meant to be, that it was too soon, and that there was plenty of time, but no matter how much bullshit he’d told himself or how hard he tried not to think about it, dragging her up to New Hampshire to make her legally his had been at the back of his mind all day.
He wanted her, needed her, and the idea that he could have her had been fucking intoxicating. When he’d made the bet with her, using it to get her to marry him had been the last thing on his mind, but when he thought about making her his, he just couldn’t help himself.
He’d blurted it out in a half shout, which he would be the first to admit had been a terrifying moment and then sat there, staring at her as he tried to remember how to breathe. Rebecca for the most part had stared back, looking as though she was trying to make sense out of what he’d shouted at her.
When it had become clear that he wasn’t taking it back, she’d stood up, shook her head, muttered, “Unbelievable,” and walked away leaving him there, trying to figure out what had just happened. He was still trying to figure it out, which was probably why he shouldn’t be here right now. Not until he figured out a way to do this right, he realized, because blurting it out definitely wasn’t the right way to propose to the woman that you loved.
“I’m gonna go now so I can fix this,” he said hollowly, nodding in agreement at his own words as he hugged the can of frosting to his chest and stumbled out of the apartment, telling himself with every half-stumbled step that everything was going to be okay.
Chapter 51
“I think you broke your boyfriend,” Melanie announced with a sigh as she walked into her room and dropped down on the bed next to Rebecca.
“Don’t care,” Rebecca muttered beneath the pillow where she’d planned on staying for the rest of her life since everything outside this room no longer made sense to her.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Melanie asked, stealing her pillow so that she could get comfortable on the bed, forcing Rebecca to grab the other pillow and stuff it angrily beneath her head as she laid there trying to make sense of the world.
“Are you going to tell me who knocked you up?” she countered with the hopes that it would end this conversation.
“Aidan,” Melanie said with a sigh as she shifted to get more comfortable. “Your turn.”
“Aidan?” Rebecca asked, frowning with confusion as she tried to figure out who that was, because the only Aidan that she knew was-
“Yup, the annoying bastard,” Melanie said, nodding her head while Rebecca laid there, staring at her friend as though she’d lost her goddamn mind, mostly because she’d lost her goddamn mind!
“What the hell are you talking about? You hate him!”
Melanie nodded in agreement. “Which makes this situation so wonderful, huh?” she said with mock amusement, making Rebecca’s stomach drop.
“Does he know?” she asked, rolling over onto her back so that she could stare at the ceiling with Melanie as she reached over and wrapped her hand around Melanie’s.
“No, but he will just as soon as I figure out how to tell someone that I hate that I’m carrying his child. Should be another Hallmark moment,” she mused as Rebecca lay there, realizing that her situation was just petty bullshit compared to Melanie’s. At least she was in love with Lucifer, which was a hell of a lot more than Melanie had apparently.
“Do you want me to go with you when you tell him?” she offered, not really looking forward to what promised to be an incredibly awkward moment, but for Melanie she would do it.
“No, I’ll figure it out eventually,” Melanie said with a shrug as they continued to lay there, staring at the white ceiling. “Now it’s your turn. What did Lucifer do?”
“He sort of proposed,” she said, testing the words and not really sure if shouting them at her counted as a proposal.
“Wow,” Melanie said, not really sounding surprised. “Was it romantic?”
“Not really,” she said, laughing as she thought about that horrified expression on his face a split second after he’d shouted at her.
Sighing, Melanie gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s for the best anyway. I was going to ask you to move out anyway,” she said with a shrug.
“I see,” Rebecca murmured, thinking about Lucifer and how it would feel to spend the rest of her life with him and when she didn’t panic or feel sick to her stomach, she smiled.
“You’re going to marry him, right?”
She shrugged. “If I don’t get a better offer.”
Melanie nodded in agreement. “He’s really lucky to have you.”
“I know,” she said, nodding solemnly as she sat up.
“Where are you going?” Melanie called after her.
“To get some information,” she said, heading for the door even though she had absolutely no idea what she was looking for or who she sho
uld talk to. She just knew that she needed to figure out a few things before she made Lucifer the happiest man alive.
*-*-*-*
“Umm, exactly what are you doing back here?” Aidan asked as he sat there, staring down at his beer while Jason and Trevor sang their rendition of “War” with the help of Lucifer’s mother.
