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I smiled, my heart feeling full and warm. Like a pocket of sunshine inside of a raincloud. “Okay, Hallmark card.” My soft smile became a playful smirk, and we both knew it was my way of delaying the inevitable. “I love you.”
He clicked his tongue at me and grabbed the test off the counter. “Are you ready?”
I closed my eyes and let out a heavy breath but nodded. He began to lift the wand to both our faces so we could see the results, when I found myself grasping his forearm. “Wait.” He lowered his hand and looked at me with a concerned expression. “I need to explain to you why I’m scared first.”
He flipped the pregnancy test over on the counter, face down so that we couldn’t see the result. He moved back to me and grabbed both my hands in his, pulling me down onto the bathroom floor. I leaned back against the sink, and he against the door. We kicked our legs out so that my feet were in his lap, and his in mine.
“I’m not scared to have a babywithyou,” I said. “I don’t want you thinking that it has anything to do with you. That I don’t have faith in you, or us, or our future together. It’s all me.” He nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing, so I continued, “I know that I’ve done a lot of things in my life unconventionally. I’m not a by-the-book type of person. Neither of us are, and for the most part that works for us.” I sighed. “Butthis—starting a family—I did picture in a different way.” I leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “I wanted to get married first. I wanted to know what it felt like to be someone’s wife before I was someone else’s mom. There is nobody else in this world I want to go through any of this with, either. There is nobody in this world I want to be with, rain or shine or storm or tornado, than you.” Another damn tear fell down my cheek. “It’s stupid, I know. It’s just titles and papers and legalities and it doesn’t really matter, and maybe I’m just overthinking and being emotional but… I don’t want you feeling like you have to propose to me, or marry me, because of a baby. I don’t want to feel like our timeline is rushed because of a baby. I wanted to be us, all on our own, and have made that choice.” I looked up at him, more tears falling now. “I wanted to be ready, and I’m not ready.”
He swung his legs behind him and sat up on his knees, leaning over me. “It’s not stupid. Nothing you feel is ever stupid, Mace.” He wiped my tears from my cheeks. “Being scared is not doubting us, nor is it doubting yourself. Not being ready does not mean you’re not capable. That we’re not capable.” He smiled at me, the kind of smile that told me he knew something I didn’t. “There is no way to truly be ready, sometimes we just have to go for it. Luckily for us, you and I are already pretty good at that.” He winked. “I’ll be right back. Don’t look at the test yet.”
He stood from the bathroom floor and hauled me with him. I stared after him with a puzzled expression as he threw open the door and darted into our bedroom. I heard the rumbling of drawers and the opening and closing of our closet door, before he returned only a moment later.
He slipped one hand behind his back as he said, “You’re afraid of me feeling like I have to marry you because we might have a baby. You’re afraid of us being pressured. Of life not going at the pace we’ve set for ourselves, yeah?” I nodded. His smile grew wider. “Mace, we can’t control the timeline of our lives, as much as you may try. And as far as marrying you…” he trailed off as he dropped to one knee on the bathroom floor in front of me.
A shockwave rolled through me. My skin began to buzz and my chest began to flip because I knew. I knew what was about to happen, though my head shook in disbelief. He pulled a small black box out from behind his back.
“I bought this six months ago. I was waiting for the right time. I planned on proposing to you on Christmas. At Disneyland. Because the greatest birthday gift I could receive would be the promise of you for the rest of my life. And because I know you think Disney proposals are repulsive and I think that’s funny.”
A choked laugh came from my throat, but it sounded more like a sob. He pulled open the box, and the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen twinkled at me. Onehuge, cushion-cut diamond sat in the middle of a silver band of smaller diamonds. It was sparkly, and opulent, and a little outrageous. It was me.
“So, we’re a few weeks ahead of schedule, but in the grand scheme of things I’d hardly think that’s something to worry about.” Without waiting for me to answer, he grabbed my left hand and slipped the ring onto my finger. “I’ve been wanting to marry you since the night I met you. I’m honored to be your friend. I’ll be honored to be your husband.” He set the box down on the counter as he stood, and took both my hands in his. “And if you are pregnant, Mace, then raising a child with you will be the adventure of my lifetime. I’ll be forever honored to watch you become the mother of my children. And if you’re not, and it’s you and I forever instead, I’ll still consider myself the luckiest man on earth.”
Another choked giggle escaped me as I pounced on him, wrapping both arms around his neck and crying into his shoulder. He embraced me at the hips and pulled me into him, pressing kisses to my hair. “I never said yes, asshole,” I laughed into his shoulder.
“Well?” he asked against my forehead.
“Yes,” I exclaimed, tackling him until we were both on the floor. “Yes, yes, yes, yes!”
Through our mutual fit of laughter and my lips attacking his face, he reached up and grabbed the pregnancy test off the counter. “Are you ready?”
I nodded. “Ready for all of it.”
A half hour later we were climbing the stairs of my old apartment building, with a slurpee and a Slim Jim in hand. “I also want In N Out before we hit the road,” I said with my mouth full.
“Okay, baby,” my fiancé said from behind me. I tried to hide how winded I was by the time I made it to the third floor, catching my breath before I rasped my knuckles on the door. I hopped back and forth on my feet, unable to contain my excitement before I knocked again, a little louder.
“Baby girl, give them a second. It’s like,” Dom glanced down at his phone, “ten-seventeen. They might already be sleeping.”
“Don’t care.” I pulled my keys out of my pocket. “I’m too excited.”
I slipped their spare key into the lock and let myself into the apartment. Just as Dom shut the door behind him, Carter rounded the corner in nothing but a pair of black sweatpants. His hair was disheveled and I thought I may have noticed nail marks on his chest and shoulders.
“No, it’s fine. Just let yourselves in. That’s cool.”
Dom held my ring-clad hand in his own, smothering my diamond with his bear paws as Carter stared at us from the other side of the kitchen island. He had a dopey I-just-had-sex grin on his face that told me he hadn’t yet registered that we’d shown up at his apartment unannounced at ten o’clock on a Tuesday night. I kind of hated that I’d seen that look on his face enough times to know exactly what it meant.
Heavy footsteps padded from the other side of their bedroom door as Penelope came into view. Her hands were tangled in her hair as she rapidly tried to twist it into a bun on top of her head. Her cheeks were flushed and she was wearing only a t-shirt– which she had on backwards.
“Were we interrupting something?” Dom smirked.
“No, just finished, actually,” Penelope chimed as she casually rounded the kitchen island and grabbed a glass from the cabinet before filling it with water. “What’s going on?”
Penelope glanced at me briefly, doing a double take before staring harder. My hand was still hidden beneath Dom’s, but she must’ve noticed the puffiness around my eyes. I was an ugly crier, and the evidence of my tears tended to last far longer than the tears themselves.
She opened her mouth to say something, but Dom spoke before she could. “So, who's up for a little trip to Vegas?”
Penelope and Carter glanced at each other before looking back at us with questions on their faces.
