Page 52 of Surviving You, Scotch and Sammy 1

“We’re already married.”

My brows pull in tight. “Yeah… I know.”

“Now would be a good time to ask you to marry me.”

Snot bubbles in my nostrils as I cry and laugh. “Well, we already did that bit.”

“I love you, Sammy. That doesn’t change.”

“You promise?”

“I swear on everything we are, I promise. Forever and ever, remember?” His hesitant eyes leave my face and drop back to my stomach, then finally, a single tear slides down his own cheek and he smiles a crooked unsure smile. “I’m gonna be a daddy?”

I nod, and my fingers dig into his hair as I hold him close.

“I’m gonna be a daddy, and you’ll be the mommy? Fuck, Sammy. This is what I was working towards this whole time.”

I giggle as his lips crash onto mine. “You were all about jumping the gun, huh? You didn’t wanna wait the three years that I might’ve made you wait?”

“Just hedging my bets, Ricci. I knew what I was doing all along.”

He’s such a liar. But he’s doing what he always does best, he’s making it all better.

“So why are your feet practically bleeding? Why did Angelo pick you up?”

“I had a fight with my mom…” I don’t dare tell him her other threats; about calling the police. About her ludicrous accusations of rape. I don’t know the law, but he’s only a few months older than me. She’s wrong. She must be. “She said some really horrible things and that I had to get rid of the baby. I chose that time to tell her we were already married, and that I won’t give my baby up.”

“Our baby.”

My head snaps up. “Huh?”

“Our baby. Ours, Ricci. We’re a team in this.”

I wipe dripping boogers onto my arm as my heart throbs to the same rhythm my stomach rolls. “Yeah, Sam. Ours. So, she said some really horrible stuff. I might have hit her a little bit, then I ran out. I forgot my shoes, and my phone… and everything else I own except a spare pair of jeans.”

“You’re looking a little green behind the puffy red, Ricci. You feeling not so great?”

His simple reminder has my stomach roiling wildly, and I swallow down a new bout of vomit. The acid burns my throat, and my hands leave his hair to cover my mouth; just in case.

“We’re done with school now. The last day or two doesn’t matter. We’re done. It’s time to start our lives together. Our plans don’t change – we just add another person. Do you wanna go home to grab your stuff, or do you just wanna leave?”

“Wait a damn minute!” Angelo storms towards us angrily. “What plans? Leave to go where?”

“Shit,” Sam mutters, then picking me up off his lap and setting me aside, he stands to face his angry best friend and wipes the dirt from his jeans. “The thing is--”

“No.” Angelo shoves Sam back in an uncharacteristic display of anger. Angelo has been nothing but the perfect placid gentleman the whole time I’ve known him, so his outburst now has me letting out a ridiculous squeak of surprise. “There’s no thing! You think you guys were just gonna piss off and sneak out of town?”

“Well, not exac--”

“Don’t you fucking lie to me, Turner.”

“Okay, yeah.” Sam lifts his hands between them. “But we would have told you guys.”

“Eventually!”

“We just had to leave without her folks stopping us, that’s all. We would have called you as soon as we had our shit sorted.”

“A pretty girl walks in, and you’re ready to just dismiss everything me and the guys have ever been to you?”

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