Page 48 of Marry Your Best Friend

I refuse to ride out of the hospital in a wheelchair, so I walk out with Chrissy at my side. She puts me in her tiny car and then gets in the driver’s seat.

She pulls out of the lot and starts driving toward Whiskey Run. “Where are you taking me?”

She looks over at me and then at the road again. Her hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Where do you wanna go?”

I lean back in my seat. “I don’t care. You want to stay at my apartment or your house?”

I can hear the surprise in her voice. “You want me to stay with you?”

“Yes,” I answer simply.

She nods. “Okay, well, then my house, if that’sokay. Not that I don’t like your bachelor pad, but…”

Her voice trails off, and I have to ask to make sure she’s okay with it. “So you’re okay with this? With me staying with you?”

She reaches over and squeezes my knee. “Yeah, I want to be with you.”

I cover her hand with mine as she drives us to Whiskey Run. When she pulls into her driveway, she helps me out of the car, and I hate it. “I’m okay, honey. I got this.”

She shrugs and keeps helping. “I’m going to have King or one of the guys go by your apartment and bring you some clothes and stuff.”

We get inside, and she helps me to the bedroom. “You want to take a shower?”

I reach for her clothes. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

She pulls from my reach. “Oh no, mister. Shower and bed. No funny business.”

I reach for her again, and she lets me remove her shirt this time. She helps me by undressing herself and then helping me out of my clothes. She’s the one starting the water and waiting for it to heat up. She’s the one that helps me in and washes my body.

“I like this,” I tell her as she’s running thewashcloth across my chest. She points to my hard manhood. “Yeah, I can tell you do.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “No, I mean I like it when you touch me, but I like this… I like having you take care of me.”

For just a second, I feel weak. Maybe I shouldn’t feel this way, but she just keeps washing me. “You took care of me the night Ledger died. Remember? That’s what this is about, Gabe. We take care of each other. That’s how this works.”

We finish cleaning up and get dried off. She orders me to bed as she quickly dries her hair. She tries to do it in the bathroom, but I want her with me, and I watch her from the bed.

When she’s done, she hovers next to the bed. “Do you need anything?”

I lift the covers. “You.”

She lies down next to me before I can tell her to remove her clothes. I hold her to me, and she leans back enough so we’re face to face. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

I say the first thing that pops in my head. “You're pregnant.”

She gasps and then seems to think about it. “No—well, if I am, it’s too early to know for sure.”

“We didn’t use anything.”

She presses her lower body against mine. “I know. But that’s not what I was going to tell you.”

I press my hand to her lower back, holding her body against mine. “What is it, honey?”

“I love you.”

I smile and nuzzle my chin into her neck and whisper to her, “I know you do.”

She laughs and pulls back. “No, I mean, I love you. Like, really love you.”

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