Page 66 of Not Quite Perfect

The truth was, I didn’t care if Victoria wasn’t pregnantright now. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wanted a family with her. Now, tomorrow … whenever. I wanted to be the kind of dad to our children that my father hadn’t been to me. I wanted us to grow old together, spending summers on Dobber’s Island with our kids and our grandkids in tow, sitting in rocking chairs on our front porch surrounded by happy faces covered with berry juice as Victoria regaled them with stories about how we met.

But I also knew that I needed to slow my roll, as my students would say.

We’d get there. Eventually. I’d have to be happy with that.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” she answered, settling down into my lap and twining her arms around my neck.

“If Ihadasked you to marry me today, without all this talk of a baby on the horizon, what would you have said?”

Her eyes flicked between mine, and I could tell from the look on her face that she was giving it real thought.

Finally, her lips tipped up to the side in a small, angelic smile. “I would have said I couldn’t wait to become Mrs. David Carstairs.” She dropped her forehead to mine. “I want to marry you, David. I do. But I want it to be for the right reasons.”

And a baby isn’t the right reason?was on the tip of my tongue, but I bit back the question. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t. Been there, done that, got the divorce papers.

And of course, this was all assuming Victoriawaspregnant.

Which we still didn’t know.

“Okay,” I answered. “Message received.”

She slid from my lap and went back to the stove. Making sure that the food hadn’t burned or turned to mush, she glanced over at me. “Since you never actually made it to the market, can you run out real quick for me now?”

I launched to my feet, pushing aside the disappointment of the last half hour. “What do you need?”

“I still need molasses,” she pointed out. “And you should probably pick up a pregnancy test … or twenty. You know, just to be sure.” She smiled, and it stopped me in my tracks.

In that moment I knew that I didn’t need a ring for this woman to be mine. We didn’t need a marriage certificate to say that we belonged to each other. She was mine, and I was hers … and if there was a baby on the way, we’d love it just like we loved each other—unconditionally and without reservation.

Twenty-Seven

Victoria

David setthe turkey down in the middle of the table, and we all took our seats at the large antique maple dining table. It was another item David had brought with him when he’d moved in, pulling it out of the storage unit where many of his belongings had been placed following his divorce. Even though we’d had to get rid of a wingback chair and a side table to carve out a “dining room” in my long, rectangular living room, I was glad to have it. Somehow, sitting around a proper table made the holiday feel that much more special. More grown up. Which was probably a good thing since we were in our mid-thirties and about to have a kid.

“All right. You know the drill.” My gaze swept between Theo, Alex, and Drew, staying put on my youngest brother, who always went first since he was the baby of the family. “What are you most thankful for this year?”

Drew blew out a breath and cracked his knuckles. Before he could answer, Alex said, “And no bullshit answers either.”

Drew shot him a dirty look. “I wasn’t going to.”

“Yeah right,” Theo laughed. “Last year you were most thankful for skinny jeans.”

“I mean, can you blame me?” Drew smirked and waggled his eyebrows. “But in all seriousness, I’m thankful that when I told everyone that I’m bisexual, you all had my back.”

“Was there ever any doubt?” Theo set his palm to Drew’s shoulder.

“Um, maybe?” Drew answered, scratching his cheek, a telltale tic that meant he was nervous. “A lot of people think being bi is a cop out. Like, it’s just a phase people go through until they figure out whether they’re actually straight or gay.”

Alex’s reached for the green beans and began scooping them out onto his plate. “I mean, I don’t get the whole liking cock thing myself,” he shrugged, “but if you tell me you like both, who am I to say you shouldn’t?”

David chuckled and shook his head.

“What?” Alex barked, casting a warning glance David’s way. “You got a problem with that?”

Ugh. I’d hoped after their little standoff in the kitchen earlier that afternoon, Alex would have done me a solid and cut David some slack, but it seemed like that wasn’t going to be the case. Alex had such a strong sense of right and wrong, and as far as he was concerned, me getting pregnant before David and I had gotten married fell squarely into the ‘wrong’ category.

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