Page 147 of Ruined Vows

“Hey, hey—” I hurry over to her, wrapping my arms around her from behind and cradling her to me. “You know I don’t ever need that shit. You’re amazing just the way you are. I’ve been cooking for myself for my whole life and I don’t mind making extra for you. You shouldn’t even be on your feet at this hour.”

I rub her belly, still in such absolute fucking awe at the news she told me two months ago.

We thought it was just a bad flu. I took care of her for a week, working from a chair in her living room while she wasted away on the couch and tried to stubbornly keep working on her dissertation.

By the second week when it didn’t clear up and we’d given up on work and given in to watchingThe Officereruns all day, I finally insisted on taking her to the doctor.

She expected a bad case of the flu or maybe another bout of Covid.

Instead the doctor sent me out of the room. When I heard her screech, I all but busted down the door to get back to her; the nurses were ready to call the cops on me. But she invited me back in, and shell-shocked, shared the news with me.

“We’re pregnant,” she’d said, with a wide-eyed look of wonder in her eyes. Apparently in the chaos of everything that had gone down in the duration and aftermath of the Red Wedding—her joke, not mine—she’d neglected to take her birth control.

Then she’d bent over and thrown up all over the doctor’s shoes.

Now that we’re near the end of the second trimester, the nausea has finally calmed down for the most part.

I rub the soft skin of her barely distended belly and it hits like it does occasionally.

Holy shit. I’m going to be a father.

I’m still talking about the found family I’m trying to build, but the truth is, I’m building a real one, too. Me and Kira and— I suck in a sharp breath as the weight of it whacks me in the chest like a shotgun blast.

Me and Kira and our kid.

“Come on,” I murmur. “Why don’t you go sit down on the couch. I’ll bring out the food when it’s finished.”

But right then the microwave beeps. Kira immediately opens the microwave and reaches in for the dish.

“Careful, if it’s hot.” I try to block her hand but she’s determined, yanking out the plastic. Then she starts crying even harder when she sees the strange, rubbery egg block that’s half-solidified and burnt on one end and half-gooey in the middle. It smells god-awful.

“That was the last of the eggs,” she cries, turning and collapsing against my chest.

I wrap my arms around her, trying not to let her feel me chuckling. “Babe. Babe. It’s okay.”

She pulls back from me, wiping her nose on the forearm of her cardigan. “Okay? Okay? It’s not okay! I’m going to have a baby and I can’t even cook eggs! I’m going to accidentally poison it! All the other moms are going to be making all sorts of organic homecooked baby food and I don’t even know how to?—”

I cut off her words with a quick kiss, but she just keeps right on the second I pull back.

“—and how am I going to open up the clinic at the same time as I have a newborn? It’s too much too fast! And what about us? What if having a kid so quick makes everything tense between us because we never get a honeymoon period and?—”

I cut her off with a kiss again, laughing out loud this time.

She yanks back and glares at me through her tears. “Are youlaughingat me?!”

“Pretty sure we gotta have a wedding to have a honeymoon.”

She shudders. “Ugh, god, don’t talk to me about weddings!”

“Fair,” I nod. “But how bout this?”

I drop to one knee and pull a box out of my back pocket, holding it up to her. “I know it’s not much. Later on, I’ll be able to give you a bigger one. But Miss Kira Roberts, will you come to the courthouse with me to become my wife? No wedding dress or fancy hairdo necessary.”

When she starts crying even harder again, I gotta say, I’m not sure what that means. Dammit. She was just talking about everything being too much, too fast. It’s the wrong time. Fuck. I’ve been waiting, walking around with this damn box burning a hole in my pocket for a couple weeks now. Why’d I think the kitchen after burnt eggs that have left a weird sulphury smell in the air was the right time?

I start to get up off my knee. “Listen, it’s fine if?—”

“I thought you’d never ask, you big oaf!” She drops to her knees and throws her arms around me. “You’ve been driving me nuts carrying around that ring and not asking!”

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