Page 179 of Love Undiscovered
My dad and Mike have to help me bounce on one leg up the stairs to get to Remi. According to Audrey, she fainted in the guest bathroom and hit her head on the sink.
“What were you all doing in the same bathroom anyway?” my dad asks once we enter Audrey’s old bedroom.
“Girl talk,” Eliza says.
Remi is laying on the bed with an ice pack on her forehead.
“Baby, are you okay?” I ask as I perch myself on the side of the bed.
“I’m fine,” she says. “It was just stupid.”
I peel the ice pack away. “You’re going to have quite a goose egg,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says. “Eliza warned me already.”
My mom enters the room with Hailey in her arms. “Remi, dear, do you need anything? Would you like some soup?”
“No. Thank you, Mrs. Bauer,” she says.
“Memi, Memi, Memi!” Hailey cries, having developed quite the attachment to Remi over the last few weeks. I’m just glad that for Hailey, Remi comes out as Memi, and not Mimi. My mom sets Hailey down and she waddles to the bed, pulling herself up by my pant leg.
“Memi. Booboo,” Hailey says. Then she hits me on the thigh. “Kiss it.”
I lean over and lightly kiss the goose egg forming on Remi’s forehead.
“All bettah, yay,” Hailey says, clapping her hands.
“Well, you come back down when, or if, you feel better, Remi dear,” my mom says as she hustles everyone else out of the room. “Let’s go, people,” she says. “I’ve got enough to feed an army and I don’t want leftovers.”
They leave the room and shut the door behind them.
“We were taking the test,” Remi whispers.
“The test?” I ask, with a smile.
“Yes,” she says. “And, I’m—”
“Don’t tell me,” I say quickly.
She looks at me, head cocked, brow furrowed.
“Marry me,” I say. “Marry me and then tell me.”
“Chance, weddings take forever to plan. I think in the next few months you’d be able to figure it out either way.” She smiles.
“We’ll go tomorrow,” I say. The idea growing on me the more that I think about it. “We’ll call Kat and Lexie, we’ll go to the courthouse tomorrow, and we’ll make it official. Then you can tell me.”
“What difference does it make?” she asks.
“Because,” I say. “I want you to know that I love you for you. And I’ve wanted to marry you almost since the moment I met you. I never want you to think I’d want to marry you because you were, or weren’t, pregnant. So if we do it before I know any better, you’ll always know I wanted you. Just you.”
She blanches when I say that.
“And our future kids. Just you and our future kids. Don’t mistake what I’m saying,” I say. “I just want to make sure you understand that I want to marry you because of you. And not because you’re carrying my baby. If you are, that is.”
She looks at me, her eyes squinting slightly.
I think she’s actually considering it.
