Page 28 of Trusting Trey
“Because you’re right, we should look together.”
He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. “I love you, with everything I am. You know that right?”
I nodded and leaned into him, his t-shirt soft under my cheek. “I love you, too. Promise me you won’t be disappointed if the test is negative. You’ve already promised, but now that I’ve done the test, I feel like you’ll be disappointed if we don’t see a positive sign. I want to make you a daddy, but I don’t know how long it will take.”
He rocked me back and forth as we sat on the bed staring into the dark abyss of the bathroom as though we had to make the most of the next three minutes.
“Allie, you have no more control over when you get pregnant than I do. If that test is negative, I will be disappointed, but not in you. You and I are both relatively powerless when it comes to getting pregnant. We do all the things the experts say, but the fact is, you’ll get pregnant when the time is right and we can’t question when the time is right. What does your gut tell you?”
“My gut says I’m pregnant, but my head can’t wrap itself around that after all these years.”
“The final part is your heart, then. What does your heart tell you?”
“My heart is one hundred percent convinced that it will love a tiny, perfect result of our love.”
He grinned and leaned in, kissing me tenderly, but with a passion I hadn’t felt before. Maybe it was the idea of him becoming a father that spurred the intense feelings.
He pulled back and tucked my hair behind my ears. He pointed at the clock on the bed that read three a.m. “It’s officially Christmas, and that means you can open a gift.”
I laughed softly. “You're worse than a kid at Christmas. It's a good thing we get to celebrate it twice.”
He held his hand up and went to the closet. After a bit of rummaging he brought out a wrapped gift, thrusting it at me. “I hope you like it.”
I took the brightly wrapped package in my hand. The wrapping had silver stars covering every inch of the gold paper. A red bow topped it off to make it a splendid display of the holidays. “It’s pretty. I don’t even want to open it,” I said, laughing a little.
“Take my word for it when I say you’ll want to see what’s inside.” He grinned and held up one end of the bow, which I pulled and instantly the satin fell away from the package. I lifted the lid off the box and heard my gasp echoing loud in the quiet room. My hand was shaking as I lifted the book out of the box. “Fahrenheit 451,” I said, hugging the book to my chest and holding his eyes. “I still remember how you looked the day I found you reading this in the library.”
He leaned forward and kissed me. “Me, too, but that’s not just anyFahrenheit 451. Look inside.”
I opened the book carefully, being vigilant of the spine and pages, so they didn’t rip or tear. The book was old, that was easy to see, but it was the name scrawled across the front page of the book that made me gasp. “It’s signed by Ray Bradbury. Wow,” I said, because it was all I felt. Wow. I turned the page to the copyright information and saw the words ‘First edition October 1963” in tiny black lettering.
I looked up at him and couldn’t believe I had just read that. “How did you find a first edition and signed to boot?”
“Do you remember that little book store we went to on our first Christmas Eve?” he asked and I nodded. “I asked him to keep his eye out for one and he finally called last week. It was perfect timing.”
I hugged the book to my chest. “I love it, Trey. As a librarian, I’m seriously awestruck right now. It’s like I’m holding a piece of history in my hands.”
He brushed a piece of hair off my face. “Considering what’s happening tonight, it’s a miracle that book showed up in a dumpy bookstore in Duluth. It’s our history and our story, all between the pages of that book.”
I was still hugging it to my chest and I smiled at his words. This book was one that stayed in our home at all times. When I was first recovering, he would read to me from it and we began to bond. “Do you remember how tumultuous that December was? The month seemed almost never ending, except for those few days we spent together alone. Those few days at Christmas where we fell in love with each other even more than we thought possible. I learned to trust you completely in those two days.”
He nuzzled my temple and sighed. “And I learned to trust my feelings for the first time in a long time.”
“When we were at our lowest, we cemented our love for each other in our hearts. That’s what I remember the most. The love we had for each other.”
December 24
13 Years Prior
I pulled the curtain back on the window and watched a few snowflakes fall lazily to the ground. It was almost seven a.m. and I woke up in bed, alone. I didn’t know where Trey was or why he was up early. I wheeled out to the front room and he sat holding a paper on his lap and wore a scowl on his face.
“Merry Christmas Eve,” I said, stopping near his chair. “You’re up early.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t sleep. There’s a patient weighing on my mind.”
I reached out and touched his hand. “I’m sorry. Is it a tough case?”
He blew out a breath. “You could say that. It’s a young woman who has lost everything. I’m not sure if I can build her a leg that will do the things she wants to do.”
