Page 32 of Hold Us Close
For a few minutes we just sit there, wrapped up in each other. Until he breaks the peaceful silence. “I got you something,” he says barely loud enough for me to hear. Despite my request for him not to let go, he removes one hand from my belly. I try to twist in his arms to protest but I’m not quick enough. A tiny black and white scrap of fabric lands on my stomach. I touch it gingerly and then glance up at his face. “Perfect fit,” he says softly.
I smile at the tiny soccer ball beanie on my midsection and settle back in to his embrace. “Just like us.”
“Dude, the bulge in your pants is distracting.”
“Shut up, you jackass. I’m recording.” The digital image of Layla on the screen as she gives her graduation speech doesn’t do her justice, so I lift my head to see the real thing.
“You know everyone can see it. Hell, she probably already knows what’s coming—I know she knows your dick isn’t that big.” Skylar laughs at his own joke.
“Can you two knock it off for five minutes, please?” Corin glares at us and snatches the camera from me so she can record the next part. The part that’s going to change everything.
As soon as Layla finishes her speech about the children she worked with in Spain and steps down from the podium, I stand and walk up on stage. My damn hands are shaking so hard that they’re racking my entire body. Everything that’s ever happened to me, even the really shitty stuff, led me here. And even if she says no, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Every cell in my body is singeing as if my blood has become electrically charged to the point of pain. “Layla Flaherty,” I say as I meet her in the middle of the stage and sink down onto one knee.
Whoops and hollers and squeals reverberate all through the auditorium so loudly it’s deafening, but I can’t take my eyes off her. Off my beautiful girl. Still glowing like the angel she’s always been. My angel.
“Landen?” she asks, her brow furrowed and her eyes wide. “What are you doing?”
My face breaks into a grin. “Would you please, pretty please with a cherry on top, do me the honor of being my wife, for as long as we both shall live?” Which I intend to be a very long time—for both of us.
It takes all my powers of concentration to hold the black velvet box steady as I present her with the ring I bought nearly a year ago in Spain. Before I knew we were going to be a family of three. Those gorgeous eyes shine down over her round belly at me as they fill with tears. “Yes, God yes, Landen. Yes, yes, yes!”
I jump up and grab her as one of the Administrators shouts, “She said yes!” into the microphone on stage.
Layla’s very pregnant midsection is the only thing keeping me from crushing her to me. Our child. The one due in two weeks—just enough time to get back to Georgia so we can get married in a small ceremony her aunt’s already got planned. Thank fuck she said yes.
I’m holding her tightly, and it’s our moment. Even though I knew a long time ago that Layla was my forever. And that I was hers, if she would have me. But it’s short lived. Because as soon as I let go and turn to escort my fiancée back towards her seat to the soundtrack of wild applause, she flashes her ring at Corin and Kate in the audience and her body stiffens and jerks away from me. I almost don’t catch her before she goes down.
The moment Landen drops to his knee in front of me is the happiest moment of my entire life. I’m acutely aware of every single smiling face in the auditorium as they clap and smile. The light catches the ring as I hold it out for everyone to see.
Time slows and I hear my own breathing.
In. Out. Blink.
“Oh, God. Layla,” I hear his tortured voice say from far away.
And then…silence.
Iclimb in the ambulance, answering the paramedics’ questions as rapidly as they fire them off at me. How far along is she? Is she on medication?
I tell them everything I know, choking out the words over the lump of panic rising in my throat. Once they go to work on inserting Layla’s IV, I yank my phone from my pocket and call the number Dr. Sanderson was able to get me for Dr. Kirkowitz’s office.
A nurse promises to page him. I’m practically screaming at her that it’s an emergency when she hangs up.
It might be seconds, or minutes later, when my phone buzzes in my hand.
“Dr. Kirkowitz?”
“Mr. O’Brien. My nurse said it was an emergency. I’m guessing Layla is going into labor.”
“I don’t know. She had a seizure. She’s unconscious. We’re on our way to the hospital right now. Can you meet us?”
He clears his throat. “Landen, I want you to know that I got your letter. I was once an underserving jerk myself and my wife, God rest her soul, was an angel as well. But without prior knowledge of Layla’s—”
“Can you meet us or not? Look, please, just come to University Hospital as soon as possible. Please, I’m begging.”
I hear him sigh on the other end. I’m a millisecond from losing control of myself when he finally speaks. “I’ll be right there.”
