by Wolf, Alex
“In case you try to run.”
“Dad, what the hell?” I start to get up, and he holds me by the forearm.
“Just sit.” A smile forms on his face.
“What the hell is going on here?” I turn and say it right to his face, but he just grins.
“You’ll see.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I think back, trying to remember who I saw behind me. I didn’t see Donavan, but can I be sure? It was a quick glance.
My heartbeat redlines and my pulse pounds in my ears. It’s all happening so fast.
Donavan steps up on the stage, and what the hell? His eyes lock with mine, and he smiles, but I can see all the pain behind the smile.
The punk guy says, “They’re all yours, sir.” He hands Donavan the microphone.
Is he going to sing? No way. Donavan doesn’t sing. There’s absolutely no way.
The music starts, and oh my God, it’s Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran.
I squirm in my seat, because I’m already embarrassed and there’s just no way. Can Donavan actually sing? He’s going to humiliate himself in front of me. It’s actually really sweet, but all the things he said to me, the way he blew up…
Donavan fakes his broody stare at me, and my heart comes alive even more, then at the last second, right before he puts the microphone to his mouth, he smiles. The boyish smile he only ever has when he looks at me.
He hits the first note, and what the ever-loving hell! Is this real right now?
The whole place gasps because he kills the note, and he walks toward me, singing the song flawlessly. He’s a baritone, not a tenor like Ed Sheeran. God, it’s so damn sexy.
I glance back and his whole family looks about the same way I do, eyes wide, mouths agape, completely shocked.
Donavan makes his way forward. He serenades a few of the older ladies in his path and they look like they might end up in serious medical condition if they clutch their hearts any harder.
He finally walks up to me and motions for me to stand up.
Even if I didn’t want to, there’s no way my body would have it. I’d do whatever the hell he told me at this point. Why has he never sung to me before?
Once I’m up, staring eye to eye with him, he hits the build up to the crescendo of the song and falls to his knees in front of me. He takes one of my hands and puts my palm to his cheek.
Tears stream down my face, and his voice cracks when he sees it, but he quickly recovers. Once he’s finished, he clicks the microphone off but stays on his knees in front of me.
“I’m so sorry.” He covers his mouth with his hand, and he’s visibly shaking. Like he was holding it all in, just to make sure he got the song right for me, and it’s all crashing into him at once.
I shake my head at him. “No, it was my fault. All of it.” I glance over at Dad and he’s just smiling, like he knew all of this was going to happen.
“It doesn’t matter. You did what you had to do, and I didn’t let you explain. I said things that…” He sighs and takes a deep breath. “You’re everything to me and I will spend a lifetime trying to make up for the way I acted. I just love you. I can’t live without you, Pais. Please, I’m begging you. I’m so alone without you. I don’t want to be alone anymore. We can go away. We can go anywhere, be whatever, I just want you by my side.”
I look around the room and every eye is on us, half of them holding tears. Quinn, Abigail, Tate, and Jenny all have their hands over their chests, doing the “aww” faces.
I hold my hand out to Donavan, telling him to stand up. He practically flies up to his feet and we’re standing there. I motion for him to lean down. He does, until our foreheads press against each other.
“I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.”
Donavan sniffles. “Deal. I’ll take that deal.”
We both smile through the tears, then his fingers dig into my hips, and holy shit. My body comes alive all over again, just like it always does when he’s around. He pulls me against him, then puts his hands on my face and kisses me. My arms go around his neck, and like always I’m floating on the clouds and could melt to the floor. I don’t want to ever let go.
The walls of armor come up and I feel safe again.
“I’m so sorry, Donavan. Seriously. I never meant to hurt you, and I was going to—”
He shakes his head. “No. We’re even, remember. Mine was even worse. And don’t ever apologize for taking care of your family.” He looks around behind him, then back at me. “There’s nothing more important than family.”
I glance around. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”
“I can.” He pins me with his gaze. “You’re worth it.”
“We’re worth it.”
Donavan looks puzzled. “Yeah, that’s what I meant. You and me.”
“No, Donavan.” I shake my head at him, then take his hand and put it on his baby. “We.”
He looks confused for a moment, then his face lights up. “What?” He falls to his knees right in front of me.
His hands go straight to my belly and he stares up. I don’t know if he’s ever going to let go of me now.
“Really?” His eyes are huge.
I nod and smile.
“Oh my God.” He pulls me closer and plants his lips right on my stomach through my shirt.
Before I know what’s happened, he turns to his family and he looks like a little boy on Christmas.
“Dad! Decker! Everyone, get over here!”
They all walk up. Decker and Mr. Collins are smiling like they already know. I’m assuming they do. I made Tate promise to let me tell Donavan, but I figured she wouldn’t hide something from her husband. She must’ve told Mr. Collins too.
Donavan looks right at his father. “I’m gonna be a dad!”
Mr. Collins smiles right back at him.
Donavan kisses my stomach once more, then stands up and turns to his father. He cocks his head a little to the side and says, “You knew, didn’t you? That day in the office.”
“What day in the office?” I say.
Donavan shakes his head. “Nothing, I’ll tell you later.” He keeps staring at his father. “Thank you.”
His dad puts a hand on Donavan’s shoulder and says, “It’s your job to be better than I was.” He turns to me. “Congratulations, Paisley, and welcome to the family.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Everyone crowds around, saying congratulations, but Donavan is back on his knees, ignoring all of them. “I’m going to sing to you every night.” He looks up at me and points to my stomach. “He’s going to be the best damn attorney of all time.”
“Oh, he will be?” I raise my eyebrows at him.
Donavan jumps back up and wraps me in his arms. “I don’t care what he or she is, as long as I have the two of you.”
I can’t help but notice one of his hands is still on my stomach.
“Are you ever going to take your hand off our baby.”
He looks down, shakes his head. “Nope.” He raises his voice, like he’s talking directly to our child. “Don’t worry, you’re the first, but you won’t be the last.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and gaze into his eyes. “That was always the plan. All I ever wanted with you.”
“It was a long road, but we’re here, Pais.” He puts his palms on my face and kisses me, whispering against my lips, “We’re here.”
Epilogue
Four Months Later
Paisley
Bam! Bam!
My eyes vault open in Donavan’s bed and I immediately clutch my stomach. There’s a brief pause again then bam bam!
What in the hell?
A little bit of drywall crumbles from the ceiling and my hand shoots out for Donavan but he’s not in the bed.
Slowly, I get up to see what’s going on. It sounds like someone is ripping the condo down. The banging continues, growing louder as I walk down the hallway. Finally, when I’m a few feet away, it stops.
I clutch my chest and stand there, smiling like an idiot, because he starts singing Baby of Mine from the Dumbo movie. His voice is beautiful, and I still stand there gawking in disbelief every time I hear him sing. My hands go to my stomach and I whisper, “That’s your daddy, singing to you. He can’t wait for you to get here.”
I peek around the corner and he’s standing there, shirtless, with a tool belt strapped around his waist and headphones on.
Holy shit!
It looks like he’s torn down half the wall between the nursery and the office next to it. I want to yell at him and ask what the hell he’s doing, but he looks so damn sexy and he’s singing, and I just can’t.
I stand there and watch him, listening to him sing, smiling the entire time.
He finally turns and sees me and grins so wide his face might get permanently stuck that way. He stops singing and I immediately want to tell him not to, but he pulls out his phone and pauses the music then takes off the headphones.
I glance over to the wall, then at him. I do it a couple times for dramatic effect and raise my eyebrows at him.
He just stands there, trying to hold in a laugh, like he knows he’s gone crazy, then he shrugs.
I tap my foot, trying my best to give him an irritated face, but I can’t stop smiling.
“So, I was thinking…” He pauses, like he’s testing the waters.
“You were thinking, all right.” I glance to the wall again.
Finally, he rushes over and kisses me on the forehead, then falls to his knees like he always does. Part of me wonders if I’ll ever get any attention once the baby gets here.
After he kisses my stomach and whispers, “I love you,” his eyes roll up to meet mine. “I don’t really need an office at home, and we could make the nursery so much bigger.” He stands up gingerly, waiting for my reaction.
“It’s pretty big already, you know?”
I watch his face go straight to attorney mode, like he’s going to sell me an argument in the courtroom. He nods a few times. “It is. It is…” He grins like he knows I see right through this ploy. “But, think about it. My office is even closer to our room.” He spins and points through the hole he just put in our wall. “We could put the crib on the far side, so the baby will be right up next to our wall. If a monitor malfunctions, we can still hear her or him crying.” His eyebrows rise. “If there’s an emergency, we can get there faster. There really are a plethora of advantages to this, Pais.”
“A plethora?”
He grins and nods. “Indeed. And now, we’ll have room for two cribs, hell, maybe even three.” His eyes light up like he just thought of that.
Despite trying my best to look frustrated that he didn’t even discuss this with me, my eyes keep roaming down his sweaty chest and ripped abs, and damn it, why does he have to be so hot? What is it about being pregnant that makes me want him even more? My hormones are off the charts.
He sees me glancing down and I see him processing everything immediately. Why does he have to be so damn smart?
A sly grin curls up on his lips, and he takes my hand from my belly and places it on his stomach. “Does that help? It’s helping my cause, isn’t it?” He waggles his eyebrows.
Despite the fact I know exactly what he’s doing, my hand roams up his stomach to his chest. “This isn’t fair, you know? Weaponizing sex to get out of the fact you did not discuss tearing down a freaking wall.”
He pulls me into him and his hands go to my ass. I might combust. He has me and he knows it. His mouth is next to my ear. “It’ll be best, you’ll see.”
I shake my head and try to wriggle out of his grip because I just want to win, no matter the cost. Plus, I’ll get laid anyway if I want. I’m a woman after all and I know him. I take a few steps toward the wall, appraising his work.
I turn back and he smirks when I shake my head at him. “Do you even know what you’re doing? Is the roof going to collapse on us?”
He scoffs. “Of course I know what I’m doing.”
I nod. “Oh yeah, where’d you learn how to tear down walls in a high rise?”
He looks away and grins. “YouTube.”
“Donavan Collins!”
He laughs. “What? They have tutorials and stuff. If I can graduate Columbia Law School, I think I can manage to knock out a wall.” He takes a step toward me, his eyes lighting up even more. “You know what else I was thinking?”
“Oh Lord, what?”
“I was thinking why not just sell this place. We need a house like Decker’s. A big place with a yard and I can hang a tire swing. Have rooms for all the kids.”
On the inside I’m smiling so damn hard, but one of us has to keep us in reality when he gets this way. I love Donavan so much, but he’s just going a million miles an hour right now and I feel like we need to pump the brakes, just a couple times at least.
“Sell this place after you just ripped a wall down?”
“It’ll patch right up, no biggie.”
I turn to the gigantic hole in the wall where I can see studs going up to the ceiling and I don’t even know if he checked the wiring or anything else. He’s lucky he didn’t electrocute himself. Don’t even know if it’s a load-bearing wall or not. I turn back to him.
“They have YouTube videos for that too.” He takes off running as soon as he says it, and I chase after him.
Finally, I corner him on the other side, and he pulls me in close. We both burst into laughter.
“We’ll discuss this more later after the baby and I have had breakfast, which you’re going to cook.”
Donavan can cook breakfast like no other. He has magical powers in the kitchen, that only seem to work in the mornings.
“Deal.”
I turn around and take a step.
“Pais?”
I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about the way he says it. The tone and the way it seemed to come up from the floor.
I turn around and all the breath leaves my body when I see him.
He’s on one knee, in front of me, with a little black box held up with a huge diamond solitaire in the center. And I mean, it’s huge.
I gasp for a second and start to say something, but it takes me by surprise and the words catch in my throat.
“I’ve thought of a million different ways I wanted to ask you this question—how, when, where… I thought of grand gestures in front of thousands of people, taking you on a trip across the world, at the top of the Eiffel tower… Literally, it’s all I’ve thought about for months on end.” He pauses and chokes up a bit. “But…” His voice cracks a little. “It’s always been just you and me. It will always be just you and me, together, a two-person team. And I wanted this moment for us and no one else.” He takes a deep breath. “I couldn’t think of any place better, than in our home, where we’ll raise our child, possibly more, if that’s what we decide—together. I know I talk about tons of kids and houses and tearing down walls, and it seems like I run off and do my own thing sometimes because I get so excited, like this. But…” His eyes stay affixed on mine. “We are one. You’re my best friend, the only other person on this earth who has ever gotten me, seen me, the real me. I am so damn grateful that I ever met you, that I know you, and that you want to be with me and feel the same way, even after we’ve been to the ends of hell and back more than once. I will walk through fire, take a thousand bullets for you, no matter how you answer what I’m about to ask you.” He pauses and swallows. “Will you be my wife, Paisley Williams? Will you marry me?”
My hand is over my mouth and tears stream down my face. I try so hard to scream “YES!” at him, but the word won’t come, and I just nod furiously.
&n
bsp; He takes the ring out and his fingers are shaking so bad I don’t even know if he can get it on my finger. He looks like I just made him the happiest man on the planet, and I must look the same way in return. He’s practically bouncing as he slips the ring onto me and once it’s on, he flies up from the floor.
His lips crash into mine and my fingers rake through his hair on the back of his head.
“Yes. God yes, nothing will make me happier.”
After he provides me more than enough attention, he slides back down to his knees and grins at my stomach. His hands immediately go to my belly. “She said yes! You heard it, right?”
Just then, something happens. My hands fly down and cover Donavan’s. “Oh my God! Did you feel that?”
I glance down at him, and I don’t even know how to describe what I see. Donavan is staring right at my stomach, and there is nothing but just—pure love on his face. His eyes are wide, and he looks like a little boy discovering the world for the first time.
“I-I felt it.” His eyes roam up to mine. “I felt our baby.”
I can’t do anything but smile at him, because he’s looked so jealous the past month or so when I tell him I can feel the baby, but it’s always been a flutter, like something bubbling inside me, but this time it was a definite kick.
Donavan’s eyes immediately go back to my stomach and he says, “Well come on, kiddo, do it again! Tell us what you really think!”
I can’t stop smiling.
Donavan stands back up and kisses me once more. He might be making jokes, but he almost looks like he’s a different man now. Like his brain just realized he’s actually a father, like the whole thing is real.
He takes out his phone and starts typing furiously into it and glancing at his watch.
“What are you doing?”
He holds up a hand, completely ignoring me. “Two seconds, not now.”
I glare at him playfully, flabbergasted he just said that.
He shoves his phone back in his pocket and smiles at me. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, you should be, what was that all about? Telling your family or something?”