by Brook Greene
The breath I’d just taken sticks in my throat. He knows—Avery told him. I’ll be pissed at her later, but right now, he deserves to know.
So I screw up my courage and answer him. “No.” His smile is so sincere, I know immediately I made the right decision. I stand as I’m ushered out of the way, and they move him through the door away from me. I watch him for as long as I can, my heart tightening in my chest the farther he moves away from me. They take him around the corner and then he’s gone. I stumble over to one of the plastic waiting room chairs all hospitals have. It makes a nasty crunching noise when I sit on it.
I take a deep breath and pray he’s okay. I hope that him wondering if I’m pregnant isn’t his last living thought. I shake my head, clearing the last thought, and will him to be okay. He has to be.
After I have a chance to collect myself, I walk over to the nurse’s station and ask after my mother.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Matt
I wake to the taste of ass in my mouth and the feel of sand in my eyes. The beeps and whizzes going on around me makes the ache in my head worse. I feel a tight squeeze around my hand, and I don’t even have to turn my head to know who it is. Her soft skin warms me. My woman. The other half of what makes up the reason I live.
I feel her lips at my ear, the sweet smell of her warm breath rushes over me. “I’ll go let them know you’re awake.” She goes to pull away, but I don’t let her. “Matthew, I have to let them know.”
I shake my head, not wanting to anger the monster who has taken up residence in my head, driving spikes into the backs of my eyes. “Not yet.” My voice is gravelly, and my throat is dry and painful. Feeling a straw at my lips, I take the water she’s offering me and swallow it down, making my scratchy throat feel so much better. “Not yet,” I say again, sounding more like myself. I tug her hand to me, hoping to bring all of her closer.
Her fingers softly stroke my arm when a quiet sob escapes her lips. “When were you going to tell me?” I go right to the thing that my hazy mind has been going over and over again since she’d told me I’d had nothing to be mad about.
“I don’t know if I am or not,” she says through her sobs. I work on getting my eyes to open, needing to see her to make sure everything about her is okay. “I took a pee test, but I think it was a dud. It didn’t tell me anything.” She closes her eyes.
“What will it take for you to know now?” I finally get my eyes open and turn them to her. She looks tired, bruised, and the butterfly stitches at her temple have a fit of anger rolling through me.
She shrugs and looks down. “I don’t know. Avery said something about a blood test, but that was then. I could probably just pee again on one of those store bought pregnancy tests, I guess.”
“Blood test it is.” I find the bed remote and press the page button, summoning the charge nurse. The fact she hadn’t taken the pill says something to me. She at least wants our baby, if there is one. The fact she’d told me she loved me can be rationalized away. Dire straits and a stressful situation will make people say things they think they should, but not what they really feel. “Did you mean it?” I ask her, tipping her chin up to look at me.
“Mean what?” She holds my gaze, her eyes bloodshot and tired. If she’s pregnant, her sitting around this hospital with me isn’t something she needs. She needs rest, and lots of it. I watch as she nervously twirls a lock of her beautiful blonde hair between her fingers.
“You telling me you loved me.” A slight hint of panic blooms in my chest at her hesitation, scared to death that she’d said it out of obligation for what had just gone down.
“I don’t know.” Her uncertain eyes meet mine again.
“You don’t know if you love me? Or if you meant it?” I’m pushing her because I have to know. I need to know.
She shrugs her small shoulders again. “Both, neither…I don’t know.” She’s so unsure. “Did you mean it?” Her words are almost inaudible.
“Of course I meant it. I said it, didn’t I?” I declare without hesitation, and with more certainty than I’ve ever felt about anything in my life. This makes her perk up, bringing color back to her beautiful face.
A small smile curves her lips as she looks up at me through her lashes. “Then I really meant it.” A single tear slips out of the corner of her eye and rolls quickly down her cheek. “Because I do.”
I swipe another tear that falls with my thumb. “Happy tears?” I ask. She nods her head and leans her face into my open palm, sighing contently. “I’ve missed you, Tessa, so fucking much.”
“I’ve missed you too, Matthew. But how ridiculous is it that five weeks ago we didn’t even know each other, and now we’re professing our love? Are we crazy?” She wraps her fingers around my forearm to keep my hand on her face.
“If it’s crazy, honey, I don’t want to be sane. I like our kind of stupid.” I smile at her, just as the nurse comes through the door. “Now come down here and give me some sugar.”
~~~~~~
Tessa
Isn’t that how falling in love so often works? Some stranger appears out of nowhere and becomes a fixed star in your universe.
Kate Bolick
In the days after the shooting, Matthew was released from the hospital. He used the excuse of him needing constant help as a reason for me to move back to his house, which I didn’t argue with because I wanted to be with him. Beeker was fine. He’d lost a lot of blood and is now in rehab. The only loss, if you can call it that, was Jake.
The scandal of Jake hit his father’s campaign hard. So much so, Reginald had to drop out of the running, and then out of sight, shamed by a wicked son. The press had followed me around for a while, but after a few days, they’d thankfully moved on to the next political scandal, leaving me and Matthew to get to know each other—really know each other—as equals and lovers.
I’d made peace with who and what Matthew is, and the man ended up being fucking loaded. So now I spend my days looking after Jackson—well, at least until he starts school in the fall, and helping Emily and Hollis clean when I can or when they need me.
The ladies forgave and forgot. They’re an easy bunch, more dedicated than I’d given them credit for, and now I have five of the best friends anybody could ask for. Turns out the shit they’d lived through wasn’t that crazy, not if you look at my life compared to theirs. It seems that my rant and Avery’s slip canceled each other out.
Matthew and I had fallen into a very comfortable routine with Jackson as well. He was more than happy to have me back home, and my mother wasted no time in spoiling her new grandson. The day I met Matthews’s parents, I spent most of the morning with my newest friend—the commode in our bathroom—but it was all for nothing. I love them and they accepted me with open arms.
So now I lay on the table with my socked feet up in stirrups. Matthew stands beside me, holding my hand as the doctor rolls a condom on the ultrasound wand, which makes me snicker a little at the irony. “Okay, Tessa, you’re going to feel a little pressure,” she says as she begins to insert the wand into my vagina. The anticipation that has been building the past six weeks has my heart fluttering around in my chest. I look up to the man by my side and smile. “Are you ready?”
“I’ve been ready since the day the blood test came back positive.” He smiles back at me, then leans in to place a kiss on my lips. “God, I love you, woman.” The overwhelming feel of his lips on mine brings tears to my eyes. I never thought in a million years I could feel this much love for another human being, but Matthew has all the love I have to give.
The small screen comes to life, garnering both of our attention.
“Okay, so everything looks healthy,” the doctor says. “And this,” she selects a few keys and turns up a set of speakers sitting on the ultrasound cart, “are the heartbeats. They both sound really strong.”
The smile freezes on my face. “You mean, mine and the babies are strong, right?” I look up to a speechless Matthew, who’s starin
g, slacked-jawed, at the screen. His body is that of a perfectly stunned statue.
She turns to us both, smiling. “No, you’re having twins.”
No one believes in love at first sight, until that special person comes along and steals your heart.
~~Unknown~~
The End
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A Mayhem Wedding