“Nobody I know has feet as big as yours,” she told me softly.
She swallowed, and started to cough, and I quickly grabbed my pillow off the chair that I was sleeping with and pressed it down onto her chest when the tears appeared.
“Here, hold this. It’ll help feel like you’re not breaking in half,” I told her.
She clutched at the pillow.
“Owww,” she breathed.
My heart clenched.
“They had to crack your chest open in the operating room,” I told her softly, running my finger along the side of her cheek.
“Yayyy,” she said long and drawn out. “Sounds like a fun recovery.”
I leaned down until my forehead was leaning against hers.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I told her sternly. “Don’t do that again.”
“I’ll try not to be shot at by your ex-girlfriend,” she said solemnly, making me want to laugh.
“Dead ex-girlfriend,” I informed her, trying to keep the happiness out of my voice.
It wouldn’t be good to let people know I was happy that my ex was dead.
But after what she’d done to Lennox, I couldn’t shake the feelings.
“What’s with the sad face?” She asked softly.
I opened my eyes, ones I hadn’t realized I’d closed, and smiled down at her.
“I can’t believe she did this to you. I just can’t believe it,” I said, shaking my head.
She’d almost taken everything away from me.
Over and over again.
How many times did I have to pay for that one mistake of being with her?
It was the never ending story!
“She’s dead?” Lennox asked hopefully.
I nodded, looking at her mouth, then back up to her eyes.
“Yeah, baby, she’s dead,” I confirmed.
She breathed out slowly, then smiled as her eyes closed.
“Hate to say that it’s good, but it’s good,” she smiled.
I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me.
“Yeah, it’s good,” I told her. “Now we can have our life back.”
“I missed you,” she whispered.
A tear, which had been threatening to spill over since I’d seen that she’d awakened, did.
“I’ve missed you too, Lennox. I’m so sorry I was such an a-hole this month. I was just so unsure of what to do that I took it out on the wrong person. God, I almost lost you, and you’d have left me thinking I’d felt that way.”
“It was worth it,” she said, her body settling a little deeper into her bed.
“What was worth it, baby?” I asked.
“Getting shot. It was worth it if it brought you back to me,” she explained.
My eyes closed shut tightly, and the tears started to leak.
“I was coming for you before I realized she had you.”
“Good,” she said softly. “I’m tired.”
“Then sleep, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up,” I promised.
But she didn’t. She had more to say.
“You should probably get used to it, husband to be,” she said, putting emphasis on the last part.
I laughed against her mouth.
“How’d you know?” I asked.
“I could hear everything everyone was saying. Even that stupid shit you spouted about being thoughtless and ruining your life for a second time,” she informed me.
I swallowed hard. “I was thoughtless. If you weren’t awake right now…if you would’ve died…I’d have ruined my life for a second time. And this time so irreparably that I wouldn’t be able to dig myself out of the hole I prepared.”
She lifted her arm, and the IV tubes got tangled around my arm as she did, tying us together unintentionally.
“I would’ve been disappointed in you had you not taken the time you needed for yourself and your daughter. She’s a baby in this big, harsh world. You have to take care of her first, and me last,” she said softly.
My heart felt so full I could barely stand it.
“You’re not ever last, Nox. You’ll never be my last. You’ll always come first, right along with Reagan. And any other children we have,” I informed her. “I’ll always come last.”
She grabbed hold of my beard with her tiny fingers, and held me still as she said, “You’ll always be my first, too.”
“Good,” I said, starting to stand. “I need to call your parents and tell them that you’re awake.”
However, she kept a hold of my beard, holding me still.
“What?” I asked her.
“Don’t you have something to ask me?” She asked.
I blinked. “Ask you?”
“Yes, ask me. You know, it has something to do with us being together for the rest of our lives. And it rhymes with carriage?” She teased.
I feigned innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She pulled my beard.
I’m sure it was hard for her, but it only felt like a small tug.
Still, I laughed.
“I’m not asking you anything. I’m telling you,” I informed her.
“You’re telling me…what?” She whined.
“That you’re mine and I’m yours. And that’s the way of it,” I said sternly.
She snorted. “Typical you.”
“That’s right, typical me,” I agreed.
She sighed and finally loosed my beard. “I fucking love you, Bennett.”
Those words, coming from her mouth right then, only minutes after she woke up from a three day coma, were the best words in the world. Words I thought I’d never hear again.
“I love you, too,” I told her. “Now let me call your parents before they try to take back their approval of our impending marriage.”
Epilogue
Wooden spoon survivor.
-T-shirt
Three years later
“Are you ready, baby girl?” I asked my daughter, Way.
Her full name was Calloway Rhea Alvarez, but we’d shortened it to Way about two days after having her.
She was a full of life two year old with so much energy that it was hard to keep up with her at times.
“Yes,” Way agreed, running down the hallway to the garage before I’d even told her where we were going.
Shaking my head, I walked in the opposite direction, knowing the door was locked up high so she couldn’t get out.
“Reagan,” I called as I headed to her room. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah, mom. I can’t get my dress all the way zipped, though,” Reagan called from behind her closed bedroom door.
“May I come in?” I asked, hand on the knob.
“Yeah,” she called.
Opening the door, I tried to ignore the absolute pig sty that she had going on, and stepped over the mess to walk up behind Reagan.
She’d really grown into her body in the last three years, and was already just as tall as I was.
Reagan had the majority of the zipper up, so all I had to do was do up the last three inches, and she was ready.
“You look great,” I said truthfully.
She turned to me, and smiled.
Her big brown eyes, so much like her father’s, shined with annoyance, however.
“I hate wearing dresses,” she muttered.
I snorted.
That was an understatement.
She hated them so much that I’d had to go buy the one for tonight.
“Let’s go. We’re already late,” I said hurriedly.
She sighed and slipped her feet into her Chucks.
I didn’t say a word, knowing there were some battles that just weren’t worth fighting, this being one of them.
“Mom, I think we should stop for ice cream after the banquet,” Reagan said behind me.
“Ice cream, ice cream!” Way shrieked from in front of us.
I snorted.
The kid was a fatty.
Literally, if anything sweet came in her general direction, and she was going to eat it, whether you wanted her to or not.
Me, I had to sit there and watch them do it.