“How much?” I ask in return as my heart starts to flutter and my belly churns, my nerves a hot riot.
I feel his smile against me when he says, “More than anything.”
Lord, I hope so.
I pull back and meet his blue eyes, my hands gliding up and into the back of his hair. “I did a thing.”
“What thing?”
“I enrolled at UCLA starting in the fall.”
His face lights up. Poor bastard. He has no idea what’s headed his way.
“That’s incredible. I’m so happy for you. Did you decide on a major?”
I did. I’m excited about it too. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to start in the fall though. I might have to put it off another semester.” His eyebrows pinch in at my cryptic words and solemn expression. “Keith…” Deep breath. “I’m pregnant.”
He studies me for the longest of moments. His eyes bouncing back and forth between mine as if he’s trying to see through my words and into my soul. “How? When?”
I inhale a sharp breath, releasing it slowly. “I missed my period last week and didn’t think too much about it. I’ve been irregular before. That’s the when. The how is we’re not exactly all that careful.”
He can’t argue that. We aren’t. Sometimes he wakes me up in the middle of the night and things happen. Or he pounces when we’re on the couch watching something. It happens a lot in a lot of random places. He usually pulls out.
Not always though.
We’ve been tested, but I didn’t do well on the pill when I started it and I was in between appointments, looking to find a better alternative. Oops.
“You took a test?”
I nod. “I took a test this morning.”
“And it was positive?”
I frown. Obviously, it was positive since I just told him I was pregnant. “Yeah.”
“Like, you’re one hundred percent sure?”
“Keith! Yes. I mean, I need to see my doctor at some point, but yeah. I’m fucking pregnant asshole. This is not how you’re supposed to respond when the woman you claim to love tells you she’s knocked up with your spawn.”
The biggest, most breathtaking smile breaks free, igniting his entire face in a dazzling radiance. “How do you want me to respond? Like this?” He drops to his knees, wraps his hands around my back and plants the sweetest most tender kiss on my lower belly. Then he looks up at me. “How’s that? Does that work?”
I shake my head, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip.
“No? Not good enough?”
That’s not at all what I meant. What he just did was absolutely perfect. Because I’ll be honest, I’m scared out of my mind. I’m twenty. Which is insanely young to have a baby. Keith and I haven’t even been together all that long. We’re just getting settled together. We’re just finding our rhythm.
And now there’s a new life coming into the mix.
But somehow, when I look into his eyes, all my fears and worries and uncertainty dissolve into nothing.
He stands up, cupping my face in his hands and kisses me like he’s never kissed me before.
Not ever.
This is a kiss swimming in pure unrestrained joy. I can feel it pouring off him in waves. He’s radiating with it. A stunning pulsing vibration that’s engulfing his entire body and seeping effortlessly into mine.
“A baby,” he hums reverently, almost as if he’s testing the word on his tongue. “It’ll play drums for sure. Oh, if it’s a girl, can we name her Watts?”
I laugh as the first of my tears helplessly falls. “You’re not mad?”
“Mad?” He half-laughs, his tone delightfully incredulous. “How can I be mad? First of all, I got you pregnant, so getting mad at something I was intimately a part of is just ludicrous. Second of all—”
“Oh my god,” Viola gasps, interrupting Keith as we simultaneously turn in her direction. “She said yes? I thought you weren’t going to ask her until tonight.”
“Huh?” I push out, a crease forming between my eyebrows. “Ask me what?”
Keith groans with a mirthless half-laugh, his head dropping back for a second. “For Christ’s sake, Vi. I haven’t asked yet. That’s not what this was because yeah, I was gonna wait until tonight.”
Vi’s smile plummets, her eyes stunned wide. She covers her mouth with her hand as her cheeks turn bright pink.
Jasper is cracking up, trying so hard to hide it and failing.
“Shit. I just totally ruined everything.” Vi drops her head onto Jasper’s chest. “Holy crap, I can’t believe I did that. Forget I said anything,” she cries, her voice now muffled by Jasper’s tuxedo jacket as she buries her face in him as deep as she can go. “Keith. I… you were on your knees and then she was crying, and you were kissing her and...”
Jasper kisses the top of Vi’s head, encircling his arms around his wife. “Come on, dream girl. I think we need to leave Keith and Maia alone. I’m guessing you could use another glass of champagne about now. Or maybe something stronger.”
“I’m so sorry,” Vi calls out, twisting in Jasper’s chest to meet Keith’s eyes. She looks stricken.
I turn back to Keith, tilting my head in question. “Were you going to ask me to marry you?”
He meets my eyes, his tone steady and his gaze firm, giving nothing away. “Yeah. I was.”
“Keith! We’ve only been together like a hot second. I’m only twenty. Don’t you think that’s jumping the gun just a bit?”
He drops back down onto one knee, planting another kiss right over my lower belly while pulling a small black box from his pocket. His eyes lock on mine. “No. I don’t think I’m jumping the gun at all. Life rule #1: When you meet the one you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with, you do the smart thing and put a ring on it. You don’t wait around for the perfect time because there is no such thing. I want to marry you, Maia, because I love you. I want to marry you because there is no other woman in the world for me than you. And there never will be, my sweet darlin’. Marry me?”
“Life rule #1?”
“You’re always life rule #1.”
He opens the box, revealing a large round diamond on a platinum band. It’s simple and stunning and so perfect.
“I… um… yes!” I laugh. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
In the next second, Keith lifts me up into his arms and opens my mouth with his, slipping his tongue inside so he can taste me. “I’m your baby daddy,” he whispers into me, setting me back on my feet and dropping his forehead to mine.
I burst out laughing. “You most definitely are my baby daddy.”
“And you’re going to be my wife.”
“No longer your Pandora.”
He shakes his head, his lips pressing into mine because he can’t stop kissing me. He can’t stop touching me. He can’t stop smiling. “Maia, my goddess, we’re our own love story. No myth, we’re the real thing. And whatever our future story is meant to be, we’ll write it together.”
Epilogue