She smiles and the sight of it takes my breath away. “I like the fun stuff.”
“Me, too. We should get to the fun stuff more often.” I pause in the threshold of my bedroom. “I lied. I’m going to be bossy about a lot more than just when we’re in the bedroom.”
She slides her hands up my sides and around the back of my neck, playing with my hair. “Oh?”
“Yeah. Like wanting to keep you safe.”
“Kind of experienced that already with the accident.”
“Oh, trust me, I was holding back. You have no idea how much.”
“That was you holding back?” she asks, her eyes wide. Makes sense. I was a complete basket case for a few weeks. I’m still holding back, though. She doesn’t need to see how anxious it makes me.
“It was. I’ll probably boss you around about letting me take care of you,” I tell her, quieting my voice. Her eyes soften a little. “I’ll boss you around when I feel like it’s time for us to have a break together, even if it means we have to leave the baby with my sister for a few hours. Because there will never be a time that I won’t put us first. And, this is a big one,” I warn.
“What is it?” she asks, her chin trembling.
“I’m going to be very bossy when it comes to the fact that I want to marry you. Sooner rather than later. I want you and the baby to have my last name, to sign a paper that legally bonds us together for the rest of our lives. I want us to have more babies once this one is old enough and we’re ready again. I want to take family vacations and also mommy and daddy only vacations where I drag you to the airport and you’re sad until we arrive on a Caribbean island for a week of you and me and sex and sand and sun and you realize that I was right and being away from the kids is okay. I want us to visit your parents, but not on Christmas morning because that’s reserved for our family. I want us to burn dinner together and watch terrible movies and fight over finances and whose turn it is to change a dirty diaper and for you to get annoyed with me when you have to take the kids to all their appointments and demand I step up. I want all of it. The good and the bad in between because the good can’t be good unless we know what the bad is like. Then we’ll appreciate the good even more. And our kids will appreciate the goodness that we have in our house.”
“Oh my gosh,” she whispers. “Nik…”
“I love you. When I said those words earlier, they weren’t for show or said without me thinking it over. I meant them with every single fiber of my being. You need to know that I am completely in love with you. If you’re not totally there, I’ll wait. I’ll wait as long as you need for us to be on the same page.”
“I’m there.”
“You’re…” My heart beats double time as I stare at her for one beat, two beats, three before I close my eyes and lean my forehead against hers, breathing her in.
Guiding her to the bed, I have her sit down then go to my dresser, digging through the top drawer.
When I find what I’m looking for, I walk back to Ashley, and drop to one knee.
“Ashley.”
She gasps and I smile.
“Ashley, you know I’ve done this a few times. Thank goodness the last one didn’t stick, huh?” I tease and we share a smile. “There are a lot of things in my life that I would do differently. I wish I’d have saved it for you — that I would have followed my gut and trusted that you were out there for me. I just had to be patient. I hate that this isn’t the first time for both of us, but the feelings I have for you are a first for me. I’ve never connected with someone the way I have connected with you. I fell in love with you when I wasn’t even trying. It just happened. Because that’s the way it’s supposed to be, you know? Nothing forced or pressured. It’s just us. And him.” I lean over and kiss her stomach. “The three of us… together. I love you, Ashley.”
Her hand trembles in mine. Tears glisten in her eyes. “Oh my gosh. I love you, too.”
“This is probably sudden to you because we only just now told each other how we truly feel, but for me, this has been building for months. Eight and a half months, to be exact.” I pause and she wipes a tear from her cheek, a watery smile firmly in place as she gazes down at me.
I take a deep breath before saying my next words because this will be the last time I ever say them. Well, unless she says no, then I’ll keep saying them until she says yes. And now I’m nervous. Holy crap. I’m the worst proposer in the entire world! The first time I just asked my friend because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. The second time I asked someone who didn’t even love me. Now I ask the woman I want to be bound to the rest of my life, and know this without a doubt, but I only told her this five minutes ago. I told myself I wanted to hit the fast forward button but this is extreme, even for me.
The look on Ashley’s face is one of confusion now whereas moments ago it was full of love and excitement. “Nik? What’s wrong? Why aren’t you saying anything now?”
“I want you to be my wife,” I blurt out. “But I’m rushing things. I’m rushing us. I don’t know why I can’t get this right, but this time will be forever so the proposal needs to be perfect. I shouldn’t have just dropped to my knee because I was eager to keep moving forward. I need to give you time. Give us this time. For me to woo you and for us to go on dates. Find out more about each other.”
“You are not taking back your proposal. For real?”
“No. I’m not. But… I need to do better. I needed to wait. This isn’t…”
She holds up a hand to stop me from continuing to speak. That’s fair. I’m not doing this right. “Tell me… am I going to find out that you have an aversion to watching Netflix at night? Or not watching an entire season of whatever show I’m obsessed with at the time in one weekend?”
I scoff. That’s the definition of a perfect weekend with her. “No.”
“Am I going to discover that you actually don’t like cheese, which, as you know, is a definite deal breaker?”
My lips twitch. “No.”
“Are you addicted to cocaine or chewing tobacco and spitting it into the bed or that you were previously a porn star?”
“Absolutely not. That’s disgusting. And hell no.”
“Are you going to tell me I can’t drink ice water out of a coffee mug anymore?”
“Clearly not if I haven’t said anything about it yet.”
“Okay, final question. Are you going to be an asshole about me losing the baby weight or will you still love me — all of me — even if I have a little bit of extra to love?”
“Baby. I don’t care about that as long as you’re happy and healthy.”
She shrugs and wipes away another tear that’s rolling down her cheek. “I don’t need time, Nik.”
“We deserve more...”
“Stop using the word time or I’ll flick your earlobe,” she warns, glaring at me. “We don’t need more time. We know each other. Maybe you didn’t realize it, but you’ve been wooing me since you found out I was pregnant. Every day you’ve showed me the kind of man you are. I’ve never felt this way about anyone else, either. I don’t care that you were a dumbass and asked Stacia to marry you.” We both chuckle. “I don’t care that you married your friend because you thought that’s what you both wanted. What I care about is that we survived those past messy relationships and came out stronger because of it. And now we’re here together, against all odds. We made it through the junk, Nik. It doesn’t matter if the entire time we’ve known each other has been unorthodox or that our dates haven’t really qualified as traditional dates, so much as just spending time together. If life has taught me anything lately it’s that nothing is guaranteed. I could have died in that accident and we wouldn’t have had the chance to tell each other how we feel.”