“Rix, if you don’t think I know you’re looking after me. If you think I missed the trench coat and the grown-up sibling squabbling and the man huddle, whispering about how you’re all worried about me, you’re crazy.”
She hadn’t missed the trench coat.
“We’re right now in a glorified hotel room that’s in a home and you gave that to me tonight,” she continued. “I didn’t miss it, honey.”
“This is fucking with my head, not the drama, knowing you grew up in this mausoleum,” he admitted.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Not yours to be sorry for.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“You saw what Jamie and Rosalind gave Dru. You saw what I had.”
“Yes.”
“That’s what we’re giving our kids.”
Her eyes closed. Then they opened.
It wasn’t a blink. It was more like a surprise seizure.
He grinned.
And teased, “Gimme a break.”
“Give you a break?”
“Babe, you’re wearing my ring.”
“It’s fake.”
“It’s unofficial,” he corrected.
“Rix!” she snapped. “This is huge. What’s with you acting all blasé about it?”
“Because it is what it is. You’re giving it back when we get home so I can give it to you again when I ask you to marry me.”
“I’m not giving it back,” she retorted. “I love it. I’m keeping it. You can do the deed with the question whenever, but I’m not giving up this ring.”
He gave her more of his weight and replied, “No way in fuck, baby. You’re not wearing that ring after you put it on yourself which was after I tossed the box with it inside across a room to you. I’m gonna figure out something memorable and slide it on your finger my own fucking self when it’s official.”
“That’s totally a waste. We know what this is,” she bitched.
“Then why the surprise seizure when I start talking about our kids?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Surprise seizure?”
“Told my mom it isn’t what it is…yet, and you’re all big eyes and bullshit surprise.”
She shoved at him. “I am surprised.”
“Baby, we know what this is.”
She started bitching again. “This is maybe the least romantic proposal-non-proposal, future-children discussion in history.”
“I made no promises about romance. I promised sexual slavery and excellent grill skills.”
“Ohmigod! You’re the worst.”
He dipped his head, and against her neck, he murmured. “Now, time for the sexual slavery part.”
“Ugh!”
He slid a hand under her thermal at her belly.
“Two kids,” she snapped at the ceiling.
He lifted his head and looked down at her. “Three.”
“Okay, three,” she agreed grouchily.
“Better give me a Kinsley, baby,” he warned.
“We must have a boy with your caramel eyes or we’re going to keep going until I have one.”
“Caramel eyes?” he teased.
“Just shut up, Rix, and fuck me.”
He was him, so he had to take a beat to shoot her a cocky smile.
Alex lifted her head.
And kissed it off his mouth.
Chapter 24
The Conversation
Alex
I didn’t know what woke me.
I was not typically a sound sleeper. But when I was in bed beside Rix, my sleep had been the best I’d had in my life.
But I woke.
And when I did, I saw through the dark that Rix was sitting on the side of the bed.
This didn’t seem strange to me at first.
But then he didn’t move.
I got worried, and as it goes when that happens, a number of possibilities washed through my mind.
Such as, he needed to go to the bathroom, and we hadn’t put his chair close enough to the bed.
Or the chair was close enough, but he needed to go to the bathroom, and although we’d brought a portable bench for the shower, there were no handrails anywhere, and this made everything in the bathroom harder to maneuver from his chair.
I’d fretted about this when we’d gone in and checked that night we’d arrived.
Rix’s bathroom at his house had been completely modified to his needs.
We’d put a bench in the shower at my house, and he had his old foldable walker that he’d used in the beginning when he was getting used to his legs in there so he could use it to swing in and out until we had the mods done around the shower and toilet areas.
But the en suite bathroom for this room was not accessible.
Rix had said not to worry. It had a handheld showerhead, which was helpful, and he’d been a lot of places where he had to get creative. He had specifically built up his upper body strength and worked with his therapists and mentor on these strategies so, as much as possible, he could resume the active life he’d had, no matter what unexpected challenges he might face.
Still, in the middle of the night in a strange room when you needed to go to the loo, it could be disorienting.
“You okay?” I called.
His body seemed to jolt, and he turned his head to look at me.
“Yeah, baby,” he murmured. “Go back to sleep.”
I wasn’t very hip on that body jolt.
Therefore, I asked, “You need anything?”
“No. All good.”
Did I let this go?
No, this was Rix.
I didn’t let this go.
“Then why are you awake in the early hours of the morning and sitting on the side of the bed?” I asked.
“My foot hurts.”
I got up on my elbow, not comprehending this answer.
Was he sleep sitting?
“Your foot hurts,” I said carefully.
“Yeah. My brain consciously knows they’re gone. But my brain physically hasn’t gotten with that program. It doesn’t know what to do with the fact that my feet aren’t there to give it signals, so sometimes it decides to tell me something’s up. When it happens, I try to get in the zone to talk it down.”
He was referring to phantom limb pain.
“Get in the zone?” I queried.
“Meditate. I’ve got some guided meditations I usually use, but I left my earbuds in my bag and I’m too lazy to go get ’em. So I was trying to go it alone.”
“I can get them,” I offered.
“That’d be good, honey,” he murmured. “They’re in the side pocket.”
I rolled out, went to his duffel that was sitting on a chair across the room, and dug out his buds.
I also made a mental note of this, so I could be sure these were where Rix needed them, even if he forgot.
I walked to him.
He took them from me and reached for his phone on the nightstand, saying, “Thanks, sweetheart.”
I crawled in bed at his side, sitting on my hip. “Has this happened since we’ve been together?”
Rix shook his head. “No. Happened a lot in the beginning, after they took my feet. That’s a serious mindfuck. You’re grieving something you lost that you used every day of your life and totally took for granted, and your brain’s stabbing pain up your feet that are no longer there. But it’s a lot better now.”