Page 64 of Finding Fate

I shake my head, grabbing the exposed half, but she doesn’t let go yet, waiting for me to answer. “Yeah, I’m real mad this gives me another reason to lock your ass down,” I say sarcastically, picking up the smile she’s forcing back. “We didn’t talk about it. Sex was transitional back then. I knew you weren’t on it. That was the extent of the conversation. I used condoms until I quit. I pulled out until I didn’t. I never knew I got you pregnant until a month ago. With everything happening so quickly birth control never crossed my mind, even with two other knocked up girls in the house. You’ve always made it hard to think rationally.”

She lets it go, allowing me to bring the test box in my direct line of sight. Two pink lines. They’re not even faint. Only one thing bothers me from the way she was trying to hide it behind her back. “Had I not been standing there would you have kept this from me?”

She looks at me, eyes so dark the black center is barely visible. “Maybe until I figured out what happened.”

I point the stick at her, my anger causing my eyes to narrow. “That’s bullshit, Gabby, especially since I didn’t know I have a goddamn six-year-old somewhere in the world until recently. I don’t want to be left in the dark on one more motherfucking thing for even twenty-four hours. The second you know, I better know. I don’t keep shit from you, even if it puts me in the doghouse.”

Her temper is flaring. I can tell by the way her nostrils keep widening. She grabs my hand and presses a finger to a place on her arm between her shoulder and elbow. “Feel that?” she grits out, letting me push on something tiny beneath her skin. It’s almost microscopic. If you weren’t looking for something, you’d miss it. “It’s supposed to be a birth control implant. My dad made me get it before I was discharged from the hospital after Madden was born. Had to get it changed my senior year. It’s just now getting close to time to change it again. They’re good for three years. There is no logical reason why I should be pregnant! Maybe it’s wrong.”

I show her the little box side. “Does that look wrong? It’s solid. Both lines. Neither are faded.”

She rubs her hands up and down her face. “You still carry a pocketknife. Cut this out of my arm. We can sterilize it. It shouldn’t be deep.”

She goes for my pocket. I grab her wrist before she can pull my knife out of it that’s hooked on my pocket from the inside. “No one is cutting on your body but a doctor, crazy ass. Especially not if you’re pregnant.”

“It’s bothering me! I want to know, Maddox. I’m not irresponsible anymore. Not like that. There were other reasons aside from you as to why I didn’t sleep with anyone else. I didn’t want to risk getting pregnant.”Thank fuck for that.She’s freaking out and upset.

I grab her shirt between my thumb and forefinger, pulling her closer. “Hey, it’s fine. We’re engaged this time. I’m not going anywhere. We were going all the way. Does the science behind it really matter?”

She looks up at me behind glossy eyes. “To me it does. I already lost one baby. I can’t go through that again.”

I wrap my arms around her and pull her against me. “Gab, we’re adults. No one can take this from us.”

Riggan looks up from his cell phone, our eyes meeting. He knows it’s gutting me. Seeing her upset has always been my weak spot, but her upset about this is unbearable. He nods me over. “Come get yours. She’s not tattooing and you need the release. By the time we’re finished Sayler’s dad should be home. She called him. He agreed to check out her arm when he’s done at the hospital.”

“I’m not getting the tattoo without her,” I tell him, but then she pulls away from me, blinking away the tears that she’s yet to let fall.

“Please. I want you to. I want it on one of us for him. If I’m really pregnant it won’t be anytime soon for me.”

Yeah, telling her no isn’t going to happen. Grabbing the back collar of my shirt, I pull it over my head, leaving me in only work jeans and boots and a belt. Her eyes slowly skim down my front like she’s hungry, starting with my chest tattoos. “Stop looking at me like that or the bathroom is getting used for the very thing that made this test positive.”

She finally smiles again, just before I grab her hand and pull her toward the chair, stepping over it to straddle it backward. When I sit down, I leave enough room between me and the chair back for her to sit, nodding her toward it. She tries to pull back from the chair. “I can watch from here. I don’t want to be in the way.”

“You’re not,” Riggan chimes in as he cleans a place on my left shoulder blade with solution and a paper towel, answering for me. “I’ll be at his back. I’m limited to torso since his upper arm sleeves are done. He won’t go lower than a shirt sleeve or up the neck because of his parents. Has to be able to cover it.”

My eyes never break from hers. She relaxes but doesn’t look amused. “You still let your parents’ opinions about things dictate what you want?”

“Don’t you?” I ask defensively. She knows it’s a sensitive subject for me. She rebels against her father at every turn, but that’s one thing I love about her. She’s headstrong and doesn’t conform to anyone else. She’s the greatest woman I’ve ever known. I care way too damn much what my parents think. They’ve raised me that way. Even Micah keeps his indiscretions under wraps so they don’t find out, and he’s a good bit older than me. I’m not going to go up against my parents anytime soon.

“No, asshole, I don’t. Do I still want my dad to be in my life? Yes. Will I bend to his will to have it or let it steer my decisions? No. I said yes when you presented me with a ring, did I not?”

One side of my mouth pulls up into a smirk. “Thank God.”

“It’s your body. Get it where you want. If anyone has a say in the matter, it’s your wife, and I happen to find your body sexy.”

I bite back a moan. Why is the word ‘wife’ such a damn turn-on? I thought that goal for my life was over. I pull her closer. “I’ll cross that bridge when I’m out of upper body room. I grab the back of one thigh, directing her in the position I want her in. “Sit down.”

She throws one leg over and straddles the tattoo chair, facing me. I pull her forward and drape her legs over my thighs, causing her back to fall against the chair, and then I lean in so close that our foreheads press together, finding a comfortable enough position that I can be close to her and move if I need to while being still enough for Riggan to tattoo.

Dark eyes bore into mine as Riggan puts the transfer on. Her hands start to move up my arms, starting at my wrists from where I have my hands stationed on her thighs. Her fingers glide over my triceps. It gives me chills. Her touching me always has. I never understood it; how she could affect every bodily system so effortlessly. She was the first and no other girl has done it since.

When her nails comb through the back of my hair, the tattoo gun starts up, a buzzing sound bouncing all around us. I prep my mind for the initial sting of the needle. After so long the area becomes numb in ways, but the first few runs always takes my breath away a little, and it’s been a while since I’ve had a tattoo—that day back in October when Konnor’s sister came in the tattoo shop looking for Riggan when he was on one of his Abby induced drug binges, which was thirteen months ago, and also the last time he ever did a hard drug. So much has changed since then. “I’m scared,” she says, just as the needle pierces my skin, taking my mind off of it. Scared is something Gabby rarely is.

Her warm breath kisses my lips. I rub my hands up her legs, following the bend of her body, until the tips of my fingers graze the front waistband of her jeans. I crawl over it, sliding a few of my fingers to the other side and lightly rub left to right. Her stomach draws in as I caress her skin. “Why?”

“What if he?”

I close my eyes, trying not to let my mind go there. I already have enough hatred for her dad. “I’ll be here this time. No one is making me leave and no one is taking you away from me. It’ll work out this time.”