Page 138 of Into the Dark
“Okay, but you didn’t tell me the truth about it either, did you?”
This time, he’s using my own words against me. The very words I used about his hiding Caleb from me. And it hurts. Because he’s right.
I close my eyes and shake my head. “I’m sorry. I just…I thought I was doing the right thing, keeping it to myself for now. I didn’t want to give you something else to worry about.”
He blinks in confusion at this. “Alex, do you honestly think I don’t worry about you anyway?” His tone is softer before he lets out a loud, tired-sounding sigh. “Baby, I worry about you all the fucking time. What I’ve done to your life, what I’m putting you through every fucking day with this shit. The thought of you carrying this massive thing about with you on top of everything else I’ve piled on you, and you being…scared to tell me? How do you think that makes me feel?”
“Well…it’s not that massive yet. It’s still pretty small. Pea-size, actually.” I chance a smile.
His face softens a fraction more, the side of his mouth quirking. “I’m serious.”
I sigh, turning away from his glare. “Okay, well, I don’t want you to feel like that. I wasn’t scared to tell you…it wasn’t that. I was just worried about how you’d react. If you’d just see it as this burden and additional stressor—I mean, it is. It’s a baby. And, well, I wanted you to be happy about it when I told you. Not angry or upset or…whatever else you are right now.”
“You thought I wouldn’t be happy about it?” His voice sounds sad now.
I cast a sideways glance at him. “Well…you don’t look very happy right now.”
Immediately, Jake reaches across the car and takes my hand. He settles our hold over where my other hand rests flat on my stomach. Then he offers me a small smile. “Well…this is me over the fucking moon about it, just so you know.”
I smile, my heart expanding. “Really?” His touch is so warm, and the heat passes from him to me to the small bump under my dress before beginning to spread outward.
“Yeah, really.” He nods. And sure enough, a small smile starts to spread and grow across his mouth, his eyes filling with love again. “I guess I just don’t deal with surprises well.”
“Well, that’s good to know. No surprise birthday parties for you in the future,” I say. “Actually, when is your birthday? I feel like that’s something I should definitely know. You know, since I’m having your baby and all.”
He grins. “April fourteenth.”
My mouth drops open. “You’re joking?”
He shakes his head, looking confused as to why I’d think he’d joke about that.
“The due date is the fifteenth.” I smooth my hand over my tummy. “You could feasibly have the same birthday as our baby. Isn’t that strange?”
Jake raises his eyebrows in surprise and leans across the car to kiss me. It’s slow and soft, his tongue stroking tenderly against my own. I feel him settle his hand over the small, unnoticeable bump. When he pulls back he looks down at it. “I can’t fucking believe you’re having my baby.” Then a few seconds later, he groans. “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I just thought about what your mum is gonna say. She’s going to hand me my fucking arse, isn’t she? I’ve knocked up her baby daughter.”
I giggle. “Hmm. Well, if our baby ends up winning the Nobel Peace Prize one day, she’ll forgive you. But even then…” I scrunch up my nose in a grimace.
He sits back across the car in his own seat and drops his head back in the rest. “Ahh, fuck it.” He sighs in defeat. “Good-looking and polite was way more than I deserved anyway.” He pulls his seat belt on and ruffles a hand through his hair, settling into the seat while I stare at him. “What?” he asks. “Can we go home now? It’s been a long fucking day for me and my pregnant girlfriend, don’t you think?”
I widen my eyes. “It has been. But have you forgotten something?”
“Have I?” He looks about the car and then outside and then back at me, still confused. “What?”
“Oh, I don’t know, how about you asking me to marry you?”
He looks momentarily startled. “Oh, yeah, that… You sort of stole my thunder with that a bit.” He gives me a kind of shy look. The tops of his ears look a little red.
“I guess I did. Did you mean it?”
“Course I meant it.”
“Okay.”
A crease appears between his brows. “Okay? I kinda thought it was a yes or no sort of question.” He looks a little anxious now. “Is it ’cause you don’t want to marry me?” The vulnerability in his tone makes something tighten across my chest.