Mine To Keep (Love By Design 7)

“Oh.” Ethan moved in his carrier, and I lifted him out to shush him and make sure his diaper was dry. He could go longer without crying, but I couldn’t bear to hear his little whimpers and comforted him the instant he seemed distressed.

I’d gotten him to take a pacifier when I turned around to see a teenage girl eyeing me up and down. A woman I assumed to be her mother gave me an equally dirty look and whisper-shouted loud enough for me to hear. “That’s why you don’t have kids at sixteen. Be smart and safe.”

I took a step forward since they were in the lanes adjacent to ours. “Excuse me?”

The woman assessed me, sneering, “I was telling my daughter how hard it is having children, especially for one so young like yourself.”

I felt Evan step behind me, wrapping his arms around me. I felt sheltered from the storm’s battering winds and this woman’s vitriol.

“My wife is twenty-one and finishing school.”

I clamped my lips tight because Evan was clearly lying, but the woman didn’t know this. She knew nothing about me. I was only twenty and I wasn’t his wife…yet.

Her face bloomed red with embarrassment and her daughter looked upset. “I’m sorry. It was an honest mistake.”

Evan moved to stand in between us, hell-bent on schooling this woman. “An honest mistake would have looked like you keeping your groundless opinion to yourself and educating your daughter at home. Not in a public setting bent on embarrassing my lovely wife, who has done nothing to you.” The woman looked apoplectic and I tugged on Evan’s arm to get his attention to stop. “That’s why you don’t make judgments about people you don’t know as a fifty-something adult with a bad dye job.” He growled.

She looked pissed and groused, “I’m forty-two.”

Evan shrugged, guiding me back to our bowling lane before turning to reply with a smirk. “Huh, imagine that, an honest mistake.”

The woman huffed and thankfully moved her family to another lane on the other side of the alley from us.

“Evan, you shouldn’t have said that, or lied.”

“I’m not sorry, Remi. She had no right to insult you or make you feel bad. Your age or anything else has nothing to do with our circumstances.”

“But doesn’t it? I was young and stupid.”

“Okay, I’ll concede you’re young, but you’re not stupid. You’re resourceful and smart, hardworking and an excellent mother. She can shove her opinions up her butt,” he grumbled.

“Evan, you lied to her.” I tapped him on his chest with my finger. He took my hand, then kissed the digit.

“Which part did I lie about, sweet girl?” He gave me a deadpan look I had no idea how to interpret. I wasn’t his wife, but I did live with him and we had been playing an awkward sort of house. I wasn’t currently enrolled in school even though the course catalog mysteriously appeared on the kitchen table every day this week. And I certainly wasn’t twenty-one yet.

“You know you did,” I said as he grunted.

“You are so lovely.” He cupped my cheeks.

I rolled my eyes.

“You just had a baby, and you’re on an education hiatus temporarily because he was born mid-semester.” He kissed my nose.

“Evan.” I frowned at him as he stood in my personal space, his body warming mine.

“And in my head, you’re as much my wife as the real thing.” He curled my hair behind my ears and rested his forehead against mine before dropping a heart-wrenchingly perfect kiss on my brow. He used his fingertips to soften the crease of wrinkles my scowl was leaving behind. “Someday, when you’re ready, we’ll make it official, but that snooty woman doesn’t need to know jack-poo about it,” he grumbled.

Evan walked around me, grabbing a bowling ball and then hurling it down the lane to a strike. He left me utterly breathless contemplating his words. I wasn’t sure where I had fit into Evan’s life, but he seemed to be making a declaration of sorts, and my brain was running hard to catch up with the beating of my heart.

It didn’t take much to leave me in an emotional pile, and I forced steadying breaths into my lungs and out my mouth to calm my racing thoughts.

36

Evan

Remington was determined to find a part time job while I was home hanging out with my best bud. I didn’t like that much but she was stubborn, and I wasn’t going to stand in her way of feeling some needed independence. Ethan was surprisingly the easiest baby to care for once we got through the colic. He smiled and I knew it wasn’t gas. He was a happy baby, and I liked to think it was because of the home Remi and I made for him. Stable, loving, and secure.

“I am so lucky to get this time with you, little man. I’m going to do my best to guide you. Make sure you grow up kind like your momma, respectful of girls, and listen to every darn thing they say. Even the slightly crazed ones like your Auntie Kristen. I promise they’re not all like that. Most of them are like your momma and Auntie Taylor.”