Unexpected Love Story (Love 2)

“What?” I walk in, taking in the prettiest nursery I have ever seen. It looks like a picture from a magazine. The walls are painted gray, one wall with white circles on them. A white crib sits against the wall with gray and white bedding. Frames of animals hang all around the room. “You said you wanted animals.” I turn to him as I take in the little sheep rocking chair for the baby in the corner. The white dresser and white changing table. The closet opened to show me baby pajamas hanging, waiting to be worn. I look around and then see a rocking chair with a side table. A picture of the two of us beside it. I walk into the middle of the room, taking it all in. The bunnies on the shelf, the diapers on the table, the blankets all washed and folded. “It was a gift from my parents.”

“What?” I turn to look at him. “This is too much.”

“You have no idea. If it was up to my parents, they would have had the animals brought in and living in the backyard to make you happy.” His parents have hands down accepted me with open arms.

It’s so perfect. I go to the crib, looking inside, and I turn and see him in the middle of the room on bended knee. “What?” I whisper, my hands flying to my mouth.

“I had this whole speech prepared on how to ask you to marry me in bullet form because I knew you would argue with me about it.” I am crying out a sob and a laugh. “Last year, I thought there was no way I would survive being crushed. There was no way I would ever be able to go on. But then one day, I got up and knew it would be okay, and then I met you. That exact night you fell into my lap.” I walk to him, my hands going to his face. “My father told me that if I loved Bethany, I would have gone after her. I thought he was just feeding me bullshit, but …” He looks down and then up with a tear in his eye. “If you ever left me, I would turn over every fucking stone there was to find you because I know I can’t live without you.”

I lean down to kiss his lips. “Can I say yes now?”

“I’m not done,” he says, smiling as my thumbs rub his face. “I want to wake up every single day to you; I want to come home to you. I want to fight with you and then make up with you; I want to live the rest of my life with you by my side.”

“I love you,” I finally say out loud, and he smiles so big his eyes crinkle at the corner. “I tell you that when you’re sleeping every single night.”

“I know,” he whispers, “I hear it.”

“Now can I say yes?” I ask him with tears streaming down our cheeks.

“Will you marry me?” he asks me, but I’m already nodding my head.

“Yes, I’ll marry you and carry however many children God decides to give us. I’ll love you with every single thing that I have even when I want to throw something at you.”

He opens the ring case, showing me a beautiful rose gold square diamond with white diamonds in the band. He slips the ring on my finger as I laugh and cry, bending to kiss him.

I don’t say anything as he gets up and kisses me again, and this time, my mind wanders back to the dreams that have haunted me. My baby girl who looks like her father but had my eyes. Unexpected, this whole thing must be my unexpected love story.

Epilogue One

Crystal

“I think this might be it,” I say, getting up in the middle of the night two months after we moved in. I’m officially three days past my due date and impatient to meet my little one.

“That’s what you’ve said for the past week,” Gabe says quietly from beside me. He turns over. “It’s three a.m.”

“I know, but it feels different.” I look at him as I roll out of bed. “We should have sex again to get things going.”

“No,” he says loudly, “I’m pretty sure I have no sperm left.” I laugh at him. He might be right, though. We had sex five times today, twice before he left for work, twice when he got home, and once before we went to bed, three yesterday, and three the day before.

“No, Gabe,” I huff out, going to the bathroom, “I’m telling you, I feel it in my back,” I say and then pain rips through me, causing me to double over and scream.

Gabe flies out of bed to me. “Breathe,” he says as I glare up at him. “Shit, this is it.”