I swung my legs over without a second thought but didn’t account for the long trench coat I’d wrapped over my pajamas. As I tried to jump to freedom, the edge of that coat caught in the cracked windowsill, jerking me back toward the wall.
“Abby!” Nick leapt forward as I smashed against the paneling and let out a frightened gasp and my purse slipped from my fingers, spilling its contents all over the wet pavement below while I dangled helplessly in the air. “Abby, hold on! I’ve got you!”
For the first time in my life, I didn’t want Nick to get me. I didn’t want him to be the knight in shining armor, rushing in to save me or fix his latest mess. All I wanted was to be home, sleeping in my safe, warm bed. “Don’t!” I said, cringing away from his hands to twist myself up and tear t
he coat free from the window. A second later, I dropped through the air and landed in a disgruntled heap upon the ground. “You’ve done enough.”
Within just seconds, the rain soaked me to the bone. I brushed my wet hair away from my face with a shiver and gathered up my purse and things before Nick pulled me shakily to my feet.
“Are you okay?” he asked, feeling my stomach, the concern evident in his voice. “Is the baby okay?”
Drenched and frustrated, I stared up at him as the thunder rolled, the rain poured, and the lightning flashed. Sure, I was a little irritated that I was there because of him, that he’d dragged me to some seedy bar to rescue him at some awful hour of the night, but in that moment, looking into his eyes like that, with that rain dripping off his perfect hair and rolling droplets down his perfect face, I just wanted him to scoop me up, kiss me, and take me home.
“Shit! How could I be so stupid? You’re pregnant, out here in the rain in your pajamas, jumping out the window from some rowdy bar, and it’s all because of me. What the hell is wrong with me?” he fumed. “I’m no role model or hero for our child. How did the universe think making me a father was a good idea? I don’t deserve you or the baby, Abby. I really—”
I softly grabbed his hand. “The baby and I are fine, Nick. Everything’s fine.” When I looked up at him, though, I noticed him staring at me with the strangest expression I’d ever seen on his face. “What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
The cops were closing in, the rain was becoming a torrential monsoon, the cabbie’s patience had worn too thin for him to stick around, and we’d yet to put more than ten feet between us and the battle raging inside the bar, yet Nick wasn’t moving a muscle or saying another word. I shivered again and took a step closer, worried that something was seriously wrong with him, something more than too much liquor.
“I’m sorry.”
The soft words stopped me in my tracks, and I stared up at him, wondering what in the world was going through that beautiful head of his. His eyes were filled with an unspeakable kind of remorse, but there was something else there too: a quiet kind of hope.
“You shouldn’t be...” His eyes flickered up to the window. “I just came here to celebrate...” He bowed his head to his chest as the rain continued to pelt him. When he finally finished his thought, it was so quiet that he could have only been speaking to himself. “I’m a father now. I need to be more responsible, for you and for our baby. Fuck all this bullshit. I’m ready to settle down with the woman of my dreams, ready to make a family with you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Watching you jump out that window in the middle of a bar fight showed me something.”
“What?” I asked, eager to hear it.
Tears welled in his eyes. “I can’t live like this anymore, all these stupid stunts and antics. I’m no frat boy, and this shit has to stop. I’m supposed to be a man now, and I need to be one for the woman I love. Abby, I know it doesn’t look like it right now, but I really do want to give you and our baby a stable life. You shouldn’t have had to race down here in your pajamas to save me. I promise that from this day forward, no more crazy stunts. It’s time I jump off this rollercoaster and enjoy a real life, a life with you. I swear to you that all this insanity ends here, tonight. I love you, Abby, and I don’t want to ever be with anyone else.”
A tear slipped down my face at the sincerity of his confession.
“I’ve met my match, my soulmate, my...forever,” he said.
“That’s nice to hear,” I said with a soft smile, batting my eyes to flick the rain away.
He gently cupped my face. “You’re my world, and I don’t want to lose you...especially over the damn Yankees, as you put it.”
“You won’t, baby.”
“I expected to be a bachelor till my dying day, thought I could just multitask, entertaining an entire roster of side chicks.”
“Hmm. I’m afraid I can’t put up with that. You think you can really handle monogamy?”
“For you? Hell yes! It’s like I’ve been waiting for you my entire life, Abigail Wilder. I can’t even think about being with another woman because you’re all I think about. I know I’ve been...a little wild, but then you came along and changed everything with your beautiful smile and feisty personality. I hope you know I was smitten by you the first day I met you.”
“A little wild, huh?” I said with a grin. “Why’d you keep your distance then? Were you worried about tainting me or something?”
“I just knew I don’t deserve somebody like you. You’re so pure, so innocent, a hopeless romantic. I didn’t want to hurt you or change you, so I kept everything professional. That wasn’t easy, because deep down, I’ve always held a torch for you.”
“Oh, Nick...”
“Well, now I have to officially pop the question, I guess.”
I laughed out loud at that. “Okay...”
“Tell me, Abby, would you ever consider settling down with a reformed playboy?”
Without any hesitation whatsoever, I answered, “Not only would that be the best decision of my life, but it’d also be the best Hollywood love story ever.”