Don't Date Your Brother's Best Friend

“Steak and onion rings? It’s not our anniversary for another month. I thought I was the one with pregnancy brain, not you. Are you getting forgetful hormones, too?” I teased.

“No, I remember the day we got married. But it doesn’t need to be our anniversary for a special occasion. You’re having my baby, and you wear my ring around your neck. You deserve all the onion rings in the world,” he said, and kissed me again.

“I’ll wear it on my hand again when I’m not so puffy,” I muttered, fingering the three rings on my chain. I had his class ring along with my engagement and wedding rings.

“How are your feet today?” he said.

“Swollen. They hurt,” I said.

Then my fireman scooped me up in his arms and carried me to the truck, set me gently on the passenger seat. He leaned down and unlaced my shoes and took them off.

“You need to prop those up,” he said, sliding the seat back so I could prop my feet on the dashboard.

I loved every minute of it. Luke fussing over me. Luke kissing my belly before he shut the truck door. The picture of us he kept taped to the dash of his truck.

It wasn’t our wedding picture. It was a picture from Ryan’s eighteenth birthday party, a snapshot of him blowing out the candles. But we were in the background, captured on Kodak paper for all time, stealing a kiss back by the doorway while everyone else sang happy birthday to my brother. A stolen kiss in the background—that I never dreamed could have ended up this way.

“I missed you today,” I said. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“Thanks for coming home early and letting me take you to dinner. I’ve been looking forward to this forever.”

“You mean all week?” I teased.

“No, I mean forever. As long as I can remember, there was never anything I could imagine for my future that was half this good,” he said.

THE END