Vegas Baby by Winter Renshaw

Author:Winter Renshaw [Renshaw, Winter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-SIX

Calypso

“So that was an interesting day.” I climb into bed with Crew, patting organic moisturizer over my face. On the way back from Lake Tahoe, we stopped at some roadside beauty shop Noelle raved about. Everything was homemade, right there in the shop, right before our eyes.

I think everyone agreed that pulling to the side of the road to pop in there was the highlight of our day. No one was insulted. No one cried.

“Yeah.” He’s been quiet since we left. I haven’t pried much. I figure he’ll talk when he’s ready.

I click off the lamp on my side of the bed and scoot down. His warmth beckons me, and I slide right into his arms. The TV’s on in the background. He stares at it, but I don’t think he’s paying much attention.

Crew’s hand slides down my belly and stops.

“You think it’s possible to love something you’ve never met?” he asks.

“Absolutely.”

“I love this baby,” he says. “It’s part of me, you know? Part of you. I want to protect it, help it grow. Do everything better than my parents did.”

“Our parents were great teachers, weren’t they?” I say. “Teaching us everything we shouldn’t do.”

“Emme loves you,” he says.

I love her too.

I’ve just been scared to admit it. She’s not mine. Not legally. Not genetically. It’s dangerous to love a child you have no right to love.

“Emme doesn’t know what love is,” I say.

“I see it when she looks at you. Her face lights up.”

“She gets the same way about pureed mango.”

He laughs. “I mean it. Don’t discredit it. I can tell. She loves you.”

I place my cheek on his chest.

“Do you love her?” he asks.

Of course I do.

“Yes,” I say a half-minute later. “I love Emme.”

“You want to be her mom?”

His question comes out of left field. A rush of cool shock floods my veins.

“Legally,” he adds. “You’d be her legal mom. I want Emme to have a mom. She deserves one. She deserves a mom like you.”

I’m honored.

And terrified.

“I meant what I said today,” he says. “To my father.”

“The part about being a family?” Yeah. I know.

“No,” he says. “When I said I was going to marry you someday.”

My body freezes, and my heart gallops.

“I thought you didn’t think about the future?” I deflect. “I thought you took things one day at a time.”

“I do,” he says. “But sometimes you have to break your own rules if you want to win.”

“What are you winning?”

“A smoking hot wife, a mom for Emme.” Crew rolls me on top of him, threading his hands into mine. “A fucking amazing life.”

“What if I’m not the marrying kind?”

“I’m not either,” he says. “But I want to marry you, Calypso. Maybe it’s crazy. Maybe we should take some time, get to know each other better. But where’s the fun in that? Neither one of us have ever lived by the rules anyway.”

His hands leave mine. He cradles my hips in his hands, and I lean forward to kiss his perfect lips.

“I want to give you my last name,” he says.

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