He looked up at me, his gray eyes darker than I’d ever seen them. The fire light lit up the space around us, allowing me to see all the emotion there.
“I was horrible to you that night.”
“I should have told you the truth, but I was scared you wouldn’t have left for Tokyo. That you would have stayed with me out of obligation.”
“You could never be an obligation to me. That’s like saying that breathing is an obligation. And we’re having a baby,” he said as he shook his head and swiped at his face. “I’m so fucking happy.”
“You are?” I said, and now I was crying, too. I’d held it all in for so long and it felt so good to get it all out. To share this with him.
“There is nothing better in the world than what’s happening here between us. And now we get to bring this little human into the world and raise him or her together. Damn. You found the only thing that would be better than your naked body.” He barked out a laugh.
“Did you just compare my naked body to our baby?”
“My two favorite things in the world,” he said, staring down at the book. “Man, we’re going to make some beautiful babies together, Miney. It just feels right, doesn’t it? Like it all makes sense?”
“It does. You sure you’re ready for all this?”
“Not one doubt in my mind.” He kissed me hard. “Damn. We have a lot to do. I want to get our baby their own horse so we can all ride down here together.”
“Chewy, our baby is the size of a passion fruit. They won’t be riding a horse for a long while.”
“Well, we can’t get our kid a horse that we don’t know when they’re finally ready to ride. Hell no. I’m not trusting some wild beast with our child. We need to get it now and make sure it’s trained.”
“That’s the priority, huh? Not the fact that I live in a rental house up the street at the moment?” I shook my head and laughed.
He lunged forward, laying me back on the blanket. “You won’t spend one more night in that goddamn rental house. I shouldn’t have allowed it that night. I should have apologized and demanded you come home.”
“That’s a total caveman apology,” I said, running my fingers over his scruff.
“Marry me, Miney. Right now. Let’s call Father Davis and get married right here.”
My bottom lip quivered because there was nothing more that I wanted than to marry Finn and raise a family and grow old together.
“Our mothers would never forgive us.”
“Do you want a big wedding?”
“No. I just want you.”
“Well, then, we invite the family, and we get married right here in a couple of days. I already got you the ring.”
“You did?”
“Yep. I’d met with Mr. Clark the day before I left. I wanted you to know how serious I was about… us. But then we had that fight, and I figured it would be an inappropriate time to propose, considering you packed a bag and left.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Chewy.”
“That was on me. But this time, it’s just right, you know? Who knows you’re pregnant?”
“Nobody. I mean, no one aside from Carl.” I winced. “I wanted to tell you first, so I haven’t told a soul.”
“That had to be a tough secret to keep these last few weeks.”
“Yeah, but my boyfriend was sending me all these texts and flowers and vibrators. He can be very distracting.”
“Sounds like my kind of guy.”
“He’s definitely my kind of guy.”
“How about we don’t tell anyone why they’re coming over? We order food from Reynolds’ and just invite the family to a Sunday dinner here. And we have Father Davis waiting for us down here by the water. We can tell them we’re getting married and having a baby all at the same time.”
“That’s quite the Sunday dinner.” I waggled my brows.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Me either.”
“Reese Reynolds has a nice ring to it.” He nipped at my bottom lip.
“It does. Forever has a nice ring, too.”
“You were always my forever. It just took us a little bit to figure it out.” He kissed me before pulling back. “I love you, Reese.”
“I love you more.”
And I tugged his lips back down to mine.
Because once you realized that you’d found your forever, you wanted to start living it right now.