Page 53 of Dangers of Love

Since we were on the subject, I figured I might as well stick with it. “I needed the life insurance papers because I’m putting your name on the policy as the beneficiary. While my military benefits won’t cover a girlfriend or a fiancée, the life insurance can go to whoever I pick, and after we’re married, I figured it’d be good to have something extra for you and the baby if something happens to me.”

“I don’t like thinking about that,” she said, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. “I mean, I understand the reasoning, and I’m grateful for it, but I hate having this discussion, especially when we haven’t been together that long.”

A sliver of panic cut through me. “We don’t have to talk about it now if it bothers you.”

She shook her head. “No, we need to. I just feel like we’re doing all of this backward.”

Trying hard to contain the anxiety twisting up my insides, I explained my reasoning, “Yeah, it’s not exactly typical, but nothing about our relationship has been. I want to be involved in our child’s life from moment one, from before moment one, I guess. You moving in here makes more sense than you finding your own place in L.A. and trying to take care of everything there by yourself just because that’s what would be ‘normal.’” It was my turn to squeeze her hand. “Remember how we talked about not doing things based on everyone else’s opinions? We need to do this for us. For our baby. Our family.”

She was silent for a few seconds, and I worried that I’d pushed too hard, that I was being too intense. Then there was the fact that I hadn’t actually asked her to move in. I’d spoken more like it was an assumption, which might not have been the best way to handle things…but then she nodded.

“You’re right. I’m still processing everything.”

I moved my thumb across her engagement ring and realized I hadn’t asked her if she liked it. I didn’t want her to wear something she hated just because she thought I needed her too.

“I meant to ask if this is what you wanted,” I said, tapping the ring. “We can exchange it if–”

“I love it.” This smile reached all the way to her eyes. “It’s beautiful and exactly what I would’ve picked for myself.”

I didn’t hide my relief. In some ways, we knew each other better than couples who’d been together for years, but in a lot of other ways, we were still mostly strangers. Like the fact that I’d never met her parents and had no idea what they thought about me. Or if they knew anything about me at all.

Which brought me to something else we needed to discuss.

“With everything else going on, we haven’t really talked about Christmas.” I gestured to the still fairly bare room. “I don’t really have a lot in the way of decorations, but I arranged for a tree to be delivered this evening. I wasn’t sure if you already had plans, and it’s okay if you do, but I thought if you didn’t, maybe we could decorate it together.”

She finished her soup before responding. “I promised my parents that I’d be over tomorrow around noon.” She glanced at me and licked her lips. “I didn’t tell them that you’d be coming because I wasn’t sure what you had planned.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Some of the tension went out of her body. “I’d really like that.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Then we’ll get your things from Martina’s this afternoon, pick up something for dinner, then come home to eat. After that, we’ll do a video call to my parents, and whoever’s there already with them. Once that’s done, we can have Christmas cookies and decorate the tree, maybe watch a movie.”

“That sounds good.” She stood, her expression slightly dazed. “Do you want more soup?”

I shook my head. “No, thank you. Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll clean up?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s just putting things in the dishwasher. And we had a deal about me letting you clean up last night, remember?”

I reluctantly nodded. “All right. Thanks.”

I was going to choose my battles with her. No way would I let her wear herself out, and the closer she got to delivery, the more I’d do for her, but right now, this wasn’t worth an argument. Especially since we had plenty of other things to talk about.

“I’m not sure which of my siblings will be at my parents’ place tonight, but there are so many of them that I don’t think calling each of them to tell them about the baby and the engagement is necessary. We can just tell everyone who’s on the call and then let them pass the news around. That’s usually how we do things like this. It’s hard to get everyone together, even for a holiday.”

“You want to tell them about the baby and being engaged?”

It was my turn to frown. Did she want to keep this a secret because she wasn’t sure about it? About the baby or about us?

I didn’t like the idea of hiding something like this. Did she think we wouldn’t last long enough to get married? “Do you not want to?”

As I waited for her answer, I wondered what I could do to change her mind. I couldn’t lose her or the baby. Not when I was so close to being able to keep them both safe.

Thirty

Aline

I’d wantedto talk over lunch, discuss with Eoin what we were going to do. The nitty-gritty details, since the basic ‘keeping the baby’ and ‘getting married’ part of things was already settled.

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