Page 81 of So This Is Love

I decide to let her sleep, not wanting to wake her up from a nap that is clearly much needed. I leave the living room and go to my bathroom, turning on the hot water in the shower to wash off all the sweat and stink from playing ball this morning.

After I’ve showered and moisturized, I go back out to the living room and find Laila in the same position as I left her. I sit down in the spot next to her head and I’m struck by how damn gorgeous she is. I catch myself watching her sleep for way too long again before I take out my phone to scroll until she wakes up.

Laila opens her eyes and sits up, disoriented for a moment before her gaze lands on me.

“Hey,” I say softly.

“Hey.”

Quiet falls over the room as we both take each other in.

Laila sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and it takes everything in me to keep my hands to myself, to not try to swoop in and erase all the hurt and uncertainty in her eyes.

“I’m sorry that I’m here unannounced. I thought you would be home but then you weren’t and I didn’t want to leave without talking to you. So I decided to wait for you but I was so tired that I guess I fell asleep.”

Laila rambles a clear sign of her nerves and I hate that she even feels the need to explain herself to me.

I shake my head. “You have that key for a reason. It has always been yours to freely use.”

“I know but I just -”

I don’t let her finish that sentence, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into me, unable to fight the urge to have her in my arms any longer.

She lays her head on my chest, the sweet scent of her shampoo flooding my nostrils. I feel her relax into me, the rhythm of her breaths slowing as her nerves ease.

“The pictures have been taken down,” I say, quietly. “And Morgan and my team are putting more things in place to make sure that your privacy is respected in all aspects when it comes to being around me. I’m sorry that this happened and I promise to do everything in my power to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

“Thank you,” Laila murmurs, her voice small. “I just needed some time to process everything.”

“I want you to feel comfortable talking to me. I don’t want you to feel like you need to retreat into yourself when things get hard.”

“It’s been just me for so long. Yes I have Zara and my other friends but I never wanted to put the weight of what I’m dealing with on them, so I have always just figured it out on my own.”

“Lean on me,” I say. “Let me hold some of the weight you’ve been carrying for so long. You don’t have to do it all by yourself.”

“It felt like a cruel joke,” Laila says. “I had finally let myself fall for you and then my worst fear came to pass. It felt like some sort of punishment.”

“Is that how you still feel?”

Laila sits up and tugs the abandoned blanket back around her body.

“No, but then I started reading the comments and I know I shouldn’t have but everyone had such nasty things to say and it started to make me second guess myself. They made me second guess if I had just made it all up in my head.”

I cup Laila’s chin, forcing her to look at me as I speak my next words. “Nothing anyone else can say will ever come between you and me unless we let it. I’ve been going crazy without you around and unlessyoutell me otherwise, I’m not going anywhere.”

Laila sniffles and tears well up in her eyes. I pull her back to me and she sobs into my chest. Eventually her cries slow to sniffles and I continue to hold her, rubbing her back in circles to try to bring her some comfort.

“Baby, tell me what’s wrong,” I say.

“I -,” she starts, her voice shaky. “I’m pregnant.”

My hand stills on her back, stunned by her words.

Pregnant.

Of all of the things I thought she might say, this wasn’t even on the list. We hadn’t been as careful as we could have been but we hadn’t been totally reckless either.

“I thought-”

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