Page 101 of My Favorite Lost Cause
But I just laugh through my tears. I’m pregnant, Charlie is by my side, most of the family is thrilled, and my mom is already back to worrying about my weight.
It’s a far happier ending than I ever thought I’d get.
46
CHARLIE
By the time Maren’s divorce is finalized, she is extremely pregnant.
It would have taken a lot longer. There was a period of time when Harvey was making noise about how he was owed part of Maren’s trust fund and a lot of other bullshit. In that respect, our accidental pregnancy was a blessing: because once we’d subpoenaed the fertility doctor, we discovered that it was Harvey who had the issues, and the doctor told Maren she was infertile at his request.
It’s still unclear why Harvey did it. He tried to blame the doctor, then said he was scared Maren would leave him if she thought he was the problem. My guess? She was easier for him to control when she thought the fault was hers. Either way, he quickly signed every paper Maren’s lawyers set before him when we threatened to take it public.
We go to Riverbend on the day the divorce comes through and are quietly married in the backyard by a justice of the peace, with only Martha and a smirking Elijah there as witnesses.
That night, we sit on the porch swing, Maren’s head restingon my shoulder. “This is probably not at all the wedding night you pictured. No wedding night lingerie. No sex.”
Maren wants to deliver back in NYC, so we can’t risk doing anything that could send her into labor.
“I never pictured any sort of wedding night,” I remind her, “so this seems like a pretty good one to me.”
She glances up. The fact that I worshipped her for the decade before she was mine isn’t quite enough to keep her from worrying.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I tell her. “You’ve got to stop.”
“But…I sort of forced you down a path you didn’t want to be on, you know?”
I squeeze her hand. “You pulled me off a dusty path through the desert, a path I was fucking miserable on, and brought me here.” I nod ahead of us to the lane canopied by oak trees, heavy with Spanish moss. “My world was so empty I could barely summon the energy to pretend I was happy. And now it’s so full that my greatest fear is losing a single inch of it.”
She presses a kiss to my cheek. “Even if you’ve got to help your wife remove her shoes in a minute because she can no longer reach her feet?”
I grin. “Even then.”
Because when Maren’s referring to herself as my wife, everything else is irrelevant.
And when that pregnant wifeyawns, I tell her I’m carrying her up the stairs to bed.
“You are not carrying me, Charlie. My weight has doubled since the last time we were here.”
“I think I’d have noticed if your weight doubled, and I guarantee yourmotherwould have,” I reply, swooping her up in my arms. “And you’re forgetting how strong and manly I am.”
She looks at me from beneath her lashes. “I’m unlikely to forget how strong and manly you are, Charlie.”
I raise a brow. “You know, when you use that voice, I start thinking about sex. Have you changed your mind?”
“There will be no orgasms. For either of us.”
“Fine,” I reply. “I just won’t let you finish. Every time I sense you getting close, I’ll stop.”
“Neither of us has that much self-control.”
This is undoubtedly true. “I’m going to remind these twins every night for the rest of their lives that I didn’t get laid on my wedding night because of them.”
She laughs. “You should. Kids love being forced to picture their parents as sexual beings.”
“It’s for the best anyway,” I reply. “I don’t want your ghost watching our marriage get consummated. Because it’s going to be filthy when it happens.”
“How filthy, Charlie?” she asks, and her cheeks are flushed, and her color is high.
