Page 124 of Putting Out
Kenny could see she was struggling for something way worse than jerk, but Tessa didn’t have it in her to bring out the heavy artillery. She was a good girl, after all.
“I take it you’re upset,” he prompted.
“Upset! You come home. You turn everything upside down. You tell me that you’re ready to commit to me. I don’t know what to believe.”
“Believe that,” he told her. “I love you, Tess.”
“Then you go and get hurt and I have to watch it on television.”
“I do, you know. I always have. I was just so damn afraid of it. You know I never wanted to blame anything on my parents being gone because Pop and Grams always seemed to fill the void. But Reilly and I were talking. It occurs to me she kept getting married to avoid settling down with Luke and I just kept playing around to avoid settling down with you. Maybe we’re both afraid.”
Tessa moved toward the bed, her eyes pinned on his face. He assumed she was looking for his angle, but for the first time in his life he didn’t have one. He was telling the bald truth and it left him feeling more naked than the sheer hospital gown they made him wear.
“They interviewed that golfer you were dating.”
“Erica?”
“I guess,” Tessa shrugged. “She was crying.”
“Hmm. That’s weird. She doesn’t strike me as a crier.” Erica in his mind was too cut and dry for something like tears.
“Maybe she misses you. Maybe she’ll realize how close she came to losing you and she’ll want you back.”
“Maybe,” Kenny allowed. “It won’t make a difference. I’m hooked. I love you, Tess. I’m not sure you heard me the first time.”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I heard you. I just don’t know what to think about it. All of the sudden you love me?”
He shook his head. “It hasn’t been sudden. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
Her head tilted in a gesture that he knew signaled disbelief but the only thing he had to counter with was truth.
“I do. I love the way you look and laugh. I love the way you are with people and with me. I like me better when I’m with you. I kept going away knowing you would always be there and then you weren’t and I flipped.”
“You flip and I’m supposed to jump. After twenty years?”
“No, you’re supposed to decide whether or not you love me, too.”
Her face scrunched up into an angry frown.
“Oh, of course I love you, Kenny. What the hell do you think I’m doing here? I’m a wreck. I haven’t slept or eaten in weeks. I told myself I wasn’t going to watch the coverage. I wasn’t going to look for you in your dorky white jumper and then I do and this happens! How the hell am I supposed to react to this?” she said, pointing to his shoulder.
He smiled. She said hell. She was all fired up and it was because of him. Plus no doubt she was feeling sympathetic toward him since he was in the hospital with a knife wound. Now might be the time to act.
“You’re supposed to take a deep breath. Because it turns out I’m okay. Then you’re supposed to say you’ll marry me.”
Tessa hadn’t been listening when he said this as she was still wrapped up in her frenzy.
“You’ve been stabbed. I’m pregnant. You say you love me and I don’t know what the hell to do.”
“Did you just say you’re pregnant?” Kenny asked.
“Did you just ask me to marry you?” Tessa asked at the same time.
They stared at each other with wide eyes.
Kenny gulped. A baby. “Mine?”
