Page 27 of A Very Oceanport Christmas
After a moment, David drew back without letting go of me. "Do you want me to tell everyone that you're not feeling well?"
"No, it's fine. I can go back out. It would be super rude not to." I chuckled. "My parents would never let me hear the end of it." I blew out a breath. "Besides, it was nice of everyone to come and bring a gift. I really can use the help. Yeah, I know, don't say anything. I'm learning. I can't do everything on my own." And the more time I spent around David, living with him, the less Iwantedto do everything by myself. I wanted to be with him, always, more than I'd ever wanted anything else in my life.
David pressed a kiss to my forehead. "I'm proud of you. If anything says anything inappropriate--"
"I doubt they will. Aside from Mrs. Rosewood, anyway, and I can deal with her. I wasn't prepared before, that's all. I thought I had time before I would see everyone."
"I'm sorry I sprung this on you."
"You couldn't know. It's okay. I don't blame you."
"Well, the next time Mrs. Rosewood says anything about a baby needing two parents, just point her to me. You won't have to raise this baby by yourself." He swallowed, as if suddenly unsure. "If you don't want to, I mean."
I searched his face. Did he mean it? Sure, we were a couple now--at least I was pretty sure we were--and he'd come to my appointment with me, but we hadn't talked about raising the child together. I couldn't ask that of him. "Is that really what you want?"
"Of course it is."
"Don't say that like it's obvious. Most alphas wouldn't want to raise another alpha's child. Honestly I'm glad you're notrepulsedby it." That would have been the natural reaction.
David nearly growled. Not a sound I heard from him very often. "I'm not most alphas."
I played with the collar of his shirt, laying it flat. "No, I guess you're really not."
David held me a little tighter. "I could never be repulsed by you. It's not that I want to raise another alpha's child. It's that I want to raiseyourchild, can't you see that?"
"I..." Words failed me. "You mean it?" How could I possibly be so lucky? David was everything I'd ever wanted, and now he wanted me too--and not just me, but my child as well. A child he hadn't even fathered because I'd gone off to college and left him behind.
"Of course I mean it." He drew me into a kiss and I opened up to him without a second thought. Kissing David came naturally. It didn't require any brainpower to just go with whatever he wanted to do to me. I trusted him completely.
Shouldn't that mean I could trust his words too? If he said he wanted to raise my child, if he really wanted to take that responsibility on himself... I could trust him with it.
"Okay," I said, feeling a little breathless. "Okay, if you really want to raise my hellion..."
"I really, really do." David kissed me again, but I had to make sure that he understood the full scope of what he was getting himself into.
"Remember when we snuck out in the middle of the night because we were convinced the playground was haunted and we needed to catch the ghost? And our parents totally panicked because they couldn't find us?"
David shot me a quizzical look. "I remember."
"That's going to be us if we do this. We're going to be those parents, I mean. If this child is even half the terror I was--"
"Then I'll still love him with all my heart," David cut me off. "Maybe even more because he's so much like you."
"You can't really mean that."
"I do and you can't convince me otherwise." David looked into my eyes, his gaze intense. "I want you to move in here." I could tell he wasn't lying to me. He really wanted to do this. Turn the guest room into a nursery. Co-parent with me and put up with all the shit that came with that. A lump formed in my throat. I wasn't sure if that was the hormones or the simple fact that I couldn't in a million years imagine a better father for my child and I didn't know what I'd ever done to deserve him. "Hey," David said, brushing a thumb over my cheek, obviously picking up on whatever was going on with me even when I couldn't put my feelings into words. "We're going to be fine, all right?"
"Won't your dad mind?"
"I doubt it."
"But this is all still so new," I argued. Could we really add a child to the equation and come out fine?
Not that we had much of a choice...
"It's not new. Not really." David ran his thumb along my bottom lip. "We've been friends forever and I've been in love with you for years."
I sucked in a breath. Had he really just said that he was in love with me?
