Page 102 of Exposed

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I can’t do this, Matt. I can’t do this knowing you’re going to leave. I’m already so broken.” Her voice cracked.

“Nothing about you is broken.” I cradled her face in my hands. “Look at me.”

She opened her eyes and the tears fell faster.

“You and Jacob are enough.” I meant it. I’d always wanted a family. With her. I’d gotten one overnight. Of course they were enough.

She shook her head.

“Yes. You are. You were always enough for me. I swear to you. Of course I’m not walking away. But you also have to know that if you still want a house full of kids, I’ll do anything in my power to make it happen. I’m okay with it just being the three of us. You guys are the family I’ve been dying for. But you also have to be okay with still trying. With seeing some specialists. For me. For us. Please.”

She nodded. “But you won’t leave if I can’t?”

“What about everything you learned about me in the past couple weeks has given you the impression that I can live without you?”

She laughed and threw her arms around me.

“I’m sorry that you lost a baby.” I held her tighter. “I’m sorry you haven’t been able to get pregnant again.” I was. If she’d shown up with 10 kids I would have loved all of them. But I wasn’t giving up on the future we wanted. Maybe she hadn’t had any more kids because the next one was supposed to be mine. Becauseshewas mine. But I didn’t say it out loud. Because I couldn’t hear her tell me again that she’d wanted these same things with another man.

She kissed the side of my neck and I felt her tears fall on my shoulder.

“You know,” I said and pulled back so I could look down at her. “It just so happens that one of my favorite things is trying to get you pregnant.”

Brooklyn laughed even though there were still tears in her eyes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I told her again.

“Good. Because I told Jacob you were staying forever.”

“Speaking of Jacob…they’ve been up there for a long time. We should probably go check on them.”

“I’m sure Nigel isn’t doing anything weird.” She wiped the rest of her tears away.

“Yeah…I don’t think you know him very well yet. I’m gonna go check.” I went up the stairs. I pushed opened the bathroom door. There was a lot to unpack in the bathroom. But most alarming was the fact that Jacob and Nigel were both sitting in the tub.

“Nigel, are you wearing clothes?!” Was he seriously butt naked in that tub with Jacob?

“I’m wearing swim trunks,” Nigel said. “But if you’d prefer I showed trunk, I can do that instead.” He stood up and grabbed the sides of his swim trunks that had rubber duckies printed all over them.

“Stop.”

He froze. “No trunk?”

“Absolutely not.” And that was a disgusting way to refer to his dick. Although…it was kind of the size of an elephant trunk.

Nigel splashed back down into the tub. “Now where were we.” He grabbed one of the dozens of rubber duckies floating on the top. “One duck.” He squeezed it to make it squeak.

“Un,” Jacob said.

He grabbed another duck. “Two ducks.”

“Deux.”

Another duck.

“Trois!”

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