Page 36 of Keeping Lucy

“Okay”, he said. “At this point, I think we just say we met in Seattle, decided to spend the weekend together and by the end of your visit, we realized we were in love. I asked you not to say anything at first, until I’d had time to come to terms with everything. But the baby changes all of that and here we are.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t quite cover the marriage thing. Plenty of couples have babies without tying the knot.”

“Not us. As soon as you found out, that was it, we knew what we had to do. And we’re ridiculously happy about it, of course.”

“Of course.” We were probably the least happy newlyweds on the planet. “And the living arrangements? Why don’t we live together?”

“Because my work is very intense right now and it’s better that I stay on the base, but I’ll be with you as much as possible. That way, ‘as much as possible’ is just as much as we want. You don’t have to see me again until the divorce, if you don’t want to.”

The thought of that made me feel weird. “I don’t think I’d get away with that, to be honest. I also can’t see my family not wanting to see you. I mean I have no idea how that’ll go, given the…history…but I think it’s unavoidable.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“We only have to do this until the insurance coverage is approved. Once we’ve got that, we can do what we like.”

“How long will that approval take, do you think?”

“I can’t imagine it would be more than a few days. It’s just a rubber stamp.”

“What happens if it doesn’t get approved?”

“Let’s not think about that until we have to.”

“Okay.”

A few minutes later, we pulled up in my driveway. I ran through the cover story again, to make sure I had it down.What a wicked web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.Who said that, anyway? Who cares. They’d been right.

I went to open the car door, but stopped when Dante put his hand on my arm. “I should give you my number.”

“Oh, duhh, of course.”

I punched it into my phone, grabbed the shopping bag and said, “Thanks for all this.”

“No problem. Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

“And let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.” I took my keys from his outstretched hand, felt the tingle when our fingers brushed together and pulled away quickly. All of this was hard enough without adding the double whammy the slightest touch from him still had on me. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

I got out of the car and walked inside without looking back.

CHAPTER21

Dante

Lucy:I’m afraid I have bad news.

I jumpedto my feet, already instinctively reaching for my car keys.

Me: Is everything okay?

Lucy:Yes, everything’s fine, health-wise. But I’ve told everyone about the baby.

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