I put my hand to my chest, eyes wide in question, and Reid blushes.
“One of the problems with getting a tattoo is that it has to be something special. Something that means something. I was… hoping you might be able to draw something for me.”
I’m taken back, at first, because it’s such a personal request, and one I’m not sure I can satisfy. Then I put a finger in the air in discovery.
“Actually, I have something right here,” I say, fishing through my purse. “Maybe it’s strange to carry it around, but it was also one of my first illustrations, at least the first one that I thought was any good, and I’ve carried it with me ever since.” I find my wallet and pull it out, then stick my fingers into one of the hidden pockets and pull out a scrap of paper. Unfolding it, I hold it out to him, my teeth taking hold of my bottom lip.
He glances down at it, then takes another, longer look, and I look down as well. It’s a set of leaves blowing along a sidewalk. Just a pencil drawing, really, because I never bothered to put color to it, but I’ve always loved how three-dimensional the leaves became, and the way they look as if they’re escaping from the viewer—but doing it together.
“Leaves,” he breathes. “Leaves running away from the person looking at them.”
“But leaves that are leaving in a group,” I say. “Leaves the are going to be together, wherever they end up.”
He gives me a questioning look, and I shrug.
“It always felt important to me, that part. That they’re going to get there together. Rather than being on their own.”
He reaches out and brushes his fingers down my nose, then leans in and kisses me, soft and sweet.
“It’s perfect,” he says. “Together. Josephine, would you get this tattoo with me? Together?”
“Joey,” I breathe, staring up at him with my heart in my throat. “The people closest to me call me Joey.”
“Joey,” he responds, and it feels like the most intimate thing anyone has ever said to me.
Chapter 37
Joey
When he finally walks me home, it’s past midnight and we’re both hazy with new experiences and each other. I haven’t let go of his hand since the tattoo artist first turned on the tattoo gun and Reid grew three shades paler, and my hand is starting to feel right in his, his arm natural around my waist.
His lips perfectly fitted to my mouth.
We’ve been together for over twelve hours now, and we’ve been out in the world, doing regular people things. And that’s answered a question I didn’t even know I had.
There’s more to us than just sex. We can exist in the real world. We don’t work just because we’re compatible in bed.
If anything, it makes me even more certain that I have to tell him what I have to tell him. What I’ve known I have to tell him right from the start. I just hope…
Well, I don’t know what I hope. I just know that I have to say it before I lose my nerve.
That’s why, when we get to my apartment, I turn to him and put a hand to his chest to keep him from coming through my door.
“Reid, I have to talk to you,” I say, my voice deadly serious.
I can see all the air go out of him, like a balloon that’s suddenly deflating. See the realization dawning in his face.
“I… I can’t do this,” I blurt out. “The contract. The baby. All the money. I just can’t. For a minute there, I thought I could. But the truth is, I want a family, and I want this baby to be part of that family. I don’t want to say goodbye to it.” I look up at him, knowing that my heart is in my eyes, knowing that my emotions are written all over my face for him to see. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you.”
His breath hitches as if I’ve said something he wasn’t expecting. “You don’t want to say goodbye to me?”
I shake my head. “I want… Listen, I know it’s crazy and I know there’s no way you’ll ever agree to this, but I want a family and I want that with you, and this baby is just the start, but given your background I know you must not believe in that sort of thing and I just don’t think I can be around you anymore unless—”
He brings his lips crushing down on mine and the rest of my rambling sentence is lost into our kiss, and then a groan as his hands pull my roughly against him. He turns us and pushes me up against the wall, and I can feel his cock pushing up against me in his need, but there’s something more to this kiss—something that I’m not sure I understand. Because there’s no reason for him to be kissing me when I was just telling him that I was backing out of the contract.
Unless.
Unless.
He pulls back and his eyes are alight with mischief and relief, his grin free in a way I’ve never seen it before. He laughs joyfully, and pulls me in for a hug, then pushes me back against the wall again.
“You don’t want me to leave you alone? You don’t want… You don’t want that contract anymore?” he asks breathlessly.
I pause. This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, and now I’m torn between hope and fear.
“No,” I say slowly. “I want to be with you. Like actually be with you. Not just to make a baby, but forever.”
He leans in and rests his forehead against mine, his eyes on me as he runs his hands up into my hair. “That’s the best thing anyone has ever said to me, Joey. Forget the contract. I just want you. Forever.”
I don’t manage to put an answer together before he bends over and sweeps me up into his arms, and then into my apartment.
Chapter 38
Reid
Nine Months Later
I gaze down at the baby in my arms, my heart breaking and expanding and pounding in some bizarre cacophony of noise and feeling that I didn’t even know was possible.
“Shane,” I whisper to him, giving him his name. Not Reid, as I once thought it would be. This little life deserves—requires!—a name of his own. He’s going to be a fighter, I’ve got no doubt of that. And he’s going to be his own man.
But before that, he’ll be my little boy. And he’ll have all the love in my body. Because I’ve finally figured out how to give it.
I look up at his mother, who looks radiant as she lays in bed, her hair spread around her in a riot of curls. Joey doesn’t have on any makeup—she went into labor in the middle of the night, and we didn’t take the time to do anything more than grab our stuff and rush to the hospital. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful woman in my life.
And I know that beauty goes just as deep as she does. This woman has saved my life, changing me in ways I never could have dreamt possible.
“I’m the luckiest man alive,” I say softly.
She smiles dreamily at me, then holds her arms out to us. And Shane and I—her boys—go right to her, the three of us laying down in bed in what I have every intention of making a tradition.
Epilogue
A Year Later: Joey
I look up at the love of my life, taking in his grin, those bright eyes, and those dimples that I can never say no to. He’s laughing at something our son has just tried to say, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him happier. Then again, I think I have that thought every day.
Reid has taken to working only three days a week, making sure he’s home as often as he can manage to watch our son growing up—and to give him the love and support he deserves. Our little boy is an exact miniature of Reid, down to the color of his eyes, and I can already see Reid thinking about what he’s going to teach the boy next. Whether it’s going to be a book or another baby puzzle, or if he should start considering sports which sports the boy will someday play.
Or the most likely option—yet another trip to Washington Square Park to throw pennies in the fountain. It’s become a Saturday morning tradition, and I haven’t yet decided who loves it more—our one-year-old or his thirty-six-year-old father.
Reid has taken to being a father like he was born to do it, and I think that might be the truth. Our little boy is a constant gift to him, and I coul
dn’t be more thankful.
Still, our lives are about to get even more full.
“Reid,” I say quietly, breaking into his laughter. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
I can see by the look in his eyes that he already knows.
“I hope this one is a girl,” he says quietly, leaning in to rest his lips on my forehead.
I laugh—but then stop when he drops to his knees in front of me and reaches into his pocket. When he pulls out the small black box, I drop to my knees with him.
“Joey,” he says, “there’s something I’ve been thinking about asking you for a long time now, and I can’t imagine that there’ll be a better time than right now.”
He glances from the box up to me, his eye full of tears. “I searched my entire life for someone who could teach me how to love them, and I’m so lucky to have found you when I did. You’ve changed my life, Joey. You’ve brought color and passion and feeling into it in a way I didn’t even know I was missing. And I never want to live without you. Will you promise to be with me forever? Together, forever?”
I don’t even have to think about it. I’ve never had any question.
“Together forever,” I whisper, leaning in to place my lips over his in a promise I’ve been making since the first time he kissed me.
The End
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