by K. Ryan
I almost wanted to laugh. She was probably sitting here wondering why the hell we were parked in the driveway of some strange house.
"I, uh," I scratched the back of my head nervously as I spoke. "I just bought this house."
Her eyes just about fell out of her head and I wanted to kick myself in the balls. Was it too much to ask to say one thing eloquently? Jesus, there was no way I was going to survive the rest of this night if I couldn't get my shit together. Why the hell was I so nervous all of a sudden? This was Isabelle. I loved her and wanted her with me for as long as I could have her.
"You...bought it?" Her eyes glimmered with something I couldn't quite place and I almost wanted to roll my window down and vomit onto the pavement I'd just bought.
"Uh, yeah. You wanna go inside? I just got the keys last week."
A hesitant smile broke out across her face and that had to be a good sign. When we were finally inside, her feet stalled inside the main hallway to our little three-bedroom ranch house and that little bit of panic I'd batted down before suddenly fanned out, spreading through my chest and threatening to take over my lungs.
My throat tightened when she still didn't say anything. I figured I knew her well enough by now to know that she'd be more than a little annoyed, upset, disturbed, and everything in between that I'd gone ahead and made a decision like this without at least discussing it with her first. But to be fair, it was my money and it was time for me to grow up already. Besides, I figured as soon as she heard me out, she'd be on board too. At least I hoped.
But she still hadn't said a word. Her face was just blank, like she couldn't process all this at once. Now I felt like I'd just made a huge mistake.
"I know I should've said something, but I wanted to surprise you."
Her blue eyes sparkled and she moved into the kitchen, carefully stepping inside the empty space and taking everything in.
"The way I see it," I explained desperately, trailing after her as she traveled into the living room and then down the hall. "I've been living in the clubhouse since I was 18 and now that I've got you, I guess I figured it was time to move on. You know, be an adult and all that shit."
That didn't even get me a smile. I swallowed hard, feeling my Adam's apple bob up and down way too many times. I'd epically screwed this up. I should've brought her in on this sooner. I should've showed her the house before I put the offer down. I should've at least talked to her about this before just jumping in head first and before I knew how she'd feel about it and now I had to do some serious fast talking.
"Look, we practically live together already," she was padding down the hallway now toward the bedrooms and I started to wonder if she was even hearing me, but I just pushed on. "I can't remember the last time I slept at the clubhouse when you weren't with me and we're always at your apartment anyway. I figured if we're gonna live together, we should do it right. Do it for real, you know? I know you've still got the lease on your apartment, but we can figure all that out later. I just...I saw this house, Iz, and it was perfect. I knew I had to buy it for you."
Finally, her head turned to face me and those beautiful blue eyes were shining with tears, but they were the good kind of tears. The kind of tears I was hoping for with all this.
"So you just bought a house, huh?" she asked me quietly.
I leaned against the wall closest to the living room and shrugged.
She smiled, her eyes trained on the three bedroom doors in front of us. "I have to say though, I didn't realize you had enough money to afford something like this."
It was right on the tip of my tongue to tell her that the spoils of club business made this all possible, but I'd already stuck my foot in my mouth enough times when it came to her to last us both a lifetime. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin this moment.
"I've been saving for a while," I modified.
"Okay," she replied slowly as she took it all in. "So three bedrooms, huh?"
I nodded tightly, gesturing with my head for her to follow me down the hallway, my hand closing around her fingers to draw her closer to me. I pushed open the door to the master bedroom and waved her inside to check it out.
"This'll be our room. There's a bathroom connected to it right over..." I trailed off because her eyes had already found it.
I tugged on her hand a little to get her to follow me and nodded to the door right next to ours. "I figured this could be your studio. Every artist needs her own workspace, right?"
Her eyes snapped to me and now I knew I was finally back on the right track. Her eyes were swimming, but I saw nothing but happiness with a little shock mixed in, but that was okay, too.
"And, um," she gestured to the third bedroom. "What about that one?"
"Well," I started slowly, gingerly pushing open the door so we could step inside the doorway. "Someday, when we're ready and the time is right, I figured this'll be our nursery."
I watched her suck in a deep breath and she quickly brushed aside a stray tear. What did I do wrong? Everything was actually going okay there for a little while. I should've just said we could use this room for storage or something because this was obviously too much, too soon for her. And just as I was about to jump into damage control, Isabelle turned to me with soft, happy eyes.
"What if that time is now?"
I wasn't sure I'd heard her right her voice was so soft. "What?"
Her lips lifted softly. "You said when the time is right. What if that time is now?"
My head reared back a little as my brain worked overtime to compute those words and I frowned even when her fingers squeezed my hand.
"What? Are you..." I didn't even know how to say the words, let alone understand them.
Isabelle chewed on her bottom lip a little and nodded, her eyes still shining with unshed tears. "Yeah."
My eyebrows shot into my forehead and I rubbed the side of my head, my mouth slack-jawed and hanging on its hinges.
"I'm pregnant."
All my breath pushed out in one crazed, happy laugh. Now my hands closed around her face like they had a will of their own and she stood up on her tip-toes to kiss me.
"I just found out today," she murmured into my lips. "I threw up in the hallway on campus and Dr. Jacobs sent me home."
"No shit. I guess that explains why you've been sick, huh?"
"And then some. Look, I'm sorry I didn't wait for you to take the test, but I just couldn't wait. I was driving myself crazy and—"
"Iz," I leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss into her lips. "It's okay. It's really okay. I just can't believe it. I mean...holy shit, we're having a baby."
"Yeah," she smiled. "We're having a baby."
I pulled her into my arms and buried my face in her hair, needing to sear this memory into my brain as deeply as possible. I never wanted to forget this feeling, even though part of me was scared shitless about what this meant for us now, and I felt like I could stand here, with this woman in my arms, kissing her, loving her, touching her, for the rest of my life and not need to do anything else.
And as the shock wore off, my overprotective tendencies reared back with full force.
"How are you feeling? I mean, you've been sick, right? Do you need—"
"I'm okay, Caleb," she laughed and gave me a quick kiss. "Like I said, I've been throwing up all week, but I think that's pretty normal. Taking a nap today definitely helped."
"Good," my hands closed around her face again and I kissed her again, unable to help myself. "We gotta call my mom now, right? She's gonna piss herself when she finds out, you know."
"Uh, about that...your mom actually already knows."
I huffed out a laugh and shook my head, grinning down at her. Of course.
"I called her right after I took the test," Isabelle explained, reaching out until both her hands rested on my chest so she could pull me in closer. "I knew you were on the road and I guess I just wasn't ready to tell you yet. I sorta freaked out. Well, not sort of. I did freak out. I totally freaked
out."
I nodded, taking a second to kiss her forehead. She'd been all alone in her apartment, taking that on by herself...yeah, I probably would've had a freak out too. I think sooner or later, when all this finally caught up to me, I was probably due for one of those myself.
"This is just all happening really fast, Caleb," she went on and my hand flew back up to her cheek to remind her that I was still here, that I wasn't going anywhere. "It's not exactly the way I thought all this would happen."
"What do you mean, Iz?"
She smiled quickly. "I guess I just always pictured us already having a house, being married, being ready to try, and wanting to get pregnant, you know? It's not that I don't...ugh, you know what I mean?"
My thumb brushed across her cheek and I found myself digging into my pocket with my free hand to find that little velvet box I'd shoved in there right before leaving the clubhouse. Well, no time like the present.
"I hear you," I murmured, kissing her one last time before taking this last step. "Nothing's ever gonna be the same, but that's okay. And yeah, maybe this didn't happen the way we thought it would, but that's okay, too. But this, Iz, this is a good thing and I know you think things are happening too fast, but maybe it's not. We have a house now. We're gonna have a family now and I honestly couldn't have planned for better timing."
I pulled the black velvet box out of my pocket, watching as her eyebrows flew up into her forehead, and handed it to her. She sucked in a breath, her eyes watery and shimmering deep blue, and then she gingerly took the box from me. As she opened it, I grinned at the way her whole face seemed to light up from the inside.
While my mom had wisely encouraged me to stay a little more within my budget, especially since I was literally in the middle of buying a house at the time, I knew I had to either go big or go home. And I'd went big. Real big. Even I knew that two carats was a lot and that was really saying something. Set in platinum gold, the round diamond was surrounded by smaller ones that wrapped all the way around the band, it was beautiful and classy. Just like my old lady.
Now I just had one more thing I had to do before we could get this celebration started. I grinned down at the love of my life and reached out to tuck some hair behind her ear.
"I wanna marry you," I told her hoarsely, memorizing the way she looked right now, the way her eyes shone, giving me the answer to a question I hadn't even asked her yet. "But that only works if you wanna marry me too. So...marry me, Iz?"
Those beautiful lips I loved so much curved up into a smile and she was already nodding as I took the ring out of the box so I could slid it onto her left hand.
"Yeah," she whispered.
"Yeah?" I exhaled, finally sliding the ring all the way up her finger and squeezing her hand.
Barely giving her enough time to nod, I wrapped my arms around her to pull her in close and kissed her, feeling her melt into me and giving me back everything I'd just given her.
"I love you," I murmured against her lips.
"I love you, too," she whispered back and I reached up to brush a tear off her face. She laughed a little and shook her head. "You're really lucky, you know that?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're lucky I love this house. Can you imagine if I didn't?"
Shit. I hadn't thought of that.
I guessed I was lucky in more ways than one.
CHAPTER THREE
Sit Down, Part One
Caleb
There was honestly nothing better than waking up in your own bed, in your own house, with your old lady burrowed against your chest. I slipped a hand protectively over her stomach and smiled into her hair, letting my fingers lightly trace over her skin.
It was crazy to think our kid had already been cooking in there for nine weeks. We'd already been to our first appointment, heard the heartbeat, and seen the little guy on those monitors. He didn't really look like a baby, at least not what I thought he was supposed to look like. It had taken me a few moments to even see what the doctor was pointing at on the screen. He just looked like a little dot. A blip. A kidney bean. But he was in there and now that reality had finally set in, now that I'd gotten a little time to wrap my head around what was happening, I couldn't wait.
Isabelle stirred a little in my arms and buried her face into my bare chest.
"This is nice," she murmured, nuzzling me a little more as she spoke. "I like waking up like this in our house, in our bed."
"My thoughts exactly," I mumbled into her hair. "You know, I've been thinking and I think it's gonna be a boy."
She laughed into my chest and hoisted herself up by her elbow. "Oh, sure. Of course you do."
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean, huh? What's wrong with wanting a little mini-me running around?"
"What about me?"
"Oh, no. No, no, no," I exhaled, shuddering playfully as I wrapped my arms around her. "I'm not ready for that yet."
"Come on, Caleb," she shot back and threw a leg around my waist just for good measure.
"Well, someday when we do have a girl, I know she's gonna look just like you and then I'll be a complete psycho for the rest of my life while I bat all the guys off her. I'll be completely grey by the time I'm 30 if it's a girl. So, I'm sure you can see why I'd like to put that off for as long as possible. Besides, do you know how much fun I'd have with a boy? Think of all the trouble we'd get into..."
I had so many things to teach him: how to fix up an engine, how to ride my bike, how to aim a fire cracker just right for maximum impact, how far to push Grandma before she snapped. Yeah, my kid had a lot to learn.
"Alright," she grinned. "I guess I can see why you'd think that, but that being said, I think it's going to be a girl."
"Ugh," I winced and scrubbed a hand over my face. "We'll see, Iz. How long do we have to wait again?"
"At least another nine weeks or so. They won't be able to tell the sex before then."
That was a hell of a long time to wait to see how much longer I'd have all my hair. With that disturbing thought, I dared a glance at the digital clock on our nightstand and groaned.
"Shit, I gotta get going soon."
"No," she moaned, jutting out her bottom lip in a cute pout just to sink the knife in even deeper. "Stay in bed."
"Can't, babe," I laughed and kissed her hair. "If I don't get my ass in the shower, I probably won't have enough time to make you breakfast."
Her nose crinkled up at that and I could see her mentally weighing her options. Finally, she must've decided breakfast trumped keeping me in bed a little bit longer and relented, rolling off me and curling into her pillow.
"Alright," she allowed with a sly grin. "But only because you said you'd make me breakfast."
I slid out of bed and got my ass in the shower. Reaching for the one bottle I had in the shower, next to the 20 others Isabelle needed for some reason, I finally let the spray settle over my shoulders and squeezed my eyes shut.
Part of me really wasn't looking forward to this sit-down with Theo Wallace and the Warlords mainly because I had a sinking feeling that the Warlords' problem had more to do with Padilla and less to do with the Horsemen than anything. Marcus had just gotten the call yesterday from Wallace saying he wanted to meet face-to-face and were willing to meet us halfway in Memphis instead of forcing us to make the trip all the way up to their clubhouse in Pittsburgh. If this meeting was what I thought it was, I had a feeling Wallace was only calling this sit-down as a formality to give us some bad news.
All signs pointed to Padilla, who'd been just as inconsistent in his productivity as he'd been during our first disastrous drop-off, and it wasn't like Ortega was even giving him tasks that were all that difficult. The excuses ran from anywhere to his mom was in the hospital to they'd been up all night partying. At this point, the asshole was better off just not making excuses anymore.
One of these days, Padilla was going to cross the wrong person and then it would be all over for him—I couldn't wait for that day. Still, I
knew I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy every second of getting to report all the ineptitude that Ortega had hitched his wagon to. Jesus, the man was nuts if he didn't regret patching Padilla and his boys into the Lobos. If we didn't need the Lobos' business, there was no way we'd put up with this bullshit.
Taking a trip up to Memphis wasn't exactly how I wanted to spend a Sunday afternoon, but at least I could chalk all this up to one more reason why I wanted to see Padilla squirm. Maybe, if I was lucky, this sit-down would finally be the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.
By the time I stepped out of the shower, Isabelle was already holding a towel out to me from her perch on the counter. I took the towel from her, wiping myself off as I approached her, and wound it around my waist.
She pulled me in between her legs and ran her fingertips on the skin over my left pectoral where her full name was written in ink. A dreamy smile ghosted over her lips and I wound my fingers around hers so I could pull them up and brush my lips over her knuckles. Her tank top had ridden up a little, exposing the delicate angel wings on her lower back and I slipped my other hand around her waist so I could watch myself trace over the skin that held my initials through our reflection in the mirror.
"I wish you didn't have to go," Isabelle was telling me now, her ocean-blue eyes shining up at me and tugging at my insides.
"I'd rather be home with you, but duty calls, Iz. This'll be quick. Just business as usual and then I'll be back in time to make you dinner, okay?"
She cocked an eyebrow at me. "You're making me breakfast and dinner all in one day? Boy, you must really love me or you just really hate my cooking."
It was pretty much both.
"I just wanna take care of you, Iz," I told her instead. "Is that so terrible?"
"No," she replied as she leaned against my chest and wrapped her arms around my waist. "It's not. Please be safe today."
"I always am."
"I know, but you—"
She didn't get a chance to finish because her eyes were practically bugging out of her face and she pushed frantically against my chest to scramble off the counter. Her head was in the toilet before I could even reach for her and all I could do was pull her ponytail away from her face and rub her back as her stomach emptied itself. When her body was finally done, Isabelle straightened up and wiped her mouth, casting me a weak smile over her shoulder.
