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“Sophie,” said Alex. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m in love with you too,” I blurted before I’d even stepped onto the half-moon porch.
CHAPTER 22
Alex
“You better not be peeking through the blindfold,” I teased, glancing over at Sophie, who was sitting in the passenger seat with a silk headscarf covering her eyes.
Getting the thing on her head had been tricky enough, but convincing her to leave the comfort of her couch on this beautiful Saturday morning—when she’d much rather be watchingThe Bachelorand snacking on Oreos—was monumentally difficult. It took nearly everything in me—short of spilling the secret—to convince her to get in the car.
“Well, you better not be taking me somewhere to kill me. This feels like the start of a horror movie.”
“I know how much you love those.”
Sophie snapped her head in my direction. Even with the blindfold obscuring much of her face, I knew she was shooting me a glare.
I laughed and flicked on the indicator before slowing down at the stop sign.
When Sophie had shown up on my doorstep last week—her hair windswept, her cheeks rosy, the neck of her scrub top askew—and declared she was in love with me too, I knewthat I wanted to find a new house. A place for us, together. Me, Sophie, and our unborn twins. My rental was fine, but it wasn’t the home I envisioned for us, and neither was her two-bedroom. We deserved a place where we could build a life, fill it with memories: with screaming babies, giggling toddlers, moody teenagers, and two parents to witness it all.
That was what this trip was all about; starting a new life together. And while it might have seemed too soon to some, our circumstances were not exactly normal. Sophie and I were going to be in each other’s lives no matter what. This was just one more step in the right direction.
I pulled the car to a stop a minute later and cut the ignition. “We’re here.”
“Where is ‘here’?” Sophie asked, tugging at the bottom of the blindfold. I touched her wrist, hoping she’d stop acting as if I was kidnapping her, but at the same time finding it all very amusing. Sophie was adorable when she was nervous, and given the way she kept bobbing her knee up and down and flicking the window latch on and off, she was clearly on edge.
I didn’t blame her. I’d be too if she took me on a surprise trip with a blindfold over my eyes, but it was the only way to truly keep the secret.
“You’ll see,” I said, climbing out of the car.
I headed over to her side, opened the door, and laughed when she said, “If you’re taking me to an animal shelter to adopt a puppy, I swear I won’t be able to stop myself from adopting at leastfive.”
“No puppies,” I promised. “But I think you’ll like the surprise.”
“Not if it’s a surprise party,” she said with a vigorous shake of her head. “You know how much I hate them. All that expectation to look stunned. It’s exhausting.”
“I know.” I smiled, leading her up onto the sidewalk and then over to a narrow stone pathway. The way Sophie leaned into me, one arm wrapped around my waist, the other clinging onto my hand as if she might lose her balance any minute, made everything else in my life seem so insignificant. The only thing I cared about was Sophie; the woman who hated surprise parties, who could eat more dumplings in one go than most, who enjoyed picnics and gazing up at the stars, and who listened to me genuinely enthralled, not lukewarmly interested. And of course, I cared about the two babies she was carrying.
“We can stop here,” I said halfway up the pathway.
The best view of the house was from here. It was a two-story, four-bedroom modern farmhouse—or so the agent had called it—with warm beige walls, natural stone steps leading up to a solid walnut door with a glass panel running down its center, and huge windows.
Sophie let go of me and I helped her with the blindfold.
At first, her eyes were squeezed shut, but then she blinked quickly and, a few seconds later, they adjusted to the light. She stepped forward at the same time her mouth dropped open. Her eyes grew huge, and she shook her head in a way that showed she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "This is honestly the most stunning house I've ever seen in my life."
“You think so?” I asked, watching her reaction, studying those lovely full lips, her freckles, her jaw, the way a few strands of her hair fell forward over her shoulder, and the way she flicked them back without a single thought.
Fuck, she was beautiful. Now, moving into her final trimester, that golden glow everyone spoke about painted every inch of her face. She was truly blooming.
"Of course, I think so," Sophie said, her gaze on the bushes of lavender and manzanita climbing one of the walls, and then onthe driveway, where a lemon tree-shaded part of the pavers. The trees were heavy with bright, sunlit lemons.
“Well, good, because it’s ours,” I said, fetching the key from my pocket and handing it to her.
“Wha—What?” she stammered. “What do you mean it’s ours?” Her head darted from the house to me and back again. “If this is a joke, Alex, it’s not funny.”
“It’s not a joke,” I began. “I put in an offer this week, and it was accepted. We can move in before the end of the month if we want to. But only if wewantto,” I said, knowing well enough that some women would hate not being involved in the house-buying process.
