AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pull back and lean my forehead to hers as this new sensation of joy bursts through me.
We revel in this feeling for a few minutes, and then she whispers, “I need a cheeseburger.”
I bark out a laugh so loud that I almost wake the baby. He jerks in his sleep but doesn’t wake, and I let out a breath.
I’ll need to get a handle on my volume, I guess.
The nurse puts in a call to the cafeteria, and before the food comes up, I ask her if she wants me to call her parents in. She nods, and I turn to walk out to get them.
“Wait,” she says.
I back up and move in beside her.
“Do you think it’s okay to tell them that I just agreed to marry you? That was genuine, right? Not, like, out of emotions in the moment?” She’s fretting, and I try to come up with the right words that will ease her fears.
Only one thing comes to mind. “I asked your parents for their blessing earlier today.”
Her jaw slackens. “You did? So…this was planned?”
I chuckle. “I didn’t really have a plan for where or when, and I don’t have a ring to give you, but I will. I know I want to spend my life with you. So I asked, and I got the blessing. From both of them.”
“Both of them?” she repeats. “Oh, Asher.” She bursts into tears again, and somehow, I know, I justknow, that life is going to be full of these wonderful emotions together.
For the rest of our lives.
Chapter 63: Desiree Dixon
A Minivan with Ninjas Painted on the Side
I glance up as Asher walks into the private room we were moved to after recovery with my mom and dad, and all three of them are smiling. I wonder what I’m missing and what they’re smiling about.
My dad and Asher are walking into a room together.Smiling.
A deep and pure happiness seems to fill me at a time when I already thought I was at the peak of happiness.
Somehow, this life just keeps getting better and better.
“Hey, Grandma and Grandpa,” I murmur with a smile. The baby is swaddled—something the nurse did since I’m still learning what that even means—and he’s sleeping, but I got a look at his eyes before, and they’re Asher blue.
He’s perfect.
Both the baby and the baby’s daddy.
Asher dropped everything to travel over three hundred miles to be by my side even when we didn’t know if I was actually in labor, and the thought that I’m not a priority to him is long cast aside. I know he’d do anything for me, including calling my parents to ensure I wasn’t alone here when he knew how upset my dad was with him. Including finding some way to patch things up with my dad—a story Istillhaven’t heard, but one I’m sure they’ll fill me in on someday.
My dad stares at the baby in my arms, and my mom clasps her hands in front of her and pulls them up to her chest.
“Would you like to hold him?” I ask them.
“Ooh, me first,” my mom begs, and I laugh.
“Wash your hands first, please,” the nurse says, and my mom complies with the request before she walks over toward me. The nurse ducks out to give us more space, though Asher somehow talked them into giving me what has to be the biggest room in this place.
Asher moves in beside me on the far side from the door, and my dad stands at the foot of the bed while my mom washes at the sink by the door.
“What’s his name?” my dad asks, and I wait for my mom to walk back over as I stare down at him.
“Meet Jacob William Nash,” I say, handing him carefully over to my mom as if he’ll break.
