Chapter 22
It wasn’tuntil almost a month later that I understood what Max had meant that day. Why he had been so secretive about everything. It was a Saturday morning when he blindfolded me and brought me out to our car. He refused to tell me where we were going, and took wrong turns, just to throw me off. When we finally parked, my nerves were shot. I hatedsurprises.
Max helped me out of the car, guiding us in the direction of where we needed to head. I heard him whisper to someone as I stood in the middle of a room. I strained to hear what was being said, but then his hand grabbed mine again, continuing our journey. He helped me into what seemed like a smaller room and pulled out a chair for me to sit in. Once I was seated, Max took the blindfold off. I tried to readjust my sight but was only greeted with posters with babies on them and a woman sitting across fromus.
“I know I said that we didn’t need to have children in order to be happy, but I also wanted you to have the option for yourself.” I looked around the room a little closer. There were books on adoptioneverywhere.
“You must be Alexa.” The woman held her hand out to me. I was still speechless right now. “Max here has been telling us a lot about you and how he wanted to surprise you, but at this point in the program, we needed to meet you inperson.”
“What?” I looked back towards Max, seeking the answers Ineeded.
“When we were in Vegas, I took it upon myself to look up adoption agencies here. I’ve been working with Amy here.” Max gestured towards the woman sitting behind the desk. “Filling out all your information and learning about what we need todo.”
He took my hands in his, bringing us closertogether.
“I wanted to give you every option I could, just in case a child was something you truly wanted.” Max moved my hair behind my ear. I looked over to Amy and then back to Max. This was real. This was something that Max had done for me, and god damn it, it topped me having my own division in his company. I had been working towards making it my baby and creating something magical, but this was so much more than that. This was Max trying to promise me a real baby. One that could beours.
“What do we need to do?” I looked back at Amy, but I could see from my side that Max was still staring at me. Amy went on about each process from here that needed to be done, from final applications to home visits and the different categories of adoption. I sat there stunned that this was becoming my reality. That I was finally going to get the family I always wanted, well, one day, and it was going to be with the love of my life. At that moment, I wouldn’t have traded anything that had happened over the last few months for this. I looked into Max’s eyes and saw the uninhibited adoration on hisface.
“Forever,” Iwhispered.
“Always,” he answeredback.
