The last thing that I wanted was for him to agree to be in my life because of the baby. I doubted that now, but I still needed a little longer to sit in this space and accept that I was about to become a mother. It was still so surreal to me.
I wasn’t sure if Ethan and I ever would have had a child, because we had been so broken. I had often wondered if I would be a mother at all, and now here I was, someone’s mother.
“Why are you crying, baby?” he asked, scooping me out of my seat and setting me on his lap.
“Despite your failing to tell me the truth upfront, you are a damn good man, Deuce.”
“I know.”
I giggled. “What did I do to deserve you?”
“The same thing I did to deserve a woman as good as you are, just being open to the possibilities, the experience, and the blessing.”
Deuce cupped my face in his hands and kissed me deeply.
Deuceand I were having another date night. We were ecstatic about it. He was still sending me text messages daily, and we talked on the phone every day since I visited him three days ago. I had not been back to see him though.
I was serious about taking out time to get to know myself better. But tonight, I planned to tell him the news about my pregnancy. I had paced back and forth in my hotel room all day because I was nervous about how he would receive it. My nervousness was in part because I knew he had been expecting a child with Lena.
The last thing that I wanted was to go through my pregnancy comparing myself to her, his experiences with me to his with her, or bringing him sadness because that child didn’t make it. Iknew that it would be emotional for him, and I expected that. I just prayed that in the end, our little one would bring him joy.
Every day that we had been apart, I prayed and asked God to grant Deuce total and complete healing of his heart, even as I prayed for it for myself. In my time alone, I had come to recognize that, while I may not have been grieving Ethan like people would have expected me to, I was still grieving my grandmother and the life that I had before losing her or Ethan.
I also was working on forgiving Ethan for how he had treated me during our marriage. Until I was alone, I hadn’t realized that I still held bitterness in my heart that he cheated on me and never took up for me with his family.
I pushed those thoughts aside as Deuce gripped my knee. “A penny for your thoughts.”
“Huh?”
“What’s on your mind? You’ve been over there biting that nail for a while now.”
“I’m fine. Just thinking about what tonight will hold for us.”
“We’re going to have fun, Sevyn. We’ll have a good time, so just relax, and let the evening flow the way that it should.”
I smiled and nodded as I took in the light in his dark eyes again and the structure of his masculine jaw, small nose, and the hair on his face. Deuce was a handsome man with a beautiful color. I wondered who our baby would look like, and would it be a boy or a girl.
I wondered what type of father Deuce would be. Would he be silly and goofy, playing all the time and acting like a little kid with our child? Or would he be focused, determined, and disciplined, making sure our child got the best of everything and had a strong male role model? Would he spoil our child and indulge their desires, or would he be the more balanced one of the two of us?
My belly knotted again as anticipation grew inside of me. I was excited about sharing the news with him. By the time we arrived at his house, I had to talk myself down from blurting it out. I knew how I wanted to tell him, but I wasn’t certain when to tell him.
“Oh wow. What are we getting into tonight?” There were canvases and paint in the living room.
“I thought that maybe we could do a little sip and paint. I’ve got a bottle of champagne on ice for us.”
“I see,” I stated, trying not to panic. I would have to turn the champagne down, and I wasn’t sure what excuse that I could use to deny the drink.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No. Not at all. This is exciting.”
“You always talking about going to a paint and sip. I just wanted to give you what you desired and deserved. I probably should have taken you out instead, but it’s easy to be selfish where you’re concerned and keep you to myself.”
“You did very good, Deuce. I really like it a lot. Besides, it wouldn’t be fun if we had to fight off the media if we went out in person.”
“Yeah, that’s still the headline news right now. I didn’t want to bring that up and spoil our evening for you, baby.”
“You haven’t spoiled anything.”
