“Ha. Maybe because it wasn’t voluntary?” I offer, raising a brow.
“Right, right.” He nods like that checks out, then casually outstretches Emma toward me. “She already ate, but she hasn’t pooped yet, so…good luck.”
Before I can argue, he shifts all her weight into my one free arm, leaving me no choice but to take her.
“And you have to watch…she’s sneaky. She’ll take her diaper right off,” Karissa adds.
“Oh, perfect,” I mutter.
They leave and Megan and I look at each other, laughing.
* * *
A few hours later, Megan and I are back at my place, sunk into the couch in complete silence after surviving three kids under three.
Talk about an experience.
I drape my arm around her shoulders and pull her in, pressing a kiss to her hair. She melts against me with a tired little sigh.
“The good news is, we only want one to start, not three,” she says, her voice still soft from exhaustion.
I laugh quietly. “Yeah, but that was still brutal.”
“It was a lot,” she admits, smiling against my chest.
I tilt my head toward her. “You still wanna have one right away?”
She looks up at me, blue eyes bright despite how tired she is, and grins. “I do,” she says with a laugh that’s half delirious, half certain.
“Good,” I murmur, brushing my thumb along her jaw. “But if anyone asks, maybe don’t tell them that. They’ll try to sign us up for babysitting again.”
She laughs harder this time, and I kiss her—slow, easy. Moments like this remind me just how close July feels. Just a few more months until I get to marry her.
It’s crazy to think how fast everything’s gone. I proposed in November, and I still remember every second of that night.
I didn’t tell anyone in my family what I was doing. The only people who knew were her parents—because I’d asked for their blessing, of course. I knew if I said anything to mine, someone would try to talk me out of it, and I wasn’t hearing it. I was sure.
I’d picked her up after work; she was in yoga pants and an oversized sweater, her hair in a messy bun, makeup mostly gone after a long day teaching. We grabbed dinner like usual and drove around afterward, talking about nothing and everything. I tried to act normal but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
When I pulled off near the field where we’d watched sunsets before, she didn’t think much of it. Until I told her to get out of the truck.
“Mason, what are we doing?” she asked twice, suspicious but smiling.
I didn’t answer. I just kissed her, heart pounding, and pulled the ring out of my pocket.
Her eyes went wide, tears already pooling as I dropped to one knee like I’d rehearsed a hundred times in my room.
“Megan,” I breathed, looking up at her through the blur of my own nerves. “Will you marry me?”
Her hands flew to her face, laughter and tears mixing in the same breath. “Are you serious?” she whispered.
I nodded, my heart thudding so hard it felt like it might burst. “Never been more sure of anything.”
She nodded fast, still crying, and when she said “yes,” it came out half laugh, half sob, like she didn’t even have control of her emotions anymore. I barely got the ring on her finger before she was kissing me, crying and laughing all at once.
That’s the thing about her. She’s steady when she needs to be, but when she feels something, she feels it all the way through.
Now, months later, she’s curled against me on my couch, her head tucked under my chin, both of us worn out from a day of chaos that somehow still felt like a glimpse of what’s ahead.
