He gave me another soft kiss. “You know I will. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Jace?” Kaylee called from the other room.
“One story, Jace,” Liv said sternly.
“Yes, sweetheart. Have fun.”
Liv and Kayden made a quick escape, and I tiptoed into Kaylee’s room, already daydreaming about the day—hopefully in the not-too-distant future—when her room might be in a home that we all shared together.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Kayden
“Where are we going?”Olivia asked, looking out the window.
She hadn’t asked where I was taking her until we’d left the city. I’d expected her to ask questions before then but we’d been mostly chatting about Kaylee. Olivia seemed to be making up for all the time I’d missed with her. She painted a picture of Kaylee’s early life well and I could vividly imagine the two of them going through each stage together. From the sleepless nights of their first few months, to her first steps, to her saying “mama” for the first time. Olivia explained it all in so much detail it was like I could see Kaylee’s childhood unfolding in my mind.
“To where we met,” I answered. I wanted to take Olivia on a first date that felt special and unique to us, and that place was a small restaurant, frequently used as a wedding venue on the coast, where I’d had my first inkling of what it could be like to connect with someone romantically. She’d been the first person to open my heart. SometimesI wondered if I would have been ready to give myself to Jace if I hadn’t met her back then.
I took my eyes off the road for a short moment and glanced at her. She was smiling and with the moonlight reflecting off her skin she looked even more beautiful than usual.
“That’s a very sweet choice,” she said, taking my hand. I brought the back of her hand to my lips and kissed it gently.
“I could listen to you talk about Kaylee all night. I want to know everything about her,” I said. “But I have one more question about her and then I want to focus on us for the rest of this evening.”
Olivia rested her head on my shoulder. “Okay, what’s your last question?”
“How did you get pregnant?” I asked.
She lifted her head and looked at me curiously. “I’m not going to be offended if you want a paternity test,” she said, looking a little hurt despite her words.
“No, Olivia. I believe you. Ireallydo and I don’t want a test. I can tell that little girl is mine,” I said, chuckling and hoping she wouldn’t think I doubted her word. “You told me you had an IUD that night.”
She scoffed. “You’re right, I forgot about that. Well, I thought I had one. Turns out I have a tilted uterus, which can apparently make placement and permanency of an IUD problematic. The doctor who put it in didn’t tell me that though, and when I wound up pregnant, they told me it had dislodged.”
“I see,” I said, turning on to the stretch of road where the wedding venue was. I wasn’t all that familiar with the intricacies of the female anatomy, but I made a mental note to look into her condition in case she ever wanted to have more children with us in the future. “Does that cause you any problems?”
“Other than getting pregnant on a one-stand night? Nope, not so far,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve always had intense periods, so that could be related. But no complications with pregnancy or sex.”
“I’m still going to read up on it,” I said matter-of-factly as I pulled into the parking lot. “I read up on shellfish allergies this afternoon.”
She smirked at me. “Of course you did, and I sense you have questions now.”
“I just want to make sure I understand so I can do my part to keep you safe when we’re together,” I said. I turned the car off and shifted in my seat to face her. “Are you allergic to crustaceans, mollusks, or both?”
“What the hell is a mollusk, Kayden?” Her head fell backward as she laughed.
“Mussels, clams, scallops,” I listed off a few.
“Ew.” She shook her head and grimaced. “I’m only allergic to crustaceans but if it comes from the ocean, don’t feed it to me. I can’t stand the smell.”
I chuckled. “Okay. I called ahead to make sure they could handle a shellfish allergy since they serve seafood here, and they said they could. Also, don’t you think this is something you should have considered at the wedding?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I was a bit preoccupied by the gorgeous and slightly nervous man who’d asked me to be his date for the evening. I carry an EpiPen, so in the instance of cross-contamination, I would have survived.”
“You would have given me a heart attack,” I said. My pulse raced at the thought of having to witness her in anaphylactic shock.
