Sweet Home

I languidly traced the blades of his back. “That’s the softest you’ve ever made love to me. It felt so different.” I pressed my forehead to his. “I loved it.”

Romeo’s hand caressed my stomach. “You’re carrying precious cargo now, baby. I need to be more careful with you… with you both.”

He tucked his head into the crook of my neck and we simply held each other.

Romeo reared up his chest and pecked my cheek, smiling. “You look like my old Mol with these glasses and your hair like that. The girl I looked at months ago, on her hands and knees, cussin’ in that f**kin’ hot accent in humanities block, wearin’ neon orange shoes and I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that she would one day be mine.” He ruffled my bun and fixed me with a completely adoring expression.

“One day,” I goaded, stroking his tattoo on his hip, and his eyes sparkled in response.

“I always wondered if one day I’d have a family, if I’d ever be happy enough with someone… with myself, to have a child.”

My gut wrenched at his pain and I pulled in a panicked breath, thinking about the enormity of our situation. “Romeo, I don’t think I can be a mother. We haven’t had normal families. We have no idea how to be in a normal family! How the hell can we bring up a child? We’re far too young—what do we have to offer a baby?”

He sighed. “Something we never had.” He shuffled and tugged me to face him. “Listen to me. Together we can do it. Together we can do anythin’. We can be good parents.”

“But your football…”

“So what? I’ll get drafted in April and you’ll come with me, with our son or daughter. You can still do your PhD and achieve your dreams. We can have it all. Just please… don’t destroy our child, our first child.”

“Rome—” I whimpered.

A finger over my mouth silenced me. “I could’ve been destroyed, but my birth mother didn’t. She had me. I’m here because she chose me, even if she didn’t actually want me. Yeah, my family did a real number, but I got through it and it led me to you, my smart English girl—the girl that saved me. The girl who showed me how to love.”

I ran my hand over his stricken face. “Your parents will think I’ve done it on purpose to trap you.”

His lips tightened and his expression hardened. “I don’t give a f**k what they’ll think. In fact, I’ve no intention of ever tellin’ them. I was serious when we left their house that night. I’m done with them. You’re my life now; you’re my everythin’. You and our baby.”

I held on to my boyfriend until my tears of fear, shock, and immense love ran dry. When Romeo rolled away, he stripped us completely of our clothes, laid me under the covers, and wrapped his arm around my stomach, whispering sweet words of love and caressing the home of our baby.

20

“Are you nervous?” I asked as I wound my hair around my finger.

Romeo pretended to bite his nails and then squeezed my knee, smirking. “More like a mixture of nervousness and excitement.” He tucked me in closer with his arm that was securely around my shoulders. “We see our baby soon,” he whispered excitedly.

Rome gripped my hand tightly. I knew he was more anxious than he let on, but was feigning a breezy attitude purely for my easy-to-freak-out benefit.

The last several days had been… nothing short of surreal. It took us a few days to really wrap our heads around the fact that we were pregnant.

We were pregnant.

Romeo had made sure that I always said it that way. He reminded me at every opportunity that he was in, one hundred percent, and it was a team effort.

My friends, after accepting that I wasn’t going to have a major baby-based meltdown, let themselves be excited for us both, if not understandably a little concerned, and promised to keep the news to themselves. I also informed Professor Ross, who was, let’s just say, shocked—actually, that was putting it mildly—but she’d been a pillar of support and was trying to help me figure out a way to continue my academic studies after the baby was born. Other than that, no one else would know until we were out of the first trimester and I couldn’t hide it any longer.

Life was suddenly crazy, but being pregnant wasn’t as scary as I’d originally thought.

I’d made an appointment with the OB-GYN and, due to my mother’s complications in her pregnancy, which ultimately resulted in her death, I was told to come in immediately for a thorough check-up. Romeo dipped into his trust fund, paying for only the best doctor, so unlike most mere mortals, we would probably see our baby a lot earlier than normal.