It went straight to voicemail just as I was swallowing back another wave of nausea. Fuck, what was wrong with me? There wasn’t a bug going around and even if there was I’d have been surprised if I’d caught it. I rarely got ill, but there was always a first for everything.
After several minutes the dizziness passed and I wondered if I should just call Emmie and tell her I couldn’t make it. I didn’t want to get anyone else sick if I really did have a bug, yet at the same time I didn’t want to miss out on the fun. This Christmas party was important to Emmie and her family, and now that she considered me a part of her family, I wanted to be there.
Sighing, I reached for my hairdryer, determined to make it to the party.
With my hair done and a nice green dress on, I finished up my makeup. Putting on just a little gloss, I nearly jumped out of my skin when my cell buzzed. It was a text from Mieke and I smiled at the goofy picture of my daughter that was in my messages. She was standing with her new friends and cousins in front of a Christmas tree in Emmie’s living room.
Shaking my head, I closed my texts and briefly saw the date on the screen along with the time. It didn’t immediately hit me, but for some reason I glanced back down at the date…
Holy shit.
Zander
She was running late and I was running out of nerves. I knew if I’d looked in a mirror right then I’d see that my eyes were complete green. It was probably why most of my bandmates were sticking to the opposite sides of the room. Even Emmie was shooting me strange, questioning looks that I tried to ignore.
Stuffing my hands into the dress pants I’d decided to wear, instead of the usual jeans I preferred, I glared out the glass wall that looked at the Pacific Ocean. With all the lights on in the huge living room, I couldn’t see the crashing waves as they hit the beach, but I knew they were there. They mimicked the feelings crashing through me right at that moment.
Was it too soon? Was I moving things too fast? Had I been suffocating her?
The questions kept coming, each one of them sending my fucked-up head into even deeper chaos. I was probably moving too fast, but Annabelle had seemed happy over the last several months. She smiled all the time, laughed like she was the happiest she’d ever been in her life. When I wrapped my arms around her at night and pulled her close, she would cuddle against me and breathe me in deeply as if she never wanted our connection to end.
I’d promised her I’d wait until I knew she was ready, until I’d proven to her fully that she was my world and nothing else except her mattered. I wasn’t sure if I’d done that yet. Fuck, it had only been a few months. It could take years before she was truly ready for a bigger commitment with me. Yet there I was, stressing over what I wanted to do right at that second.
Soft, warm hands touched my arm and I relaxed a little as I wrapped my arm around Mieke’s slender shoulders. “Any word from your mom?”
“I sent her a text about an hour ago, Daddy. Relax. She’s just running a little late. Everything is going to be alright, okay?” She reached up and kissed my cheek, squeezing my hand as she did so.
Mieke was the only one who knew what was going on, the only one who knew why I was acting like the crazy man I’d always been accused of being. There were no smiles from me that night; no making others laugh. I was lost in my own head and I would stay lost until I had Annabelle in my arms again.
“There you are!” I heard Emmie call out with a laugh and turned to find her stepping away from a small group that included Nik, Axton, and Dallas.
She hugged the newcomer before stepping back and my breath froze in my lungs at the breathtaking sight of Annabelle in the green dress and black ballet slippers. She looked perfect, but there was something in her sky-blue eyes that told me she wasn’t feeling well.
I dropped a kiss on top of Mieke’s head without glancing at her and moved across the living room toward the only thing that brought me peace. She was talking in a quiet tone with Emmie but quickly closed her mouth when she saw me coming toward her.
The little redhead faded away, probably going back to her husband as I reached Annabelle and wrapped her tightly in my arms. Her hair was pulled back into a sexy little up-do thing and I buried my face in her neck, inhaling her clean, delicious scent like a dying man taking his last breath. I felt her shiver and couldn’t help the way my body hardened for her.
“Hey, stranger,” she murmured with a little sass in her tone.
I pulled back just enough to see her beautiful face. “Hey. Miss me today?”
“More than you will ever realize.” She lifted a hand to cup the left side of my face and I was surprised to see her fingers trembling. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Everything inside of me froze. The look in her eyes was full of a fear I didn’t understand mixed with worry and maybe a little bit of excitement. “Tell me,” I rasped out, terrified of what was going to leave that mouth I loved to kiss.
“I love you,” she breathed, making my heart stop for two full seconds before it started pounding against my ribs once more.
In the time we’d been back together, I’d told this woman every day how much I loved her, but she hadn’t once repeated those three little words. I’d been feeling the loss of them, but knew that I had to earn them back. Hearing them now, I felt like she was offering me the world on a silver platter. It was everything I’ve ever wanted wrapped up in her silky voice.
“I love you, too.” My voice was choked with emotion and my eyes stung with tears that I didn’t try to hold back. “I love you so damn much, Anna.” I pulled the little present I’d been playing with in my pocket all day out and offered it to her. “Merry Christmas, baby.”
She started to say something else but then looked down at the little box I’d placed in her hand. Her mouth snapped shut and she carefully pulled the little silver ribbon free before opening it.
Around us, everyone went completely silent. I didn’t even think the babies in the room were whining anymore as all eyes turned to Annabelle as she pulled the gold band from the little box. It wasn’t the ring that Gram had given me for Annabelle’s seventeenth birthday, but it would match it when I slipped that little wedding band on her finger the day I married her.
That is, if she accepted this particular gold band with the five-carat princess-cut diamond that Mieke had helped me pick out earlier that week.
I watched Annabelle closely, watching for her reaction, needing to know if I’d just fucked everything up or made us whole again. Tears filled her eyes and her chin trembled. One large tear spilled from first her left eye and another followed from her right. They came slowly at first but soon were pouring out of her gorgeous eyes. Lifting her tear-filled eyes from the ring in her hand, she turned them on me, questioningly.
I cleared my throat twice before I could get it to work so I could speak. “I’ve been losing my mind for the last month, baby. I don’t mean to rush you. I’ve promised you I’ll give you as long as you need and won’t stop until I’ve proven to you how much you mean to me. None of that has changed, and if you say no now, I’m not going to give up. Fuck, babe, I don’t ever want to let you go. Please, I love you so damn much. Will you marry me?”
“Z...” she breathed, shaking her head. It felt like a lead ball fell into the pit of my stomach, and I fought back a wave of despair and pain. Then she laughed, a happy almost bell-like sound that echoed throughout the room, and she threw her arms around me. “Yes, Z. Yes.”
I didn’t hear the cheers or the claps or even the congratulations as they filled the room from our friends and family. All I heard was her soft sob of yes as she buried her face in my chest and held onto me like I was her lifeline. I held onto her for several long minutes. No one dared to approach us as we soaked up that moment of pure joy.
After a while, Annabelle lifted her head and smiled shakily at me. “I still need to talk to you.”
“So talk,” I encouraged, wiping away her tears with my thumbs. Nothing she had to say cou
ld dim the high I had rushing through my veins right then. I had everything that I wanted, everything that I would cherish right there in my arms.
Annabelle bit her lip and looked down at the ring still sitting in the box for a moment before slowly lifting her eyes again. “I think I’m pregnant,” she whispered so softly I nearly didn’t hear her.
The words and their meaning hit me dead center in the chest, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. When at last I was able to suck in a deep breath, I wrapped my arms around the woman I loved and swung her around twice, kissing her tear-salted lips as I laughed with a happiness that went soul deep. If I’d thought I couldn’t be any happier after having her say she would marry me, I was wrong.
If she was pregnant —and somehow I could almost feel that she was —I would be the happiest man who walked the Earth. I would get to watch her stomach grow with our child this time around. This time she wouldn’t have to go through a single second without me beside her. I would love our baby more than any father had ever loved his child.
That didn’t mean I would love Mieke any less. Nothing could ever make me love my daughter any less. She was the stars in my sky while her mother was my moon, both of them lighting up the darkness I’d been living in for most of my life. Another baby would only make our family complete.
“You’re happy?” Annabelle murmured when I set her on her feet again.
I kissed the tip of her nose. “Happiest man in the world, Anna. I love you, baby.”
Her face softened. “I love you too, Z.”
Playlist
“Outcast” by Shinedown
“State of my Head” by Shinedown
“Broken” by Seether (ft. Amy Lee)
“Let Me Go” by Avril Lavigne (ft. Chad Kroeger)
“Breaking Inside” by Shinedown (ft. Lzzy Hale)
“If You Only Knew” by Shinedown
“Call Me” by Shinedown
“Like I’m Gonna Lose You” by Meghan Trainor (ft. John Legend)
“Ashes Of Eden” by Breaking Benjamin
“Burn With Me” by Amaranthe
“Let It Go” by James Bay
“Fire N Gold” by Bea Miller
“Poison” by Rita Ora
“Say You Love Me” by Jessie Ware
“Let Your Tears Fall” by Kelly Clarkson
“Sorry” by Art of Dying
“What Sober Couldn’t Say” by Halestorm
“Last Regret” by Casey Donovan