“Well, I was just wondering if you were going to ask me properly?”
Scanning what I could see of her face and seeing that she was serious, I mulled it over. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it, I just wanted to do it right this time. Finally, finding what I wanted to say, I got up and stretched out, making a show of reaching up to the ceiling, and taking my time. Not being an asshole, but I’d been in here for four hours, had I said that yet?
Walking toward her slowly, I nodded. “Ok, you’re right.”
Obviously not expecting me to do it, she asked cautiously, “I am?”
Reaching the door, I braced a hand above the window and leaned into it. “You are. You deserve for me to do this properly.”
“I do?”
“Mm hmm, you do. If I get down on a knee, you won’t see me with the door shut though, so you’ll have to open it.”
Studying my face to see if I was telling the truth, she eventually gave in and unlocked it. Just as it swung open, a hand appeared behind her back and she was shoved in through the gap, the door making a loud bang as it shut behind her. Glaring at the window in it, I saw the shitheads from outside all pushing each other out the way to see what was going on. They could swing by their balls from a fishing pole for all I cared, this was about Tabby and me and the rest of our lives together.
So, getting down on one knee, I took the hand I’d put the ring on, relieved that it was still on there, and flew by the skin of my taint.
“Tabitha Newton, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Over the last eight months I’ve started making plans I never thought I’d make all of them revolving around a pink haired fireball with a love for life, who makes me feel like I’ve wasted years of my own. I want all of those plans and dreams to become a reality, to wake up every morning with your hair across my chest, to have little baby fireballs with you, and to spend the rest of my life enjoying your brand of mayhem.” The peanut gallery outside the door snorted at that, but I didn’t take my eyes off her. “You’ve already given me so much, but would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She didn’t even take a second to think about it, launching herself at me, and taking me down to the floor with her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. “Yes! I love you. Yes, yes, yes.”
I was seeing dancing spots because she was squeezing me so hard as everyone outside the cell congratulated us. I tried tapping her on the back to get her attention, hoping that she’d look and see what she was doing to me, but she didn’t notice it. In the end, it was a hard pinch to her butt cheek that did it, and my face must have been either bright red or blue because she let go immediately.
“Oops!”
Holding a hand up, I gulped in some oxygen and waited for the tunnel that’d been taking over to recede. When it did, I said four words I’d forgotten to add into the proposal. “I love you too.”
The door creaked open as the men came inside to help us up off the ground, all of them pounding me on the back and giving Tabby a hug.
Just then, a voice I hadn’t expected to hear called out, “You better take care of her, you hear?”
Looking over to see Jose in the doorway holding Olivia who was clapping and giggling, I gave the best reassurance I could. “With my last breath.”
It wasn’t a lie. And if she ever put herself in danger, I knew where to put her until she had a chance to rethink her choices.
TabbyEighteen months later…
“Oh, you’ll be fine,” I mimicked in a high-pitched voice. “It’s probably just those Braxton Hicks ones they told us about.”
Braxton Hicks my ass the size of Vesuvius! These were the real deal, and I knew this because I was currently standing in a puddle the size of the Pacific in the middle of the effing store. And what was I standing next to? The condoms. Yes, I’d walked down this aisle because people kept bumping into me as I tried to breathe through the pain, and this one had been quiet. All it had taken was a contraction, me grabbing the first thing I could get my hand on which turned out to be the air freshener in my cart which had then sprayed into the air, a sneeze because of it, and the fifty gallon bag of water around my baby burst open.