She Took My Husband on My Wedding Night, I Didn't Find Out Until We Gave Birth Together novel · Chapter 31 of 32

Chapter 31: First Steps

"Cormac."

"Don't look at the pie," he said. "The ring was supposed to be in the pie. That was the whole plan."

"Where is it now?"

"In the box. The pie ate it twice. I had to perform surgery." He held the box up higher. "I'm a paramedic. It went fine."

Margo banged her spoon on the high chair tray.

"She's my witness," he said. "She's been very supportive."

I couldn't move.

I stood in the swinging door with my bag on my shoulder and flour drifting down off the shelf onto my hair.

"I had a speech," Cormac said. "I practiced it in the truck. It went better in the truck."

"Say it badly, then."

He laughed, once, under his breath.

Then he looked up at me, and he didn't laugh.

"I can't cook," he said. "I can't tell a joke. I can carry you down a ladder, and I know every word to one song nobody else has ever heard."

He swallowed.

"I was offered a ride home twice, and I said no twice, and both times it was you. Clementine Mahon. Marry me."

The ring was a plain gold band with one small, clear stone.

It had flour on it.

"Get up," I said. "You're getting flour on it."

"Is that a yes?"

I got down on the tiles in front of him instead.

I put my hands on his floury face.

"Yes," I said. "Yes. Out loud, in front of a witness."

He slid the ring onto my finger.

It went over the knuckle on the first try.

Margo shrieked and threw her spoon.

From the front of the shop came a crash, and a cheer, and the sound of a large man sobbing.

The round window in the swinging door had two faces in it.

The probie's, grinning.

The big guy's, wet.

"We were never here," the probie called through the glass.

"We were here the whole time," the big guy said. "I'm sorry. I'm so happy."

Winifred kept Margo that night.

"The nanny and I can manage two," she said on the phone. "One of them is already asleep and the other one is me."

So for the first time, Cormac took me to his own place.

He'd kept it for six years and barely slept in it since September.

A third-floor walk-up on a steep street in Charlestown, with a view of the bridge.

He opened the door and stood back.

One chair. A bed with a navy blanket. A fire department calendar from two years ago on the wall.

I opened the fridge.

A jar of mustard and one lemon.

"It's very minimalist," he said.

"It's very sad."

"It's been waiting for you to judge it."

The bridge lights came through the bare window and lay across the floor in long blue lines.

I turned around in the middle of his empty room with his ring on my hand.

"I want to give you something," I said.

"You already did. Out loud. I've got a witness."

"Something else." I walked to him. "Every time, I've been the one steering. Because I had to be. Because of the glass."

He went very still.

"Tonight I don't want to steer," I said. "I want you to. I'm awake. I'm choosing it. And I'll tell you if I want to stop."

"You'll tell me."

"I'll tell you."

He put both hands on my face, very slowly, the floury one and the scarred one.

"Then I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do first," he said. "Every step. Before I do it."

"Why?"

"So you can say yes to each one."

His hands stayed on my face.

Thumbs moved once over my cheekbones, slow.

Flour dusted off him onto my skin.

"I'm going to kiss you first," he said.

Quiet, like a man reading a gauge.

"And I'm going to keep my hands right here, so you know I'm not going anywhere."

"Yes," I said.

He kissed me.

Soft, then not soft.

His mouth opened over mine and took.

I gripped his wrists.

Not to pull him closer.

To hold on.

He pulled back just enough to breathe.

"Now I'm going to take your shirt off," he said.

"Slow."

"Yes."

He peeled it up.

The air hit my stomach, then my ribs.

Then my arms.

He folded it, dropped it on the chair.

He looked at me, and I looked right back.

The scars on my left side were pale lines in the blue light from the bridge.

Flour smeared across my collarbone where he'd been.

"Lie down on the bed," he said.

"On your back."

I walked to the bed.

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