Page 53 of Until You

Me: She doesn’t need an audience right now. She’s exhausted.

Kelsie: She doesn’t need to be alone in a hospital either. And you can’t carry everything by yourself, Oliver. You never could.

Addison: She needs to know that her family has her back.

I stare at the message. Her family. My family.

Then I hear footsteps on the other side of the curtain and pocket my phone.

Cora is standing when I come back through. Discharge paperwork folded in her hand, a small prescription bag from the hospital pharmacy, her green dress slightly crumpled from the wheelchair. Her mascara has been dabbed at— not perfectly, but enough. Her chin is up.

She looks like herself.

She looks like someone who just had the most terrifying night of her life and is already organizing how to carry it forward.

“Ready?” I ask.

“Ready.” She looks at me. Really looks. “Your family is coming, aren’t they? They all know everything?”

I blow out a breath, then finally give in to my urge to touch her and pull her into an embrace. She practically melts into my arms. “They’re already here. Darlin’, they’re a lot. I know they’re a lot. I could try to tell them to leave, but they don’t listen to me.”

“It’s okay.” She leans back a little and looks up at me. “I hope they’re not disappointed.”

“Disappointed? In what?”

“Me? First grandchild and I’m a stranger, and we’re not together.”

I cup her face. “We’re going to remedy that right now. Mishief, we are together, provided you’ll take me.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “I know you’re an honorable man, Oliver Blankenship, but I will not be a duty or responsibility. I am strong enough to raise a child on my own.”

“I have no doubt you are. But my wanting you has nothing to do with our child. My heart chose you that night at Ace’s, and it’s been choosing you every day since. I just didn’t know where you were.”

She searches my face. “What are you saying?”

“That I’m all-in. You and me.” I thumb away a tear as it slides down her cheek. “I want us. You willing to put up with my crazy family?”

“I think you might be worth it,” she says.

I kiss her then. Soft, gentle, an unhurried promise of what’s to come.

“Are they all here?” she asks.

“Everyone but Henry and Gracie. They’re conspicuously missing.”

“I saw them on the dance floor. I don’t think it’s too much of a mystery as to where they are and what they’re doing.”

That makes me laugh. I grab her hand to pull her out to the lobby, where chaos waits.

She blows out a breath. “It was always going to come out. They were always going to find out. I just thought I’d have pants on when it did.”

I look down at her dress.

“For the record,” I say, “you’re fully dressed.”

“I’m in a green sundress and hospital-issued socks.” She looks down at her feet. Dolores had confiscated the strappy sandals during the exam. “My mascara is nothing but sad black streaks at this point, and my hair is wilted. This is not how I wanted to meet your siblings for real.”

“You’ve met them.”

“As the caretaker. Not as the woman who—” She stops. Chooses her words. “Not in this context.”

I kiss her forehead. “The context,” I say, “is that you’re the woman who scanned two hundred photographs for my grandparents and made everyone cry. You’re the woman who leaves pot roast in the fridge and then says it’s probably not poisoned. You’re the woman who is carrying my child.” I pause. “The rest is just details.”

Her throat moves. “Oliver.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop being nice to me. I’m already over my crying limit for the evening.”

I almost smile. “I’m never going to stop being nice to you.”

She straightens the discharge papers in her hands, like having something to do with her fingers helps. “Okay. Tell me their names again. In order because I feel like I’m forgetting stuff.”

“Henry’s not coming. He’s the oldest. Then me. Then Kelsie—she’s married to Ethan, who is a former Navy SEAL. Then Addison, she’s married to a British guy named Thorne who writes romance novels and is a lawyer on the side.”

“And Payton’s the youngest,” she says.

“He’s going to be—” I pause, looking for the right word, “—enthusiastic.”