Page 104 of Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake
“Yeah, Birdy, I do. I love you like a heart beats or a fish swims. It’s automatic and unavoidable, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it. You’ve busted into my heart and carved your name into every chamber.”
Lizzie laughed, hot tears trickling out from the corners of her eyes.
“I don’t expect you to love me back. Not yet, at least,” Rake continued, taking a step forward, putting one hand around her waist. “Not until I can make it up to you. But all I want is to make it up to you. To show you every single day how much I love you. So let me take you to Australia. Or let me just take you home. Our home. Everything is so empty without you, Lizzie.”
“I’ve missed you,” Lizzie whispered, the happy tears rolling down her cheeks. Rake wiped them away. “And I’m a little scared,” she added honestly. “I’m scared I’ll mess this up.”
“I’m scared I will too,” Rake said, giving her a brilliant smile. “I’ve made a million mistakes, and I’ll make a million more. And I love you enough to know you will too. But we’ll do it together.”
“I love you too,” Lizzie said, an uncontrollable smile breaking across her face.
Then Rake kissed her. It was soft and perfect and made a sunrise of happiness bloom in Lizzie’s chest. She broke away, starting to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, resting his forehead on hers.
She grinned, taking his hand from her cheek and draggingit to the soft swell of her belly. Rake’s eyes shot wide as he felt it.
“Told you you’d get to feel the baby kick,” she said, more happy giggles bubbling up from her throat. “I think she’s trying to tell us she loves us too.”
Epilogue
Baby is 7 lbs. 2 oz. of perfection.
Evie Blake-Thompson was born at 3:06 a.m. on a Thursday. She came into the world, red-faced and screaming almost as loud as her mother.
Almost.
Within two seconds of existence, Evie had Rake and Lizzie wrapped around her dimpled little finger.
The couple tumbled, tripped, and fell into the terrors of parenthood, constantly looking at each other with fear that they were messing up, only to dissolve into giggles at their matching expressions of horror. They were clueless and scared, but none of that mattered compared to the overwhelming happiness that tethered them together.
Evie had a single tuft of bright orange hair that sat at the front of her head, refusing to ever lie flat and making her parents giggle every time they looked at her, their precious baby learning early how to giggle along too. Every time little Evie gave them a gummy smile, it was like a supernova went off in their chests.
Ryan and Mary were endless help in those first few months, making the drive into the city on weekends and random daysto help with cooking or diaper duty, Ryan going out of his way to check in with Lizzie, not just on what she may need from the store but also how she was feeling.
When Evie turned twelve weeks old, Lizzie decided that a party was in order.
Entrusting most party planning details to Mary and the cake to Bernadette, the new back patio of the bakery was transformed into a soft little oasis of pastels and baby animals. Rake’s parents flew in from Australia, immediately enamored with their granddaughter, bewitched by every coo and gurgle.
Harper, Thu, Indira, and Mary threw themselves into aunt roles with fierce determination, all trying to outdo the other in spoiling sweet Evie.
“She’s too cute to be real,” Harper said, bouncing Evie lightly in her arms and eliciting a smile. “How do you not sit there and stare at her all day every day?”
“It’s hard not to,” Lizzie said, glancing at Rake, who stood across the patio sharing a beer with Dan, Ryan, and his father.
Some nights after putting Evie down, she and Rake would spend hours sitting in front of the crib, holding hands and watching her sleep, grinning like lovesick fools.
“Why do I have the urge to gnaw on her cheeks?” Thu asked with an alarmed look as she stroked a finger over Evie’s downy skin.
“It’s cute aggression,” Indira chimed in, making funny faces at Evie. “It’s the brain’s defense against the overwhelming onslaught of positive feelings.”
“I’mbeggingyou to go on a monthlong vacation so I can babysit,” Mary said, making Lizzie giggle as she took a bite of lemon bar.
“Have the totally platonic coparent roommates discussed entering totally platonic holy matrimony?” Thu asked, taking Evie from Harper and rubbing circles around the baby’s back.
Lizzie glanced at Rake again, happiness spearing throughher as he felt her gaze and met her eyes, giving her a tender smile that warmed the center of her chest.
It felt borderline subversive to allow herself to be loved as fiercely as Rake loved her, like she was breaking every rule life had set for her, only to discover the most delicious reward for her defiance. It was diving headfirst into something that terrified her.