Page 43 of Only for Tonight (Only For #1)

thirty-six

Jaxon

Three months later

“A re we going to be late?” I ask Ariella as I’m walking out of the closet, pulling the T-shirt over my head. “What time is your appointment?”

“Does it matter?” she huffs as she walks out of the bathroom. “I’m ready.”

I look her up and down. “Are you not going to change?” The glare on her face says it all. “Baby, you wore that to bed.” I point at the tight, sleeveless cotton dress she has on.

“Wow.” She puts her hands on her hips. “You don’t even notice me anymore.” She shakes her head, rubbing her stomach, her hair piled high on her head. “The one I wore to bed was dark gray.” She gets to the steps and holds on to the railing before walking down. “This is a light gray.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the same one,” I mumble, but don’t say anything more, “but you look beautiful.”

“Go fuck yourself, Jaxon.” She slides her swollen feet in her flip-flops, apparently, they’re the only shoes that fit her now because my child has her retaining water.

Apparently, according to her, the baby also has her not sleeping at night and feeling like she’s a beluga whale washed up at shore.

Her words, not mine. Oh, and it’s also my fault the baby is so big because of my big fat head.

“Noted.” I try not to laugh at her. For the past three weeks she’s been a hellion.

She has hated every single minute of being pregnant at this stage.

The first time she said it, I was taken aback, and then she had a full-on meltdown, crying to let me know she didn’t mean it.

As the days trickled on, the crying stopped, but the complaining did not.

She walks out of the house and she groans, “It’s so fucking hot. It’s like Satan’s ball sack.”

“That’s a new one,” I tell her as I open the door for her. “I started the SUV ten minutes ago so it would be cool for you.”

“Aww.” She looks up at me, the pissed-off attitude now gone for what will be four minutes. “You’re the best.”

“Thank you, baby.” I bend to kiss her lips as I hold her hand, and she gets up and into her seat. I grab the seat belt for her, like I always do, as she reaches for it. “You good?” I ask her as she tries to buckle herself in.

“How is it humanly possible for me to get bigger?” she snaps at me. “Like literally, I get any bigger and my stomach is going to blow up like a balloon and pop. You’ll have guts all over the place.”

I reach over her and push the snap to buckle her into place. “The doctor said?—”

“Jaxon, if you tell me what the doctor said one more time…” She grabs her sunglasses and covers her eyes, but her jaw is still tight as she hisses out the next words. “I’m going to kick you in the balls…” She trails off. “When I can.” Her voice goes higher. “Repeatedly.”

“I don’t think you can use that coupon twice, but we can make an exception.” I kiss her nose and then rub her stomach. She moves my hand off of her belly.

“I don’t need any extra body heat,” she grumbles and I close the door, walking to the other side and getting in. “I forgot my ice water.” She looks over at me.

“So you want me to go in and get it, or do you want to stop and get yourself a milkshake instead?”

“Ohhh, we can get a strawberry banana pineapple one,” she chirps, rubbing her stomach. At least this time she didn’t tell me I’m trying to make her fatter than she is, so I should count this as a win.

“We can,” I agree, checking the time and seeing we might be a few minutes late, but I’m not going to mention it.

We stop and get the milkshake for her and get to the appointment four minutes late. Walking into the office, the secretary smiles big at Ariella. “Good morning, you two.” She looks over her head at me. “Have a seat, Ms. Weber. The doctor will be right with you.”

As soon as she mentions Ariella’s maiden name, my mood changes. I walk behind her, sitting down beside her, trying not to show my irritation. I sit, putting my ankle on my knee as I move it up and down.

“What’s up with you?” She looks over at me, rubbing her belly that looks like she swallowed a basketball as the straw from the milkshake is half in her mouth.

“Nothing.” I shake my head.

“Don’t nothing me, Jaxon,” she says and I look back over at her.

“I’m annoyed is all.” I look to the side and see they have the same magazines they had last week.

“And why are you annoyed?” She puts her hand on my leg and rubs it.

“I’m annoyed they are calling you Weber instead of Stevenson.”

“Oh, is that why you’re annoyed?” she says, her voice soft. “How about me being annoyed that your child is a week late? He or she is seven days late on their lease. They need to vacate my uterus and it’s almost like they don’t give a shit. It’s like they want to stay in there forever.”

I roll my eyes and she gasps, but the secretary calls her name, so I get up and hold out my hand for her. “Let’s go, Ms. Weber,” I say sarcastically.

She slaps my hand away as she rolls out of the chair. “I don’t think I want you to come in with me.” She glares at me and I glare back at her. “I’m telling your father how unsupportive you are.”

I try not to laugh, but I can’t help it. I grab her face and kiss her lips. “I love you so much, Ariella, I wish you knew how much.”

“Not enough, you didn’t take the baby out of me when I asked you to.” She walks past me and into the examining room. I try not to laugh as she waddles down the hall.

“It’s okay,” the nurse assures me. “When the baby is out, they come back to normal.”

I hold up both my hands and cross fingers on each hand. “My fingers are crossed.” I walk into the room right after Ariella.

“Are you done flirting?” she accuses me, stepping on the stool and then sitting on the exam chair. “Don’t let me interrupt you. I’m just over here having your child.”

I look at her confused. “With Gladys, who is older than my mother?”

She’s about to say something when the doctor comes in. “Ariella,” she says, “I was hoping I wouldn’t be seeing you here.”

“You and me both,” she snaps. “I think it’s time we do something about it, don’t you?”

“The cutoff is forty-two weeks,” she informs her and I swear I think Ariella’s head looks like it’s going to explode.

“Did you try all the things we talked about in your last appointment?”

“We did,” she confirms. “Spicy food, long walks. We had lots of sex.”

“We aren’t doing that again.” I hold up my hand and the doctor laughs while Ariella just glares.

“Baby, I love having sex with you but you don’t like it right now, so we aren’t doing that.”

“Wow, you aren’t even trying to help.” She glares. “You put it in there. It’s time for you to help take it out and you won’t even do your part in that.”

“Okay, why don’t we check and see if maybe we do a membrane sweep,” the doctor suggests, and I hold up my hand.

“Is that safe?” I ask, not sure I like the sound of those words.

“It’s totally safe, but it’s a bit uncomfortable for Ariella,” she starts to say.

“Like having a turkey living inside me isn’t?” She reaches for my hand so she can lie back on the table. “Do whatever you need to do down there.” She puts her feet into the stirrups.

“It’s just loosening up the amniotic sac,” she explains, putting on a glove and then grabbing a white sheet to cover Ariella’s bottom half.

“Ouch!” Ariella yelps, her face grimacing with pain.

“We’re done,” the doctor states, wheeling away and taking off her gloves.

“So now what happens?” I help Ariella sit up.

“Most women begin labor within forty-eight hours after the membrane sweep. But if that doesn’t work, I’ll have Gladys call you in four days. We’ll give you a date and we’ll have to induce.” She smiles at us before she leaves. “It’s almost over, Ariella.”

“Yeah, you said that last week,” Ariella mumbles. The doctor laughs silently as she leaves and we walk out of the office. “Do you want to say goodbye to your girlfriend?” Ariella side-eyes me as I grab her hand and bring it to my lips.

We get into the SUV and start to make our way home when the phone rings and it’s her mother. “Hey, Mom,” she says, putting the phone on speaker. “You’re on speakerphone, I’m with Jaxon.”

“You’re on speakerphone also. Manning and Evelyn just got here,” she shares. “We’re just going to go for lunch and thought you might want to join us.” The four of them have been in town for the last three weeks on baby watch, none of them wanting to miss anything.

“Well, since I’m not having a baby anytime soon,” she pouts, “we might as well eat. Whatever we eat though, it has to be spicy. The spicier the better.” I don’t remind her that she ate half a bottle of Tums yesterday because the spice gave her heartburn, which was, again, my fault.

“Okay, come over to our house. We are having everything catered,” she says and I make my way toward Zoey’s husband’s old beach house, where they are staying. My parents are staying at Nico’s place, right down the street from them.

We pull into the driveway and I look over at her. “How you feeling?”

“Like an elephant,” she grumbles and I get out and look at her. “You know they are pregnant for twenty-two months. This is what it feels like.” She opens her door and we make our way to the door that is immediately pulled open by Ralph, who smiles at her.

“How’s my girl doing?” He opens his arms for her. Candace comes toward the door, followed by my mother and my father behind her. I share a look with my father, who just nods.

“Miserable,” she moans out. “We just left the doctor and nothing.” He lets her go. “And Jaxon doesn’t want to do the one thing that will help.” She looks at me. “He won’t have sex with me.”

“Well, this is a conversation I never thought I would be having with the four of you in my life.” I look up to the ceiling. “It’s not that I don’t want to. She doesn’t enjoy it.”

“Like that matters all of a sudden,” she retorts and I close my eyes, not sure I can face them.

“It can be uncomfortable at this stage.” My mother tries to cover for me and I put my hands over my eyes.

“Can we talk about anything—anything—else but sex?” I look at all of them and they look like they are either going to throw up thinking about their children having sex or laugh hysterically.

“Come in, come in,” Candace urges now. “We set the table.”

She starts to walk into the house and stops, making us all stop. “It’s fine, I think it’s gas,” Ariella says, and she rubs her stomach as we walk toward the table.

“Where do you want to sit?” I ask her and she looks up at me.

“Not on your dick, that’s for sure,” she mumbles and walks over to pull out the chair and sits down, grabbing the glass of water that is already poured.

I sit beside her as my parents sit in front of me and Candace and Ralph sit on each end of the table. “This might be your last meal as a pregnant woman,” Candace offers.

“Meanwhile, this jerk”—she points to me—“was busy flirting with the nurse.” I look up at the ceiling, ignoring the glare from Ralph and my father. “After being annoyed because I didn’t have Stevenson as my last name.”

“Well, whose fault is that?” Ralph points out. “You went backward there a little.”

“Yeah.” I lean back in my chair and put my hand on her leg, hoping she lets me keep it there. “I mean, it’s not like she’s going to let me drag her to the courthouse to get married.”

She looks over at me. “If you think I’m going to get married like this...”

“You can always get married in the courthouse and then have a reception another time,” my father suggests. “All those destination weddings, you have to get married in a courthouse before anyway.”

“The more I think about it,” my mother starts, “I think I would have preferred doing that. Having the day, just us.”

“We did that,” Candace adds and Ralph glares at her. “Oh, don’t even.” She chuckles. “We got engaged, and when we got back home, he rushed me to the courthouse.”

“I did not,” Ralph refutes and her eyes go up. “Okay, fine, I did.”

“See,” I say, pointing to her father, “it’s normal.”

“What does it matter?” She looks at me.

“It fucking matters, Ariella,” I declare. “It matters that you are going to give birth and I have nothing holding us together,” I admit to her. “It matters that people know we’re not married.”

“It does not,” she says softly. “The baby is going to be Stevenson.”

“Yeah, well, I want you both to be Stevenson,” I state, turning to her. “I want to go in there and all of us have the same last name.”

“That’s crazy.”

“So you won’t marry me?” I turn in my chair, asking her.

“You don’t even have a ring.” She throws her hands in the air and I look over at my father. He pushes away from the table and tosses me the ring box, making everyone at the table but my father and Ralph gasp.

“What about now?” I push away from the table and fall down on one knee. “What about now? What do you say?” I open the ring box. “What do you say now if I ask you to marry me?”

“Oh my God,” Candace swoons, putting her hand to her face.

“What if I ask you to spend the rest of your life with me?” I look at Ariella, who looks at me with tears running down her face.

“What if I told you I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you?

That I love our life and I’ll fight the rest of my days to make sure it only gets better.

That going to bed with you in my arms and waking up with you in the morning is the best thing I’ve ever done.

I want to grow our family, side by side, with your hand in mine.

What do you say, Ariella?” I look up at her as she wipes away the tears from her face.

“I don’t know if I’m crying because I’m happy you are finally proposing,” she sniffles, grabbing my face in her hands, kissing my lips, “or the fact I think my water just broke.”