waiting for him in the living room. Arrow was good at making herself scarce when the time called for it, so she’d disappeared without me having to ask.
Salinger was excited like a kid on Christmas morning as he bounded into the house. His eyes were big, and instead of looking dark and endlessly deep like they usually did, they glittered with anticipation and unvarnished devotion.
He was smitten and he didn’t even know if he was going to be a father yet, or how I really felt about him.
He plopped down in the seat next to mine and pushed a brown bag from a chain drug store in my direction. He wiggled his eyebrows up and down in a comical way before tilting his head in the direction of the bathroom.
“Take care of business. Let’s see what the future has in store for us.”
I nudged the bag aside and tapped on the piece of paper that was on the table in front of me.
“Before we do that, let’s take care of this.” I pushed the paper in his direction as he gave me a baffled look. “You promised you would sign any contract I put in front of you. I want you to sign this one before I do the test.”
“What? A contract now? After we decided to date and might be having a baby together? I thought you trusted me, Maren?”
I could see his disappointment starting to shadow the bright look in his eyes, so I tapped the paper with more force and told him, “Look at it before you get upset, Salinger.”
He leaned back in the chair and kicked his boots out in front of him, looking like a sullen child.
It was totally adorable.
When he didn’t make a move to pull the paper toward him, I nudged it across the table and held out the pen in my hand for him to sign.
“I already signed it. It just needs your signature before we go any further.”
Begrudgingly, he looked down at the paper and absently took the pen from my hand.
“Are you going to sue me for breach of contract if you decide it’s no fun to date me?” He grumbled the words as his eyes started to scan over the quickly written terms and conditions I’d jotted down.
“You’re cute when you’re all badass and broody.” As I leaned closer, I grinned at him, watching his expression slowly shift from annoyance to something closer to stunned wonder.
Written across the plain white piece of paper was my declaration of love. It was a picture of my heart and every hope and dream I had for us for the future.
I will love you and let you love me for as long as possible.
I will stand by you and behind you when it is your time to shine.
I will take the good with the bad and try to make each day we spend together better than the one before.
Even if we decide to go our separate ways, I will always do my best to honor the time we spent together.
I will leave you better than I found you.
My loopy signature was already at the bottom, and I left a big black X for his to join.
Salinger stared at the paper for a long moment before finally lifting his head to look at me.
He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He looked a little bit like a fish out of water suddenly. He was so adorable when caught by surprise, I couldn’t help but grin at him. I lifted a hand so I could smooth down some of his spiky hair.
“I love you, Salinger Dolan. I love you enough to want to make sure it’s nearly impossible for you to walk away from me. You said you would sign anything I put in front of you, so sign this one, and let’s go find out if we made a baby.”
He gulped and reached up to grab the hand that I was using to stroke the side of his head soothingly.
“You love me?” He sounded like he couldn’t quite believe it.
I nodded. “I really do. I didn’t want to, but there was no stopping it once you walked into my heart like you owned it. I’m a happier person when I’m with you. You brought light and life back into my world when I didn’t even realize they were missing. Everything I used to blame you for taking away from me, you brought back three-fold.”
He still looked bewildered, as if he couldn’t believe