Released (Caged #3)(44)
“I mean what last name will we give it?” I interrupted. “Teague?”
“I…I don’t know…”
“Lynn?” I pushed. “Lynn-Teague? Teague-Lynn? Tea-Lynn? League?”
She laughed.
“Not the last one!”
“So, there’s another reason to get married,” I concluded.
“You are assuming I’d take your last name,” Tria said. “What the heck is a Teague, anyway?”
She snickered, and I tickled her sides until she begged me to stop.
“Say you’ll take my last name!” I insisted as I trailed the backs of my fingers over her sides again.
Tria squirmed and laughed.
“Fine!” she cried. “I’ll be Tria Teague!”
I ceased with the tickling and pulled her close to me again.
“Is that a yes, then?”
“It’s a maybe,” she said.
“So what, you’re just going to change your name without getting married? Isn’t that a little odd?”
Tria let out a long, slow breath and then looked over at me.
“Why would I say yes when you’ve already admitted you wouldn’t be asking under other circumstances?”
“I want us to be a family,” I said. “I want us all tied together in every way possible, including legally.”
“But you don’t really want to marry me.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I replied with a sigh. “I wouldn’t be suggesting it now. I would have wanted you to finish school first—figure out where you want to go and what you want to do with your life before asking you if you wanted to settle around here.”
“And it’s different now,” she said.
“Yeah, very different.”
“I still want to finish school.”
“Of course,” I said. “You will. I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you finish school. And then if you want to move away somewhere, we will. I’d go wherever you got a job or wanted to live.”
“Which you might not have done if we didn’t have a child together?”
“I would have wanted to give you the option,” I said quietly. “I’ve never lived anywhere but here, though.”
“And I’m a country girl,” Tria said with a smile.
“You ain’t no city girl, that’s for sure!”
“I think I like the city better,” Tria said. “I can’t even say exactly why, especially since I haven’t exactly been in the nicest areas. I like all the options, though. It gives me more opportunity to see how economics impacts the different areas of town.”
“You have weird hobbies,” I said with a smile.
“It’s what interests me,” she said with a shrug. “I could probably use your experience as part of my thesis, you know. Going from all of this”—she waved a hand in the air—“to the slums.”
“Yeah, I suck at interviews, though.”
Tria snickered and tucked her head against my chest. I wondered how she would feel if she saw my parents’ estate. Compared to their home, Michael’s house was a double-wide.
“You still need health insurance,” I reminded her. “The school is only going to cover so much. If we get married, both you and the baby are covered. I don’t make enough for a separate policy for you.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Tria said. “I don’t want you to feel pressured into marrying me just because of…of this.”
She patted her stomach, and I placed my hand over hers.
“I’ll get money for insurance from Michael then,” I said quietly. I didn’t like it, not at all, but Tria needed to be taken care of now, and I wasn’t going to let something stupid like money get in the way of her getting the best f*cking care she could.
Maybe if I had done that with Aimee…
My throat tightened up a bit.
“I’ll get it from Michael,” I repeated.
Tria suddenly moved her hand to the side of my face.
“You’re going to ask Michael for a handout?” she asked.
“If that’s what it takes,” I said. “I was going to go with a loan, though.”
She looked back and forth between my eyes.
“You mean it,” she said. “You really are going to ask him for the money.”
“Yeah, I mean it,” I said as I narrowed my eyes. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Tria sat there and eyed me for a long moment while a slow smile spread across her face.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay?” I asked. “Okay what?”
“Okay,” she said again, “I’ll marry you.”
I was never one to actually whoop for joy, but I couldn’t really help myself.
Chapter 12—Tie the Knot
With Tria under me, wrapped tightly in my arms in the bed we shared at my uncle’s house, I could almost feel at peace.
Almost.
The cool air from the air conditioning—God, how I had missed AC—mixed with the sweat on my back from the recent exertion made me shiver a bit. Tria still breathed heavily as she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the mattress. Afraid of crushing her, I moved to the side and collapsed to the sheets with my arms still wrapped around her.