One Moment Please (Wait With Me #3)(77)

“What makes you think I’m upset?” She rips open a package of aged cheddar and slices away at it.

I grimace at the sight of her sniffling. “Because you seem to be crying?”

She shoots wide, accusing eyes at me. “Can’t I just cut some cheese and cry a little?” She grabs the blue cheese crumbles.

I make a noise in my throat.

“What?” she snaps.

“You can’t have blue cheese.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s unpasteurized, remember? It’s in your baby book.”

Her jaw drops in horror as she holds the knife up. “Are you kidding me with this shit? Why don’t you just cut my head off while you’re at it?”

I can’t help but roll my eyes. “I think you’re being a touch dramatic, Jones.”

“I am not!” she exclaims, abandoning the blue cheese and setting about arranging the pepper jack on the board instead. “I literally can’t do anything fun. I can’t eat lunch meat. I can’t drink. I can’t eat unpasteurized cheese.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, seriously fucking confused that she’s more worked up about food and drink right now than me asking her to marry me. Lynsey barely complains about being pregnant, so none of this makes any fucking sense.

She drops her knife on the counter and points at her belly. “I can’t find out I’m pregnant in a fun way. I can’t move in with a guy in a fun way. And now I can’t even get engaged in a fun way. Everything that’s happened to me is by fucking default.”

I splay my hand on the counter and face her, my chest aching at the pain in her voice. “Did you really want a big grand gesture like what Miles did?”

“Maybe.” Her brown eyes are wide and watery. “Would that have been so bad?”

I bow my head in frustration. “But those are typically for people who are…”

“What?” she huffs, her nostrils flaring with indignation. “In a relationship?”

I press my lips together, knowing that anything I say right now will upset her further but also knowing that she needs to look at this pragmatically, not emotionally. I take a deep breath and clutch her shoulders, ignoring the way she winces beneath my touch. “We’ve been doing really good here together, Jones, and I think getting married would be a lot more of the same but just take any of the uncertainties out of it.”

Her brows pinch together. “Uncertainties meaning?”

I shrug. “Where we’re going to live. Who’s going to pay for things. Whose last name the baby will have. Whether we’re ever going to date anyone else in the future.”

Lynsey’s lips part in surprise. “Seriously?”

My irritation spikes because all of this seems so fucking obvious to me. We’re having a baby together, for fuck’s sake. I glance at her belly, the ache in my chest thumping again because the baby is right here, between us, growing, living, thriving. Why can’t she see us getting married as a good thing?

I speak calmly. “Lynsey, this child is going to tie us together for life, no matter what. That’s why you and I getting married makes so much sense. I thought with your Catholic upbringing and the millions of hints your mother has been dropping, you’d be happy with this idea.”

Her chin trembles as she deflates in my arms.

“This isn’t how I imagined any of this would happen,” she croaks, her voice wobbling as the emotions she was barely holding onto before spill out. She presses her head to my bare chest, and murmurs, “I was barely awake, and you asked me to marry you like you were asking me if I wanted pancakes or waffles.”

“How was I supposed to know you’d want charcuterie?” I reply, rubbing her back and trying to make a joke.

She doesn’t laugh. Instead, she pulls back and looks up at me fiercely. “Do you even love me, Josh?”

My chest heaves with that loaded question, and I press my lips together, hating that she’s putting me on the spot right now and hating that I can’t give her the answer I’m sure she wants.

My voice is thick when I reply. “I care about you, Lynsey. You’re honestly my closest friend. But I’m not capable of love. My brain just doesn’t work like that anymore.”

She bites her lip and closes her eyes as two tears fall down her cheeks. “Sounds like a great reason for me to say yes.”

I tilt my head. “I thought this would make you happy.”

She shakes her head, her eyes red with tears. “You really thought proposing to me without being in love with me would make me happy?”

When she puts it like that, it sounds awful. But fuck that, it doesn’t have to be. Unconventional relationships happen all the time. Lynsey and I are good together. These past several months have proven that fact. “Marriage doesn’t have to be that big of a deal, Jones. We can still be us but just…married.”

“And not in love,” she replies flatly, turning away from me and getting back to her food. I move to put my arm around her, but she holds her hand up, halting my motions. “I need some time and space to think about this, Josh.”

I nod and rub the back of my neck. “Do you want to come back to bed though maybe? It’s so early.”

She shakes her head. “If I do, I’ll go to my room.”