CHAPTER 52
Olivia
MID-SEPTEMBER
TWENTY-TWO WEEKS
Together, we created a life. Half you, half me, and entirely ours. Now we’re over halfway there.
“ W hat is all this?” I ask as I slide open the patio door after the longest Thursday I can remember.
My mouth hangs open as I take in Asher’s deck.
It has been totally transformed, and I’m having a hard time looking at everything all at once.
I should’ve known by all the questions he was asking me over text this afternoon—when I’d be home, how much I still had to do at the store—that he was planning something.
He knows I’ve been working a lot lately, and that I have lists upon lists of things I need to get taken care of and planned for before the baby comes.
Duke is already outside with Asher, but Dick follows close by my heel, giving my ankles a quick, loving rub (and nearly tripping me in the process) before disappearing into the yard.
“Thought you could use a night to relax, little mama, get you through the last day of the week tomorrow.” He smirks that beautiful grin at me, and my heart skips a little beat with how incredible he is. “Rom-com-athon.”
Dear universe. Please let me keep him?
Asher has moved all of the outside furniture, which now sits against the railing facing the back of the house on the fully covered part of the deck.
The sofa is covered in blankets and cozy pillows and the side tables are decorated in flameless candles, their glow lighting up the darkening sky as twinkle lights hang overhead from the beams. The coffee table boasts a pizza, salad, and garlic bread, as well as a charcuterie of dark chocolate, fruit, and movie candies.
“You’re too good to me.” I set my purse down on the sofa and toe off my comfortable Birkenstock sandals.
Asher approaches and kisses me lightly on the lips, then places his big hand over the swell of my belly, which he does every day now, saying hi to little bear too.
It’s amazing how much I’ve grown. At twenty-two weeks we can see an actual baby, a real human with arms and legs flailing around, very active inside me. I’ve felt tiny kicks and flutters recently, and I’m so excited to really feel him or her moving around so that Asher can experience them too.
The last few weeks have been a blur with Asher working doubles because Walker has had to be at the ranch a lot of nights.
Which means we’re only meeting in passing.
Well, specifically, in bed, devouring each other until the early hours of the morning before we both pass out and start another day.
Which means this night means everything to me. Finally, a night just for us.
I still haven’t worked up enough nerve to tell Asher I want me and the baby to stay with him permanently.
He’s installing my cabinets soon, the last piece of finishing my house aside from paint touch-ups, which means that conversation needs to happen soon.
Because I’m almost out of time. Though, right now, all I want to do is enjoy this moment, this evening.
“Come on then, we’ve got a good selection tonight. I think you’ll be proud of me. I worked fucking hard on picking the movie lineup.”
It’s only now that I notice a small outdoor projector set up on the table, pointed at the brick of the back wall on his house.
“Oh yeah?” I laugh, sitting down and picking up a slice of pizza. It’s topped with everything I’ve been craving. Mainly all the meat. “What’ve you got, Reed?”
Asher takes a seat beside me, sliding his hand up my thigh and over my leggings. Those familiar sparks crackle at my skin with just the simplest touch. On my top half, I’m wearing a cute, oversized, wine cable-knit sweater. Today was just one of those days I needed to be comfy.
“Hey, you joke, but I took this shit seriously,” he scolds, wagging a finger at me. “Even looked online for the best rom-coms. These are ranked. Cosmo says so.”
I laugh a little more as I watch him, utterly in awe of his thoughtfulness.
“We’ve got some classics tonight. First up, it’s Never Been Kissed. And then, for the later o’clock showing, with dessert”—he leans in to kiss me—“maybe after a nice hot shower—” Goosebumps break out over my skin. “Maybe a massage … We’ll be playing everyone’s favorite, Pretty Woman. ”
This night sounds like pure heaven. I settle in beside him, satisfied but also unsure of how to put my current feelings into words.
No one has ever taken care of me like this, and with everything I’ve planned for all my life, since that little journal I started when I was nine, I never planned for him, the perfect blend of sin and grace.
And the way he treats me? It almost makes me feel like maybe none of this was by chance, and maybe there’s a world where Asher Reed was meant to be mine.
“Awww, remember this one?” my mom says the next evening, passing me a photo of my fifteenth birthday. Asher and I have stopped by for dinner to bring my parents their own copy of our twenty-two-week scan.
I look down at the next photo my mom hands me; it’s of me, Ginger, and Cece at the local roller-skating rink.
We’re so young and carefree, with our arms wrapped around one another.
Ginger’s hair is pin-straight—back then she hated her curls—and all of us are wearing Twilight T-shirts.
CeCe and I have Edward Cullen on ours and Ginger is wearing a Chief Swan T-shirt that says Team Charlie.
Funny now since she’s married to the town sheriff.
I pass it to Asher. “My mom was never not taking photos.” “It’s the most important thing you can do!
” she defends, continuing to rummage through the box of pictures.
I squeeze her hand; it’s the best thing she could’ve ever done.
Being able to look back on the life my parents gave me is the biggest blessing.
“I had a slight obsession with Twilight that year, and the party was an all-nighter,” I admit as Asher examines the photo. My dad chuckles. “I remember the manager’s face when I told him I wanted to rent the rink for the whole night.”
“Twilight?” Asher asks, brows raised in question. “The book series?” I blink up at him. “The movies? The billion-dollar franchise?”
He stares back at me, utterly clueless. “Edward and Jacob?”
I add.
Asher shakes his head. “Basically, it’s four movies about a regular girl who has to choose whether she loves a wolf or a vampire more,” my dad chimes in.
“Five actually,” I remind him. “Right.” My dad lets out a loud laugh, mock shock on his face. “How could I forget Breaking Dawn Part Two ?”
“I hope she chose the wolf,” Asher comments.
I look at my mom then back at him. “Nope.”
He shakes his head. “Stupid move.” “Why?” “Because a wolf can protect her. Plus, he won’t eat her. So there’s that.”
“Edward—the vampire—doesn’t eat her, he only wants to. Until she becomes a vampire anyway. Then the wolf falls out of love with her and he imprints on her baby.”
Asher’s jaw falls slack and he rubs his forehead and chuckles. “Imprints? All due respect, but what the fuck kind of movie is this?”
My mom and dad laugh at his assessment. When you say it out loud, I guess it does sound weird.
“You had to be there.” I swat at him, unable to hold myself back from laughing too.
My mom looks to both of us, a warm smile on her face. She hands me an empty photo album.
“I thought you could choose photos to put in this album. That way”—she steadies her voice—“the baby can look through it when he or she gets older. Get to know their mom a little better.”
“Thank you, Mom,” I say. “This is amazing.”
She shrugs. “You used to love spending hours looking through Nana’s photos. And now your baby can do the same.”
My eyes glisten as she pats my hand and we both bask in the memories.
“Well, since we’re giving photo gifts,” Asher says, standing and looking to my dad. “Should we do this?”
My dad grins as he makes to get up. “It’s your show.”
I look at my mom, confused, as they both duck out of the room.
“What is this about?” my mom asks. “I have no idea.” It’s an honest answer because I am just as confused as she is.
“I wasn’t going to give this to you until the baby shower, but it feels more appropriate to do it now,” Asher says as he reenters the room carrying two identically wrapped rectangular gifts.
My dad takes a seat next to my mom, all smug and happy like a Cheshire cat.
As if … “Do you know what it—” “Here we go.” Asher sets one of the gifts in my lap and one in my mom’s. It’s heavy and perfectly wrapped in silver paper.
I run my hand over it and look at him as he sits down across from us.
Asher’s dark jeans hug his thick thighs and his standard black T-shirt, one of twenty that live in his closet, clings to his still-tanned, muscular arms. His beard hasn’t seen a razor in weeks but, somehow, even the overgrown scruff on his jaw is perfect too.
Especially when it’s tickling my arms, or neck, or inner thighs.
“Well, go on then!” Asher coaxes us now, his accent coming through a little stronger than usual with his subtle excitement. As excited as Asher can get.
I look at my mom, who’s smiling giddily as she starts tearing the paper.
I do the same and pull out three frames, each filled with …
I gasp as my eyes move quickly over the contents.
In front of me is a collage of little photos of me and my nana at various stages of life, and next to them …
My stomach drops and my eyes instantly fill with tears when I register what I’m looking at.
“Her recipes?” I croak out, swallowing the giant lump in my throat.
I look back down at the gifts, barely able to see them through the blur of my tears.
Asher kept and removed the salvageable recipes from the burned-up old cookbook I thought was lost to the fire?
He took my prized possession and turned it into … art?
“I hope you don’t mind. I took the book and found a restoration company to help remove the soot from the ones that could still be read,” he explains.
My fingers trace the glass as tears spill over my cheeks. I look at my mom, who grabs my hand in hers. She’s crying too.
“Your dad told me which dishes you used to make with her the most,” he continues. “And helped supply the photos, of course.”
Each frame houses two or three different recipes, decorated with charred edges, but somehow the burnt design makes the paper prettier. My nana’s scribbled notes are all still visible, thanks to the restoration.
In one of mine sits our favorite chocolate cake recipe next to a photo of my nana and a twelve-year-old me making it in her kitchen.
I’m laughing in the picture; she’d just swiped batter onto my nose.
The other two frames are much the same. One boasts how to make her famous pineapple upside-down cake and is set next to a photo of me, Nana, and my mom at Christmas one year.
We’re all grinning, wearing our festive aprons at the kitchen island.
I glance at my mom’s frames; Asher has included a few photos of when she was little too, in which my nana’s eyes twinkle with her own youth. I look over every recipe, every photo, and it’s only when I’m done that I see the engravings on the bottoms of the wooden frames.
“Your dad helped me with that too,” Asher says with a shrug as my fingers trace the writing on each frame.
“The gravy makes the meal,” my mom reads. “Life is short, eat dessert first,” I counter, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“This icing is perfect,” my mom says as we turn to look at each other. “Not too sweet,” we say in unison.
All my nana’s favorite sayings, written into the frames as a homage to her. My heart feels as though it could break inside my chest right now with love, with grief, with joy. This gift. This man.
I’m sobbing as I set them down and throw myself into Asher’s arms. And then my mom is there in a blink, pulling both of us close.
“Thank you,” I say to him. “This is the greatest gift I’ve ever received. I thought they were lost forever.”
My mom moves over to hug my dad, and I follow suit. “The two of you were in cahoots,” she says, wiping her eyes with a laugh as she returns to her seat to study the frames in more detail.
My dad grins. “It was all Asher’s idea. I was just there to assist.”
I try to catch my breath. “Don’t you know better than to do this to a pregnant woman?!”
“I know they were too important for you to lose,” Asher says softly, leaning over to place his hand on mine. “You’d already lost enough. Now you can each hang these somewhere special and keep them forever.”
And then he’s turning to pull two more items out of the bag he carried the frames in, handing us each an unwrapped, new edition of The Joy of Cooking.
“And these are to write your notes in. Maybe you can use it to cook with little bear so she can make her own memories with her mom, and her nana.”
More tears threaten to spill over, and by the time we’ve each looked at each other’s frames, my mom and I are a blubbering mess, and my dad and Asher are toasting themselves on a mission well done.
And I finally admit to myself without a doubt, in true Olivia fashion, I’ve fallen for Asher Reed, hook, line, and sinker.