He didn’t laugh. Instead, he gazed down into my eyes with so much love as he shook his head. “You’re joking, but you’re also right. Not having you would have sucked, most especially for me. Maybe I should send him a thank you gift. Should we invite him to the announcement party?” Now, he was teasing me back.

“Maybe we should have a statuary in the garden commissioned in Carlos’ honor?” I suggested.

“Okay, that’s where I draw the line.”

“No, think about it, we could even make sure it’s anatomically correct,” I laughed because I couldn’t maintain a straight face any longer and Tucker playfully pushed me off his lap.

“Maybe you should just start by cleaning your mess up. That trashcan stinks!” he pointed to his trashcan turned vomit bucket.

I scrunched my nose. “I think maybe if you clean it up, it will be good practice for when our little one gets here.”

“Mina!”

“Tucker!”

“Fine. I’ll do it. Why don’t you go rest?”

“I am not letting you clean up my puke, but I appreciate you offering to do it.”

“You know he just basically out-niced you into cleaning up your own mess, right?” I turned to see Wes standing in the doorway of Tucker’s office grinning at us. “By the way, I think I also deserve a statue in the garden, and it should definitely be anatomically correct for the pleasure of all your friends.”

“First, all my friends happen to be in this room, minus your sister, and she doesn’t want to see that. Second, I don’t want to have to leave a magnifying glass out for the people who wander the gardens to get to see you in ‘all your glory’,” I told him as I threw air quotes around the last three words. Tucker laughed and whispered in my ear, “Run.”

I did, which left him and Wes to clean up my mess after all. “Ha! Take that!” I shouted behind me as I rounded the stairs, heading for the kitchen so I could refuel. They would realize what they were stuck with in 3… 2…

“Mina! I see what you did here!” That was Wes.

“Last one in the room cleans the mess,” Tucker called back to his friend. “You deserve it for talking about your dick in front of my wife.”

The moral to my story is that I was wrong in the beginning. Love did actually exist. My very reluctant husband was the one who eventually proved me wrong after I opened myself up to it. The crazy thing is, that I had so many shining examples all around me, but I couldn’t see them through my own miserable existence.

“Holy shit, Mina!”

“What?” I called out as my best friend, Luna, entered the kitchen. “I just finished your last book! Can you say, ‘Tie me up and take me times three’? Oh, and I’ll even throw in a ‘Yes, please take me, Sir!”