I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my, “Maybe I think there are absolutely some reasons not to make the arrangement we agreed on permanent.”
It should be noted, although I said it, I couldn’t think of a single reason not to make it permanent.
If pressed though, I’d make something up.
He leaned into me. “Tell me, since Sadie’s thing, when you’re not working or gallivanting, when have you been at your apartment and I haven’t been there with you?”
Uh-oh.
He was making sense.
And I wasn’t fond of the word “gallivanting.”
Sure, one could say I gallivanted. My net was not wide, but I got around.
Still.
“And tell me,” he continued, “when have you had downtime at all when you were not in your apartment, with me, or you weren’t here…” He paused to drive his point home. Then he drove it home. “With me.”
More sense.
Gack!
“Babe, we already live together, and we’ve been doin’ it for eight months. It’s just that our clothes were in different closets,” he finished.
Jeez, we were so totally not fuck buddies. No wonder Ren found that amusing.
This thought and his words meant I kept glaring at him, mostly because he was right and that sucked.
But as I did this, something stole through me.
And what that was was the fact that Lee essentially moved Indy in with him the day her thing started. They never separated after that.
And now they were married.
Jet had succeeded in keeping a hint of distance between her and Eddie for about a week. Then he moved her in and she never left.
And now they were married and she was pregnant.
Much the same thing happened with Roxie, Jules, Ava, Stella and Sadie.
And when I said “much the same thing” I meant near on exactly.
Holy crap.
I wasn’t a Rock Chick.
I was a Rock Chick!
That meant…
That meant…
That meant Ren and I were getting married!
Holy crap!
I fought hyperventilating and did it by sucking back champagne.
This was a stupid move because, once done, I started choking.
“Ally? Baby?” Ren called, and I saw him move and then he was leaned into me, hand rubbing my back. “You okay?”
I sucked in oxygen, twisted my neck to look at him, and declared, “We’re getting married.”
His chin jerked back and his brows shot up. “Now?”
“Not now!” I cried, falling back in my chair. He straightened to standing, but I tipped my head back so I could keep my eyes glued to him. “During her thing, Indy and Lee moved in together. The same with Jet and Eddie. Roxie and Hank. Jules and Vance. You get my drift. Now all of them are married. Ava and Luke are getting hitched on the weekend. And three weeks ago, Sadie strolled into a Girls Night Out with a diamond on her finger.” I stretched my torso up to him and announced, “Ren, we’re screwed.”
At that, his brows knit.
“You don’t want to get married?”
“No,” I answered, and completely ignored his expression shutting down in order to continue to have my nervous breakdown. “For the next five years I want to engage in copious amounts of hanky-panky until my biological clock starts ticking so loud I can’t ignore it anymore. Then I want to engage in copious amounts of hanky-panky in order to get pregnant. Prior to part two, I want to get married.”
He sat down but didn’t take his eyes from me as he stated, “This doesn’t sound like a bad plan.”
“It’s not. It’s a righteous plan.”
