I stare at her, blink, then say one word. “Sin!”
* * *
After dinner, I stand, getting everyone’s attention.
“Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for coming. You know you’re all the family I never had, and yeah . . . fuck, I’m not going to get all mushy and shit, but I’m thankful for each and every one of you.”
“Uncle Vinnie swore,” I hear Clover whisper to Faye.
“I know,” Faye whispers back.
I turn to Shay and pull the box out of my pocket. My hands start to shake. Fuck. Am I doing this? Proposing? Another thing I never thought I’d do. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Say the fuckin’ words, Vinnie.
“Shay, will you marry me?” I ask, opening the box, showing her the giant diamond.
Eyes wide, she looks at the ring, then back up to me. She then looks around at everyone at the table.
“Vinnie,” she says quietly, clearing her throat. “No, I won’t marry you.”
Wait, what?
The table has gone deathly silent.
She quickly explains, “You don’t care about marriage, I know this, it means nothing to you. Just a piece of paper, you said. I know that you’re doing this because you love me so much, but I’m saying no because I love you just as much, and I don’t need for us to be married to be happy. You’ve given me this beautiful home, even though I know you’d be just as happy at the clubhouse. You don’t have to give any more, Vinnie.”
She stands up and wraps her arms around me. “The fact that you’d do this for me means more to me than anything, but I can’t accept, Vinnie. I love you so damn much, and I know you love me. I don’t need for you to propose to prove that. Although the fact that you did just makes me love you even more.”
I lift her chin with my fingers and kiss her deeply.
Everyone at the table claps.
“That was the most romantic proposal rejection I’ve ever seen,” I hear Faye say.
“I’m sorry I said no in front of everyone,” Shay says, cringing. “I just couldn’t say yes, Vinnie, when I know this isn’t really what you want. You’ve already given me two of the three things you said you’d never give, so this time it’s me who’s going to give up something.”
“Fuck, I love you,” I say, kissing her again, and kind of wishing everyone would go home now so I can carry her up to our bed and have my way with her.
“I love you more,” she says, smiling at me, the happiness in her eyes proof that I’m not as bad of a man as I thought I was.
In fact, I might even be one of the good ones.
EPILOGUE
Shayla
Five months later
“OH my god, she was right; it’s like knives!” I yell, closing my eyes and trying to manage the pain.
Holy fuck.
It hurt so badly.
I want to scream.
I open my eyes and glare at Vinnie, who is holding my hand and telling me to breathe. “I don’t want to breathe!” I yell at him. “Why don’t you try and breathe through getting stabbed?”
“Do all women get this mean?” he asks the nurse, whose expression doesn’t change at his question.
“For the most part.”
“I don’t know why you’re yelling at me,” he says, staying completely calm. “You’re the one who didn’t want the epidural, trying to be some kind of warrior woman.”
The nurse hands me some gas, I suck it like it’s going to save my life, which I’m kind of hoping it will. Yes, I fucked up by saying that I didn’t want an epidural, but he didn’t need to keep reminding me of it. Now it was too late to have one, as the baby was almost crowning, or so the nurse keeps telling me.
“Fuck!” I yell as another contraction hits me. I want to cry, but it won’t help, so there’s no fucking point.
Finally, the midwife tells me it’s time to push. I don’t really want to, but I want this over with, so I push, through all the pain, I push.
“The head’s out,” Vinnie says, eyes wide as saucers. I don’t know when he moved to the other end, right in front of my vagina, but I’m pretty sure I told him not to look down there.
“Don’t look!” I all but beg, only to be ignored, again. Even I don’t want to look, and I’d rather he remember what my vagina was like before—not when it’s stretched out with a giant baby head coming through it.
“Vinnie, stand by my head!” I growl, then start whimpering. They keep on telling me to push, so I keep pushing.
“Almost there,” the midwife tells me, acting all calm. How is she so calm? I feel like punching her based on that alone. I close my eyes, block out Vinnie, still standing where he isn’t supposed to be, and the midwife telling me to keep pushing, and I just push. With everything I have, I push.
And then, something amazing happens—the pain stops. I hear a baby crying, and I feel nothing but relief.
“We have a daughter,” Vinnie says in awe. The nurse asks if he wants to cut the umbilical cord, and he does. I start crying. They place our little girl on my chest and she stops crying. She has a thick head of silky, dark hair, which I know she got from me, but when she opens her eyes, all I see is Vinnie.
“She’s perfect,” I say, tears running down my face.
After a little while, the nurse takes her from me, cleans her up and wraps her. The nurse then hands her to Vinnie, who holds her awkwardly, but without complaint. He sits down, and just stares into her eyes.