It Ends with Us

Chapter Nineteen
“It’s been six weeks Mom, you gotta get over it.”
My mother sighs into the phone. “You’re my only daughter. I can’t help
it if I’ve been dreaming about your wedding your whole life.”
She still hasn’t forgiven me, even though she was there. We called her
right before Allysa booked our flights. We forced her out of bed, we forced
Ryle’s parents out of bed, and then we forced them all on a midnight
flight to Vegas. She didn’t try to talk me out of it because I’m sure she
could tell that Ryle and I had made up our minds by the time she made it
to the airport. But she hasn’t let me forget it. She’s been dreaming of a
huge wedding and dress shopping and cake tasting since the day I was
born.
I kick my feet up on the couch. “How about I make it up to you?” I say
to her. “What if, whenever we decide to have a baby, I promise to do it the
natural way and not buy one in Vegas?”
My mom laughs. Then she sighs. “As long as you give me grandchildren
someday, I guess I can get over it.”
Ryle and I talked about kids on the flight to Vegas. I wanted to make
sure that possibility was open for discussion in our future before I made a
commitment to spend the rest of my life with him. He said it was definitely
open for discussion. Then we cleared the air about a lot of other things
that might cause problems down the road. I told him I wanted separate
checking accounts, but since he makes more money than me, he has to
buy me lots of presents all the time to keep me happy. He agreed. He
made me promise him I’d never become vegan. That was a simple
promise. I love cheese too much. I told him we had to start some kind of
charity, or at least donate to the ones Marshall and Allysa like. He said he
already does, and that made me want to marry him even sooner. He made
me promise to vote. He said I was allowed to vote Democratic, Republican,
or Independent, as long as I made sure to vote. We shook on it.
By the time we landed in Vegas, we were completely on the same page.

---

I hear the front door unlocking so I flip onto my back. “Gotta go,” I say
to my mother. “Ryle just got home.” He closes the door behind him and
then I grin and say, “Wait. Let me rephrase that, Mom. My husband just got
home.”
My mother laughs and tells me goodbye. I hang up with her and toss my
phone aside. I bring my arm up above my head and rest it lazily against the
arm of the couch. Then I prop my leg over the back of it, letting my skirt
slide down my thighs and pool at my waist. Ryle drags his eyes up my body,
grinning as he makes his way over to me. He drops to his knees on the
couch and slowly crawls up my body.
“How’s my wife?” he whispers, planting kisses all around my mouth. He
presses himself between my legs and I let my head fall back as he kisses
down my neck.
This is the life.
We both work almost every day. He works twice as many hours as I do
and he only gets home before I’m in bed two or three nights a week. But
the nights we actually do get to spend together, I tend to want him to
spend those nights buried deep inside me.
He doesn’t complain.
He finds a spot on my neck and he claims it, kissing it so hard it hurts.
“Ouch.”
He lowers himself on top of me and mutters into my neck. “I’m giving
you a hickey. Don’t move.”
I laugh, but I let him. My hair is long enough that I can cover it, and
I’ve never had a hickey before.
His lips remain in the same spot, sucking and kissing until I can no
longer feel the sting. He’s pressed against me, bulging against his scrubs. I
move my hands and shove his scrubs down far enough so that he can slide
inside of me. He continues kissing my neck as he takes me right there on
the couch.
• • •
He took a shower first, and as soon as he got out, I jumped in. I told him
we needed to wash the smell of sex off of us before we had dinner with
Allysa and Marshall.

---

Allysa is due in a few weeks, so she’s forcing as much couple time on us
as she can. She’s worried we’ll stop coming to visit after the baby is born,
which I know is ridiculous. The visits will just grow more frequent. I
already love my niece more than any of them, anyway.
Okay, maybe not. But it’s close.
I try to avoid getting my hair wet as I rinse off, because we’re already
running late. I grab my razor and press it under my arm when I hear a
crash. I pause.
“Ryle?”
Nothing.
I finish shaving and then wash the soap off. Another crash.