Angsty - Enemies to Lovers - Slow Burn
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Hitch Pepper might've had a stupid name, and a personality that drove me crazy, but that didn't stop her from being gorgeous. Everyone knew it, guys and girls alike.
And my buddy Phil Childre...
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HITCH PAINTED A mural on the wall in the den when I was at work one day.
It was of a fairytale castle on a cliff overlooking a sea, a dragon flying over it.
"Don't you just love it, Jules?" she'd asked after pulling me into the den with paint-stained clothes. "I always wanted something like this on my wall growing up. I thought the baby would like it. What do you think?"
I thought that it would look much better anywhere other than on one of my walls, but never said that. Hitch was smiling too big for me to complain.
Instead, I smiled with her. "You did a good job, baby."
She smiled even bigger. "I'm so glad you like it!" She moved closer to the painting, beckoning me to join her. "And look, I put us in it." A girl was leaning out of one of the windows, her long, dark hair flowing down the side of the castle as a prince held tight to it to climb upwards. She looked at me as she pointed towards the picture. "Rapunzel and her prince. It's my favorite fairytale."
"The baby will love it," I told her, pulling her in for a kiss.
She kissed me back then pulled away. "Jules, what am I to you?"
I breathed out a laugh at her abruptness. "Just about everything."
She smiled slightly. "I meant what do you call me? Like, if someone were to ask who am I to you, what would you say?"
I frowned. We hadn't talked about labels at all since we kissed in the den a month before. I shrugged. "Whatever you want me to call you, I guess. Friend, girlfriend, wife—I don't care. As long as you stay with me and let me love you, I'm fine with anything."
"'Wife,'" she mused. "You'd really want to call me that?"
"If you say the words, I'll leave right now and buy you a ring," I told her. "Of course I'd want to call you that."
She smiled. "You know me being your wife comes with an added bonus." She patted her baby belly.
I framed her bump with my hands. "I know, and I'll gladly accept it."
"You'd really raise a kid that's not even yours?"
"Happily."
She smiled softly. "Really? Because I've been thinking about it, you know—about us raising this kid together. And I think that I'd really like it. It'd be nice to give my kid a mom and dad like I always wanted growing up."
"If that's what you want, I'll gladly make it happen for you."
She breathed out a laugh, setting a hand on my cheek. "You're really my fairytale prince come to life, you know that? But you don't have to be heroic for me. If this isn't what you truly want to do—"
