Epilogue #2
So I kissed her, right there in the middle of my parents’ kitchen, sliding our tongues together, drawing out that guttural moan usually reserved for our quiet moments alone. But I didn’t care. I needed her to know, to feel exactly what she did to me because sometimes the words felt too big to say.
“Okay, enough,” Mum said. “No fornication in the kitchen, please.”
Ellie laughed against my lips and we pulled away, albeit reluctantly.
“We weren’t—you know what? Never mind.”
“What’s for-nee-cation mean?” Noah asked.
“I’ll tell you later. In about ten years.”
Ellie snort-laughed this time.
“Right, if you two are quite finished with all of that.” Mum flapped the air with a tea towel.
“There are things to do before your brothers arrive. Jacob, set the table with the fancy cutlery. Eleanor, if you could pop out to the fridge in the garage and grab a couple of bottles of wine, that would be lovely. And you, my little cherub with his cherub curls.” She squished Noah’s cheeks and bopped him on the nose. “You can pick the dessert.”
He lit up, and scrambled down to bounce on his feet, like all of his excitement couldn’t be contained while seated. “Chocolate cake with ice cream and sprinkles!”
“Would you look at that?” Mum whipped away another tea towel covering a boxed chocolate fudge cake on the counter, unveiling it with all the pizazz of a magic trick. “Ta-da! It’s like I knew. Someone buy me one of those ‘World’s Best Grandmother’ mugs already. I deserve it.”
“You’re so subtle,” I said flatly.
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
“Are you my grandmother?” Noah asked curiously.
Silence shrouded the room, and we all seemed to hold still.
“If you want me to be,” my mother replied, her voice softer than I’d heard in forever. “And if it’s okay with your mummy.”
Ellie pulled back to look at me, as if she needed my confirmation as much as her own. But she had to know she already had it. She had to.
“Of course it is,” she choked out.
My heart beat so fast I could feel my pulse in my fingertips.
Blissfully unaware of the gravity of the moment, Noah poked at a tiny crack in the edge of the island countertop, and I smiled because I used to do the same. “What do I call you?”
“What would you like to call me?” Mum wondered.
I’d barely opened my mouth to form some sarcastic reply when she pinned me with a look and said, “Enough from you, Jacob.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
She humphed, then, “Amelia will probably call me Nanny or Nana once she starts talking. Or there’s Grandma. What do you think? It has to be something you like.”
“Hmm.” He gave that some serious thought. “My Grandma lives with the stars, but you could be my Nana if you want.”
“I would like that very much,” she said, voice all wobbly, her apron wrinkled in one tight fist. “Everyone! My name is Nana now. I won’t respond to anything else.
Oh gosh.” She squeezed his cheeks again, and ducked to kiss the top of his head.
“This is the best day ever. First my granddaughter, and now you.”
“Okay, mum, settle down.”
“I will not, thank you very much. I’m delirious with joy and that deserves celebrating.”
“Oh my god.”
Ellie pressed her face into my chest trying to disguise her laughter.
“To think I started this year with no grandchildren and now I have two,” Mum carried on. “TWO! David, go to the shop and buy some champagne.”
“Yes, dear,” my dad called from the other room.
“Can I have some chocolate cake now, please?” Noah asked, and we all laughed.
“After dinner,” Ellie told him.
“But muuuuuum.”
“You know the rule.”
“Okay,” he grumbled, staring sadly at the floor.
Months ago, I would’ve laughed, but now everything this kid did squeezed at my heart. I wanted him to have everything he wanted, to be happy all the damn time.
“Maybe just—”
“No.” Ellie rolled her eyes at me, then whispered, “Pushover.”
I grabbed for her ass again. “Take that back.”
“Nope. You’re a pushover.”
“Oh, Jacob, you are,” my mother agreed. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Alright, no. You two are not happening.”
“Darling, it’s already happened.”
“I’m never coming here again.”
“And deprive me of my grandchild?”
“Noah. Let’s go.”
“But I want chocolate cake,” he replied, still staring at the cake like it might disappear if he looked away for even a second.
“I’ll buy you one when we get home.”
“But I want this one.”
“Ellie?”
“I think I like the look of this cake, too,” she said with a knowing smile. “Looks delicious.”
“Traitor,” I mouthed.
“Marks and Spencer’s,” Mum explained, like it mattered. “We only ever buy M&S on special occasions and today felt special. It’s like I knew.”
“Is this really happening?” I asked myself. “Someone pinch me—ow!”
Noah peered up at me, all innocence and big blue eyes. “You said to pinch you.”
This kid.
A laugh tumbled free, and the love overflowed to the point of overwhelming. Sometimes, I still didn’t know what to do with the feelings Ellie and Noah stirred within me, too big, too monumental to be contained, and I grabbed him out of his seat.
“You think that’s funny, huh?” I dangled him upside down to tickle under his arms and his belly until the kitchen filled with his giggles, and I wondered when a sound could mean so damn much.
“Daddy!” Noah shrieked with joy. “Stop!”
Eventually, I wrenched him upright, settling him on my waist, smiling when his little arms curled around me as best they could, and his head came to rest in his favourite comfort spot under my chin, like it was always meant to be his.
“Can I get in on that hug?” Ellie asked, smoothing his fluffy hair.
“I’d be pretty mad if you didn’t,” I told her, and with Noah trapped between us, we swayed and hugged exactly like that, my whole world locked in my arms.
THE END