Epilogue #4
“Hey, you can be annoyed at them, and I think you have that right,” I said as I tucked her hair behind her ear, “but at least you have some men in your life who care enough to want to make sure you don’t date until you’re thirty.
And if it makes you feel any better, when Nate decides to start dating, you, me, and Benny will all drive him over there with scrapbooks full of his awkward baby pictures and tell her all the embarrassing stories we have on him. ”
“Ma,” Nate said, uncrossing his arms, knowing I damn well meant it too.
“Hey, you started it,” I said with a shrug.
“Technically, Dad started it.”
Sawyer didn’t seem the least bit bothered when Nate looked to him for backup. “Hey, you protect your women even if that means they’re pissy about it,” he said easily.
“And even if they don’t need your protection,” I said, looking at Ari, who had been a black belt at the local martial arts gym for the past year already.
Sawyer was cool with having girls as long as he knew they could whoop the shit out of any man who might get in their way.
“He’s older than her,” Sawyer said, small-eying me.
“He’s one year older than her and the son of a good friend of yours. You know he was raised right and will respect our daughter or not only will you whoop his ass, but so will his father.”
“Paine has softened up,” Sawyer tried, grasping at straws.
“No, he hasn’t. And he certainly hasn’t about this. And where Paine is, there are Shooter and Breaker too. Not one of those men will allow him to get away with disrespecting Ari.”
“You’ve known Jackson since he was a toddler,” Ari added. “And Bri, Alexis, and Junior are coming too.”
“And Janie and Lo are the chaperones,” I added, landing the death blow to his argument.
Anyone who had ever met Janie and Lo knew there was no way any guy within one hundred yards was disrespecting any girl or woman.
“Fine,” Sawyer sighed, dropping his arms. But then he had an evil little smirk that I didn’t trust. “But I have one condition.”
“Dad, no,” Ari said, already knowing where her father’s mind was. Those two had been thick as thieves until Ari started pulling away in all her teenage independence.
“Yep,” he said, nodding, enjoying her discomfort way too much. “Nate is coming too.”
“Ugh!” she growled, throwing her hands up.
“Fine!” she declared, a testament to how much she wanted to go if she was going to let her brother tag along as their father’s spy.
“If you embarrass me,” she hissed at Nate as he fell into step with her, “I swear to God I will tell all the girls in school about that time you…”
The rest trailed off as the door slammed behind them.
Sawyer looked at me, and I shook my head. “I don’t want to know,” I said, exhaling as he crossed over to me.
“I hate that she’s going to start dating,” he told me unnecessarily.
“We knew this day would come when we learned the sex.”
“Yeah, but I was hoping she would, I dunno, be into girls or something,” he told me, arms going around my lower back.
“Girls can still break girls’ hearts,” I added.
“He better the fuck not break her heart,” he said with force behind the words.
“Jackson is a good kid,” I assured him. “And he is shaping up to be a good man.”
“Even good men have an agenda.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, teasing smile pulling at my lips. “You’re a good man. Did you have an agenda with me?”
“Hell fucking yeah, I had an agenda.”
“Hmm,” I said, arms going around his neck, pulling his body flush to mine. “What agenda was that?”
“Same one I still got,” he said, eyes going hot, smile going wicked. The tips of his fingers teased down over my ass.
“What’s that?” I asked, body already ready for him.
“To get you and keep you naked as much as possible,” he told me in a low rumble.
“Oh, gross,” Benny declared, having run out into the living room, only to run back into her room.
We both took and exhaled a deep breath in unison, accepting the fact that we were parents and naked time was generally relegated to late at night, early in the morning in the shower, or on the rare occasion that all the kids had places to be on the weekend.
But that was okay.
We still had the passion we always did.
And sometimes the wait made it even better.
“Didn’t think I could love you more than I did when I saw you wheeled back into the room after surgery,” he told me, leaning forward to press his lips into my forehead. “But I love you more each fucking day.”
Yeah, he never did clean up his potty mouth.
And the kids grew up just fine even though he couldn’t always ‘mind his fucks and shits.’
“I love you too,” I agreed, leaning forward and giving him a quick kiss.
And I did.
I didn’t know how deeply love could go until I fell for him.
Until he helped me through the worst phase of my life.
Until he started a family with me without any reservations.
Until I saw how he loved our children.
Until I realized that every single little thing in my life had been laid out to lead me right to him.
Those lost three hundred and sixty-seven days were nothing, nothing compared to the almost five thousand I had with him.
And all the ones left in our future.
XX