Epilogue #4
Cohabitation with someone who simply couldn't really remember to put his things away, though, was easier than with someone who just refused to.
I could accept that having to throw his clothes into the laundry bin every day was simply because he was too into his own head to remember to do it himself.
It was a small daily chore. And he more than made up for it by showing up randomly with coffee in the middle of the day when he knew that I was likely just about losing my mind being at home with no adults to talk to, by bringing home dinner without me having to ask, by going behind my back to arrange to have my father come and take Connor for a weekend to go camping and fishing and all that crap that little boys like that we both didn't, just so we could have a naked, sweaty forty-eight hours all to ourselves.
Sure, Barrett was a little different than most men.
And one day during my pregnancy, when we had been discussing things like genetic tests and conditions we had on each side of our families that might make our child predisposed to them, I had finally brought it up.
In as careful a way as I could manage, worrying he would be insulted, would feel like I was criticizing him for simply being who he was.
That said, I didn't want to go our entire lives together without bringing it up, feeling like I—and his friends and family—were keeping a secret from him about him.
Really, I shouldn't have been so worried.
True to form, Barrett had sat there for a second, eyes distant, lost in his own head. When he turned back to me, he'd shrugged, and declared, That actually explains a lot.
So, yeah, he was a little different.
But, in my humble opinion, different in amazing ways.
Even if it was inadvertently teaching our son to be a bit of a slob.
There were worse things to be.
Barrett - 25 Years
"Clarke, you need to breathe," I reminded her, having watched her chest for an almost alarmingly long time without her taking in any air.
"I get it now," she told me, drawing in a shaky breath.
"Get what?" I asked, closing my hand around her thigh, giving it a little squeeze.
"My father. And mother to an extent," she told me, leaning her head over to rest it on my shoulder.
Her hair was longer than it used to be, darker since she started coloring it closer to her natural shade because I'm too old to be a bleach blond, but too young to be sporting so much gray. My mumu plan isn't for another ten years or so.
She'd aged exactly like her mother. Meaning well. And naturally. There were a couple lines by her eyes and her cheeks from smiling, from laughing, always finding the lighter side of life easier than I did. Which meant my lines were a little more of the forehead variety.
I, for one, thought she would rock a mumu.
In another ten years.
I was still enjoying her preference for short shorts thanks to thighs that were still as toned as ever.
It was hard to believe most days that it had been twenty-five years.
Yet looking at our son out the kitchen window, standing on the backyard deck standing over his grandfather and step-grandmother, there was no denying the passage of time.
Connor had been a skinny kid—all arms and legs and concave stomach even though he'd inherited both Clarke's and my love of every sort of unhealthy food.
Though, amazingly enough, Kenz had also somehow made him love eating his greens as well.
Which she claimed was why he turned out like he did and not three-hundred-pounds.
Meaning the man standing out on the deck was tall, taller than both Sawyer and me. He'd turned out wide in the shoulders, strong in the legs. Thin, but in a fit way thanks to both his martial arts classes as well as his twice-weekly trips to the gym with his cousins—both related and not.
I had maybe seen it coming.
In the years leading up to this announcement.
It was why I figured he had been building muscle, why he'd suddenly been so interested in helping out at the office on his breaks from college.
He was getting himself as prepared as possible, physically and mentally.
And he was keeping it a secret.
Just like his mother had.
Our kid—who was not so much of a kid anymore—was joining the police academy.
Clarke had taken the news with the aforementioned airlessness, even half an hour later as we sat there waiting for his grandfather to show up because she had insisted that if he wanted to go that route, then he had to be the one to give his poor, old grandfather a stroke about it.
Though, objectively, there wasn't much about Collings that suggested he was old.
Finding love again later in life had seemed to bring renewed life into his body, shaved ten years off of him instantly.
That dark, depressing place he called home suddenly had womanly touches everywhere, felt like a place you could enjoy holidays.
And we did. Even, and this was monumental for Clarke, with her mother there.
She had found her own partner as well, and the bitterness that came from her previous failed marriage slipped away.
Between them and my brother and his crew and their partners and kids, we finally had the big, loud, crazy family she had secretly always wanted.
"That sexist bastard!" Clarke hissed, mouth literally falling open when her father jumped up out of his seat, clapped a hand on Connor's shoulder, then pulled him into a bear hug.
"I don't know if it is sexism at work," I countered, always willing to play the devil's advocate to her sometimes volatile reactions to situations.
"How else do you explain the fact that he sabotaged my attempt to join the academy, but is pleased as freaking punch that Connor is joining?"
"Learning from past mistakes, maybe?" I suggested.
"Which would maybe bring about resigned acceptance, not joy."
Alright, she had me there.
"I thought we decided a long time ago to be happy about how things turned out," I tried instead. There was no way she could fight that argument unless she wanted to say she regretted our life together. Which I knew she did not.
"I am happy about how things turned out with us.
But that doesn't mean he's not a sexist bastard," she told me, putting her foot down on the issue even though there was no actual animosity in her voice.
She and her father had long since made amends.
They were closer than ever before. And, she claimed, the only reason she didn't just walk right into his house like she did her mother's was because she'd once done it and walked in on something that had Scarred her for life.
"See, Ma," Connor said, coming in, eyes so much like mine bright with pleasure. "I told you he wouldn't be pissed off."
"Oh, yes. How diplomatic of him," Clarke said, shooting her father a look. "To encourage you on the path of your dreams."
To that, Collings rolled his eyes at his daughter.
"I thought we established that my hand in things led you to a new dream.
Dare I say a better one?" he suggested before shuffling his grandson out the door with a promise of ice cream.
It didn't matter that he was almost twenty-two years old, dessert never failed to get him excited.
"Alright," Clarke agreed, leaning into me further. "He was right. This dream is way better," she told me, placing a kiss at the underside of my jaw.
I'd never had a dream.
Not that I could remember anyway.
Goals, yes.
But never anything as passion-driven as a dream.
Yet I had to admit that should I have had a mind that worked that way when I was younger, this would have been what I would have strived for.
She would have been what I would have dreamed of.
Having her as part of my reality was something I never could have predicted, never could have known I needed.
But even I had to admit that this was the dream.
Our house.
Our life.
Our kid.
Each other.
"I want cheesecake," she said with a warm smile.
And cheesecake.
XX