Epilogue
Mark
T wo and a half years later…
I was the lucky son of a bitch who’d married his best friend and soul mate. Sound cheesy? Like Layla always said, I’d run out of fucks to give about what people thought.
Our house was now a home. Just over three months after we’d come back from Bimini, we’d moved into it after Dad’s men had finished the work we’d wanted to be done on it.
Yes, I’d initially wanted to do some of it myself, but when he’d offered them up as a wedding/engagement gift, I’d grabbed onto that offer with both hands. Having an architectural firm with a construction company attached to it in the family had ended up being more valuable than even I’d anticipated it being.
There’d been a surprise uncovered during the work. The floor of the office space on the ground floor covered up a staircase that led down to a basement—something I wouldn’t have thought possible given the type of soil we had in Piersville. Sure, some houses did have them, but they’d taken a lot of work during the construction. Given that our house had been built in around 1855, it hadn’t occurred to me that they’d have put a basement in.
But there it was.
Had it been wrong of us to panic that the Marshalls had filled it with dead bodies from their orgies? People who’d died either during or post-coitus? I wouldn’t have thought so, even though during her interview, Mrs. Marshall had told the officers conducting it typically what happened at their parties, not leaving out one sordid detail. When they’d shown her the photos of what they’d found with the black lights, she’d described how they’d achieved it.
If the officers were anything like those of us who’d watched the tape of her interview, scarred for life didn’t even come close.
So, of course we’d been worried there’d be skeletons with erections or mummified swingers with big smiles on their faces. Instead, we’d found artifacts from the first settlers to come to Piersville.
After having them carefully removed—and sending the cadaver dog down to double check—Layla had decided she wanted to put the stone Karma Sutra-esque carvings from the wall in the bathroom down there. I hadn’t been sure about it, but after begrudgingly accepting they’d been deep cleaned, I’d given in and agreed.
The house had turned out beautifully, and the Shaman who’d come to rid it of evil and dirty things had made it feel even better. Finding out that one of my friends from school’s Native American grandfather could do that was what swayed me into falling in love with the house in the end. Sure, I’d liked it before, but its history had left a bad taste in my mouth—and no, it was still too soon for me to make a joke about that.
The cleansing had changed it all for me, though, and now I loved it as much as Layla did.
We hadn’t planned to have kids for a while, but sometimes life throws surprises at you, and this was one of ours.
There had been a family get together planned for a while, so we’d sat on the news until today, figuring it’d be the best place to break it to our families. Layla’s brothers had settled down about our relationship and even admitted—through gritted teeth—that I was the only one who’d ever love her the way she deserved. It’d cost them, but they’d done it.
Then again, the alcohol they’d consumed might have had something to do with it because they’d followed it by telling me how much they loved me and that if Cole and Brett weren’t already married, they’d have wanted to spend the rest of their lives with me. A game of thumb war followed that to see who’d get to have me, and it’d all been recorded by the security camera I had at the back of our house overlooking the pool area.
Uh huh, I had those fucking ‘receipts’ I hated hearing people talk about usually.
Glancing down the table, I paused when I saw Luke looking at his wife worriedly. Isla had been late getting here, so I hoped nothing was wrong.
Dad had just stood up to welcome us all because it was taking part at my parents’ house this time when Isla spun around, pointed her finger in Luke’s face, and said something that made him go paler than I’d ever seen him before in my life.
“What do you think that’s all about?” Layla murmured as Isla pulled something out of her purse and slammed it into his chest. “Is that a letter or a photo?”
The size of it wasn’t that of a standard piece of paper, but it could have been a notecard. But who sent those anymore? Why not just use email or text?
Because of that, I went with “Photo.”
Luke’s hand was shaking as he looked down at it, then lifted his eyes back to his wife warily.
Instead of speaking, Dad stared at them, drawing everyone’s attention to them. All conversations ceased just as Isla snapped, “Twins.”
“Oh, shit,” I breathed, looking over at where the kids were happily eating and playing, to the twins they’d had seven years ago.
Listen, it wasn’t that I didn’t love my niece and nephew because I did, but they were kind of scary sometimes. Their brains seemed to work on a different level to ours, meaning you never knew if they were looking at you as a science experiment or if they were doing it just to see you. And that was no exaggeration. Dad still had a slight scar from the last time they’d convinced him to watch their latest presentation on something they’d read about and had managed to make work.
Layla started laughing silently, her shoulders shaking.
“I don’t know what you’re laughing about, they’re your niece and nephew, too. Now there’ll be another set joining them.”
That comment not only stopped Layla laughing, but it did the same to my other brother, Adam, and his wife, Scarlett.
Noticing everyone staring at them and how pale some of us were, Isla sighed and stood up.
“Surprise!” she cried weakly. “And yes, it’s twins again.”
“Mama,” my niece, Dewi, called. “Do these ones get normal names?”
I blinked at the question. Normal names?
Layla leaned into me and explained.
“Last week, Dewi and Kali told Isla that people couldn’t pronounce their names properly even when they told them how. Dewi’s being called Dewey, like in Ducktails, and Kali keeps getting called Kayley.”
“Sounds like ignorant little shits trying to bully them, if you ask me.”
Luke stood up and motioned at his kids to come over to him, wrapping them up in a hug as soon as they were close enough.
“Your names were chosen because of a special place your mom and I found when you were in her belly. If someone can’t pronounce your names properly, that’s their problem. I’ll bet their parents just chose a name because they liked it, but we chose yours because we met people with those names and fell in love with it.”
Both kids grinned at their dad and then ran back to their food.
I’d been guilty of assuming Dewi’s name would have been spelled Day-wee when I’d first heard it, and Kali’s I’d assumed had been Cali, as in California, but Luke had a point.
They were special names that were relatively rare in this country, and they had struck a chord with them when they’d been in Bali while Isla was pregnant. Mind you, Luke had already been groveling because he’d been a dumb asshole when they’d first gotten together, so he probably would have agreed to call them Santa and Rudolph if Isla had wanted to.
“Well, there goes our news,” Layla murmured, sounding slightly disappointed.
“Why? We can’t have two announcements in the family on the same day?”
“Announcement? Did you say you have an announcement to make?” Linda asked, looking at her granddaughter with eyes that said they already knew what we were going to say.
As I stood up, I pulled Layla with me and then shifted until I was standing behind her with my arms around her waist.
“We’re also having a baby.”
No one moved for a moment, but then they all stood up and started talking excitedly, moving between Luke and Isla and me and Layla.
“My baby’s having a baby,” Colette cried, hugging her tightly and then doing the same to me. “When are you due? How are you feeling?”
Leaving Layla to talk to her mom, I turned to face Jack, almost laughing when I saw how hard he was scowling at me.
“Congrats, Grandpa.” The little eye twitch the two words caused had me biting my lip.
“You’re a dead man,” he rumbled, glancing over at Colette to make sure she hadn’t heard him.
Walking up next to his son, Hurst glared at me. “I’ll help you.”
“I thought you’d be happy for us,” I said, doing my best to sound hurt. “We were so excited to tell y’all our news.”
I knew from my brothers that it was hard for a man to even think about his daughter having a man in her life. Their daughters may be little kids still, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t planned for the future and what they’d do when they told them they’d met someone, and they had to accept that sex was going to happen. And everyone knew how babies came to be…
So, yes, I was poking the bears. I also hadn’t taken any offense at their reactions. I was enjoying them way too much for that to happen.
Linda saved me from them by pushing between us and hugging me tightly. “Congratulations, Daddy-to-be. I’m so happy for you both.”
Hurst crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you bringing it up in that sex house?”
Linda glared at him over her shoulder. “Oh, hell no. You know full well it hasn’t been like that for years . And didn’t you both say you like Mark—again—just yesterday, and you were relieved Layla had married him?”
“That was before he defiled her,” Jack clipped.
I hadn’t realized Layla and her mom had joined the conversation until they both burst out laughing.
“Defiled me? I’ve been married for over six years now, Dad,” she pointed out. “And we defiled each oth—” I clamped my hand over her mouth to stop her from talking.
“See, he’s into the kinky smothering stuff,” Hurst said to Linda.
“You’re letting your ass show, honey,” she soothed, patting him on the chest. “And not the one behind you, the one on your shoulders. Now, congratulate them and think about the new baby that will be here by this time next year. Don’t you love having great-grandkids?”
Hurst’s eyes slid to the side. “I do love that they like me more than him.” He gestured at Jack with his chin. “And I get great hugs whenever I need one.” Mind made up, he opened his arms. “Congratulations, you guys. I can’t wait until he or she gets here.”
Jack’s anger was now focused on his dad, leaving me slightly sad that I hadn’t been allowed to wind them up even more. Having grown up around them, I had a rapport with the Townsends and knew well how to play them at their own game, but since Layla and I had gotten back together, I’d grown to love irritating them.
I did enjoy sinking to the Townsend level and winning. It was a special type of pleasure that just never went away and the highlight of any day it happened on.
As soon as Hurst released us, Jack was there hugging us both.
“I’m excited to be a grandpa again.” He stressed the word and smiled smugly at his dad. “That’s first in line to the babies, which makes me in front of a great grandpa.” Turning back to Layla, he smiled widely at her. “You’re going to be a great mom, Lala. I’m genuinely happy for both of you.”
Holding her against his side with one arm, he reached out with the other and shook my hand. “Even better, it won’t be twins like that guy.”
‘That guy,’ being my brother who’d joined us and shot Jack a glare.
“Gee, thanks,” he muttered before he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me off to the side. Looking around us for something, he leaned in and hissed urgently, “Seriously, don’t let it be twins. I don’t know what it is, but your life will never be the same again if you have two of them at once.”
I patted him on the back. “Relax, the twin thing only happens on the mother’s side, but, hey, congrats to both of you on your news, too.”
Luke shook his head. “There are no twins on Isla’s side, Mark, but somehow we’ve managed to do it again. The doc said they’re in the same sack inside Isla this time, which means they’ll be identical.”
“Luke, these might not be like the other two. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, per se,” I added quickly, realizing how bad it sounded. “But these ones might not be mini evil geniuses.”
Looking over my shoulder at Layla, Luke asked, “Has she had a scan yet? Do you know for sure?”
“No, we’ve only had the appointment where the doctor confirmed it for us. We’ve got our first scan in two weeks.”
Something behind me made him stiffen, and he said quickly, “May the odds be forever in your favor.” Then, pasting a smile on his face, he said brightly, “Mark and I were just congratulating each other, angel. Isn’t it great news.”
I couldn’t help finding his situation hilarious and be thankful that even though we both had crazy genes in our DNA, mine and Layla’s kid would be perfection.
When things happen that we don’t expect, like Layla getting pregnant, those surprises usually bring the best things into our lives.