Epilogue
PIPER
Eleven months after that…
I look at the screen of my phone and see the moment the clock turns from 11.11 to 11.12 p.m., and I smile.
Now, it’s official: my husband and I have been parents for a full twenty-four hours.
I watch Gage pace the room slowly, our tiny baby girl asleep draped over his big arm, her little mouth suckling an invisible binky, one of her round squishy cheeks pressed against his shoulder. The low light of the private hospital room we’re going to stay in for another couple of days cast a golden glow over the blonde peach fuzz over her little head.
Gage’s other arm is protectively holding her little brother, who’s valiantly fighting sleep, his tiny head of brown hair nuzzling his daddy’s chest as his eyes grow more and more heavy.
His tiny, chubby hand is gripping his father’s shirt as he looks up at him with that typical, dazed, what’s-going-on-here innocent baby look in his slate blue eyes.
They’re both big babies —our little son slightly larger than his older sister—, for fraternal twins, but in my giant husband’s muscular arms, they look minuscule and frail like a couple of fuzzy little bunnies in their matching chenille and fleece pale green and pale purple onesies that their future godmother, Sylvianne, got for them.
My heart squeezes in both happiness and anxiety when I think that Gage and I are responsible for their wellbeing. Now and forever.
We are the people who are going to see them through the joys and hardships of growing up, the people they’re going to turn to when they need support, the ones that will guide them and protect them, and, hopefully, shape them into nice and kind human beings that will bring light into the world and will one day be proud of us and love us as much as we love them.
It’s… a big thing, huge, really!
We created life out of our love for each other, and now those lives are forever entwined with ours, a part of our souls, a part of our hearts, forever adding threads to the bond that has made us a couple until now, and that twenty-four hours ago turned us into a little family.
And to think that it all started with me annoying the hell out of him by blasting Aerosmith in his ears in the middle of the night and with a song that has the words love at first sight as the first line of its very famous refrain!
Love, as I've learned, can truly blossom in the most unexpected of circumstances. And when it does sprout up, it can really transform your life if you're willing to trust in its power, let it unfold naturally around you, and let it guide you to the places you are destined to go with the person who holds your heart.
And everything was so fast!
From a life of solitude and acceptance of it, to falling head over heels in love in the blink of an eye. From saying 'I do' to walking down the aisle in a gown –pale pink, of course– to discovering I was pregnant with twins.
So many extraordinary changes, all within a single year, and all shared with a truly wonderful man!
Life, as I've come to realize, can be wonderfully crazy like that and full of surprises.
And for that, I am eternally grateful.
Our time in Phoenix is something I will cherish forever.
So many first times with him for so many lovely things!
There we made memories that will last a lifetime.
And then, when we got back to Seattle and back home together, a part of me was a bit afraid that the magic wouldn’t stick and that things would be different, but it never happened.
We kept on building our life together, and things just kept on clicking into place.
So, we went to live together at what my parents considered –and more than a little disapprovingly at that– the speed of light into Gage’s kickass, ginormous penthouse that he gave me carte blanche to redecorate so I could turn it into a real home for us.
Which I totally did.
Our place is cozy, amazing, and completely us , a blend of two different worlds and tastes that, for some reason, makes total sense and works together to perfection.
Our parents came around after a while. Gage is the model son-in-law, and they could see from day one how much we love each other, and so they readily accepted him and the fast pace at which our relationship kept progressing.
Only one thing could have made that acceptance better for me, and that was having them actually grow fond of Gage and he of them. The joy of seeing them hold each other in esteem and later on feel affection was all I wanted and I got my wish because shortly after we moved back to Seattle, once they all got some time to actually know each other, it happened for real.
On my side of the family, we were, therefore, set since I already knew that he and Syl were growing thick as thieves.
When it came to his own, I really was worried.
Parker was the first I met, and we became fast friends on the spot.
He’s a lot like my bestie: very open and friendly and just about the best little brother a girl could ask for, so there were no issues there.
For some reason, the idea of meeting the other women in Gage’s life scared the crap out of me. Maybe because I've read one too many books and seen one too many movies about monsters-in-law awfully possessive and jealous of their sons destroying relationships, especially in extremely wealthy upper-class families like Gage’s.
So, I was more than a little terrified when I met Ellen, but as it turns out we immediately hit it off. She's great and basically act as a second mother to me.
She even helped me decorate our place alongside my mom, and she has become a great friend over time.
Grandma Vivie is a total riot.
I never knew my grandparents on both sides as they all passed before I was born, and I was super excited to gain a grandma, and I got one that’s too cool for words.
I love her to bits, and since she is a great romance reader, she’s always one of the first to read my books, and then we spend hours laughing at Gage since, for some reason, while being more than okay and actually proud of my being a steamy romance author and totally supportive of my career, it seems he just can’t wrap his head around his little grandma reading smut and so he always turns about a hundred shades of red from his throat to the tips of his ears when we talk about her latest smutty find. It’s absolutely hilarious.
In the Pre-Gage era, I didn’t have the slightest hope this could be my life someday, and yet here I am, so happy I can’t put it into words.
Before meeting Gage, I didn’t believe in love at first sight at all.
I thought it was nothing but a myth, a plot device insta-love writers use.
I had no idea it could really happen.
In fact, I couldn’t believe in the concept long enough to read about that type of story or write it myself, let alone believe I could live it someday.
To me, slow-burn, which is my go-to trope, has always sounded more realistic, and that’s why all my books featured that kind of relationship build-up, but now… now I know differently.
Now I know for a fact that love just doesn’t have an exact timetable.
Love is not a baking recipe that follows specific cooking times.
When it comes to true love, everything is possible, and anything can happen. My husband and I are living proof of this, and of the fact that the speed or slowness of falling in love doesn’t have to be some predetermined factor.
There is no right or wrong. Some couples take moments to fall in love, while in some other cases, love can take years to bloom.
There’s only one thing that’s real and never changes: every time two people who are destined to be together come into each other’s orbit, they leave a sign in each other’s hearts, a sign that never goes away.
Sometimes chemistry makes you feel that burning sign branded onto your heart faster, and sometimes the process is slower. It doesn’t really matter.
The speed of love is always the right one for the couple in question, and so when they do fall in love, it can be hard and fast or slow and soft.
In both cases, and in all cases in between, true love will grow into the same real, strong, and deathless bond, whether it takes moments to form or years to grow.
Meeting Gage and falling in love with him has changed me profoundly while keeping me the same at the deepest level of my soul It has made me stronger, better, and more rounded, not only as a woman but as a writer.
So, now, when inspiration strikes, and a new imaginary couple pops into my mind, I don't just make it a slow-burn love for the sake of it, but I let my characters guide me and tell me what feels real to them, what's right for them.
I let them follow their hearts, because hearts always point you to the truth.
I’ve learned that from my own love story, the one I never thought I would ever really live, since that’s exactly what my husband’s heart and my own did for the both of us when they were teaching us how to find our shared way to happiness.
I feel tears sting my eyes, and my very attentive husband’s gaze immediately zeroes on me at the first sniffle.
“Baby, you okay?” he whispers, inching closer to me, and moving oh-so very carefully and gingerly with our little ones protectively held in his arms.
I nod, drying my tears with the back of my hand. “Yes…”
“Happy tears?” he asks as he stops in front of the bed where I’m sitting up. Since the programmed C-section was performed on me yesterday and the babies were delivered, he’s been a little too zealous in following Dr. Morales’ orders.
He doesn’t let me lift a finger or even move an inch unless he’s carrying me himself or wheeling me around in a chair.
The only exception is when it’s time for me to exercise a bit and take a turn around the room. In that case, I am allowed to walk since it’s for my own good, but only with his arm around my waist, and he winces with every step I take as if he can really feel my discomfort.
His mom advised me to just smile and nod along until we get out of here.
She’s sure he’ll go back to the normal level of protectiveness once we’re back home, but she hasn’t seen in his eyes what I have. My babies and I both will be lucky if we don’t end up surrounded by a team of bodyguards 24/7 once we step out of here.
In fact, while he was confabulating with his brother —our babies’ future godfather— and my dad, I heard him muttering about nannies and nurses and needing to up the security now.
Both men, who apparently, are just as crazy as my hubby, were nodding along, of course, all smiles and manly slaps on the shoulder while he talked.
And then when my doctor said we could go home tomorrow, Gage had a veritable mini-melt down and went into full CEO, lord-and-master-of-the-world mode and threatened that poor woman and all the nurses to all kinds of mayhem from a lawsuit to straight up losing their license to basically murder if they, and I quote, didn’t cut with the bullshit since he was sure they had to be insane to be even suggesting about letting me and the babies go home in under three days after a high-risk twin pregnancy and surgery.
I stared at him in shock, while his mom and grandma looked on like this was business as usual.
Gage is always so loveable and sweet to me and all the people he cares about and considers family that I had no idea that he could look so downright scary when he really got that glowering look going!
But damn…
He looked formidable and frankly hot as hell, but there was no talking him down, so now we're staying one more day just to be safe, and so he doesn't go evil overlord on these poor people again.
They can all thank their lucky star as it is that there were no complications during the C-section because I’m pretty sure that my dear hubby already had Bannon Overseas' badass watchdog lawyer on standby, just waiting for a word from his boss to go on the attack.
It’s a good thing for all of us that we’ll be out of their hair the day after tomorrow, and maybe once we’re home, I’ll be the only one freaking out about this parenting thing while Gage finally gets some rest.
I don’t think the man has as much as closed his eyes for more than five minutes at a time in the span of two days.
He is so adorable the way he hovers around us three that I’m going to need reinforcement soon to keep all the nurses and doctors away from him.
I think the entire female staff and a good portion of the male one around here is halfway in love with him and his sexy, commanding ways already. I even caught my OB/GYN batting her lashes at him, and she could be his damn grandma, for God’s sake!
I actually saw her ogling his ass last night.
Poor Gage felt under a microscope for as long as she was in the room and he was so embarrassed you could have used one of those chiseled cheeks of his to turn on a match, he was so red!
If she hadn’t been instrumental in bringing my children into the world safely, I would have totally lit into her.
At some point, I was sure Sylvianne herself was going to choke her for me while Grammy and the moms laughed their asses off at our predicament.
But really, kidding aside, despite the sometimes annoying protective bossiness, I know I won the husband lottery or something.
I knew it from the start of our whirlwind romance and can confirm it now even more: I’m one lucky, lucky girl.
I smile at him, sighing. “Happy tears, yes… also hormones, I think, and a bit of cray-cray thrown in for good measure.”
He chuckles softly, eyes moving to check both babies to make sure we’re not disturbing them. “Care to elaborate?”
“You know… just thinking that we made these two little beings, Gage. We did it… they’re ours… and they are so tiny and helpless that I…”
I see his Adam’s apple work up and down as he gulps down air.
“Yeah… it blows my mind too, baby. It’s exciting, like… like a new adventure for us, but also scary… the stakes are really high. We have such a huge responsibility.”
I nod. “Exactly! What… what if we screw up? I don’t want to mess them up…”
He slowly sits on the chair nearest to my side, tenderly clutching the babies to his chest in a way that makes my heart fill with even more love for him.
I didn’t even know it was possible for me to love him more, and yet, between yesterday and today, it happened.
“That’s not going to happen, baby doll. This is us. We’re going to be okay, all of us. You’re going to be the most amazing mommy a kid could ever wish for. They will be lucky to have you, just as I am lucky to have you as my wife, and I’ll strive to be the best daddy I can be to both of them and any other child we might have.” His voice doesn’t falter a bit as he speaks.
In fact, he sounds so sure of it that some of my fear fades away in the face of his trust in me –in us– and of his certainty that we’ll do good by our babies as parents.
I look from our son to our daughter and back, my heart squeezing and my eyes filling with joyful tears as I gaze upon their tiny faces in repose.
“How can you be so sure?”
He also looks down at their little faces and sighs.
“How much do you love them?” he asks.
I shrug. “That’s an impossible question to answer, Gage. I can’t put a number on it. I love them so much… I love them more than anything else in the world.”
He nods. “Can you think of anything you wouldn’t do to keep them safe and happy?”
I shake my head no. “Not a thing… I’d do anything for them.”
“And there’s your answer, love. Our love for each other and for them is so strong that we cannot fail. Sure, we can’t stop life from happening, and we can’t predict the future, so maybe there will be things we won’t see coming, things we won’t be able to protect them from. But we will withstand those things if they ever come to pass as a family, together, and we will always prevail. All the rest, all the things under our control, those we won’t screw up because it’s just not possible. We will learn to be good parents to our babies together, and maybe we’ll make mistakes on the way, but it won’t matter because we’ll work as hard as we can to make sure our babies get from us the most important thing we have to give to them: our undying love and loyalty. They will always feel that, and they will always find solace in the fact that we love each other, so deeply that nothing and no one will ever be able to take that from us, and in seeing that, they will learn the most valuable lesson we can share with them… that love always wins and always come first and, really, that’s the best any parent can hope to teach their kids, right?”
I burst into tears.
This man! He always knows what to say to make me feel better.
“No, baby! Please don’t cry anymore…”
“One hundred percent happy tears now! I love you so much, Gage!”
He gives me the most brilliant smile.
“I love you, too, little doll, with my whole heart and soul.”
I start to lean away from the mountain of pillows at my back so I can give my beloved hubby a smooch when he stops me midway, reading my mind, and moves closer to me himself until his lips are on mine and we’re kissing over our babies’ heads as he keeps them in his arms.
I throw my arms around him, mindful of the twins now both asleep on his chest, and feel something settle deep inside my heart as we hug each other, holding our whole world safe between us.
I pull away when I hear my phone starting to vibrate on the tall bedside table with what seems to be a series of messages.
It’s probably one of our moms wanting more pictures of the twins.
I think between the whole family, we’ve taken about a thousand photos of the babies already.
It’s like a drug, and we can’t seem to have enough of snapping Anne-Geddes-worthy shots of them. They’re just too freaking cute!
I smile at my hubby as I see him settle back in the chair with our babies and then I reach one hand to wake the screen of my phone.
As predicted, there are a bunch of new messages from my mom and his, but also a couple from Grandma Vivie, from my dad, from Parker, and, finally, a veritable deluge of texts from Sylvianne.
They must have all come in while I was napping.
All of our loved ones want the same thing.
They want to know if we need anything; they want status updates on Gage’s current level of protective Daddy Bear Madness, or on how I’m feeling, and on what the babies are doing that’s worth mentioning —that could go from yawning to smiling, to opening their eyes to briefly look at us since anything and everything the twins do is absolutely adorable in our eyes.
And, of course, then there are the now expected request for a new picture of them.
I shake my head, smiling to myself. We really are lucky even in this.
We have so many people who love us and want to help us.
I know that many new parents have to go without any kind of help and don’t have the luxury of having such a support system around them.
I quickly answer all of them and then open the camera so I can take the manifold requested new pic of our baby twins.
“Love, it’s picture time again. Give me a nice smile so our family stops making jokes about how you keep scowling like a possessive lion.”
I get no comeback from hubby, and when I’m done fiddling with the camera option to make sure I get a good shot even in this dim light, I look at him calling his name and realize the reason Gage’s not grumbling about having to be a prop for the babies to get their picture taken —yet again— is that he’s fallen asleep alongside them.
For a moment, I get scared his arms will become lax, and he will drop our babies, but if it wasn’t for his closed eyes and noisy breathing, nothing else in his body’s language would give away that he is not fully awake, his arms are still tense and firmly bound around our little angels.
My poor baby! He’s so hyper-vigilant right now that this is the most rest his mind can allow him, I guess.
I’ll take care of him in a sec to make sure he can enjoy a little rest without his senses being so alert, but first. Picture time!
I take a series of quick shots and smile at the results.
The moms are going to go gaga over them.
The last one, in particular, is totally portrait material.
My hunky husband is looking all cute and protective as he holds one child in each bulging arm, the babies’ little faces nuzzling his chest, his big hands cupping their tiny bottoms, their tiny fists gripping his shirt as they sleep in the exact same position and with the exact same expression on their sweet little faces. Priceless.
I slowly stand from the bed, trying to make as little noise as possible, but when I go to take my daughter out of Gage’s arms, his eyes spring open.
So much for letting him sleep!
“What?” he asks. “Did I fall asleep?”
I nod, one hand sifting through his beard as I caress the side of his face. “Let’s put them in their crib, hon. We’re both dead on our feet…”
He sighs before looking down at them, and for a moment, he looks like he’s going to pout. He is too cute!
I try another route. “Baby, they’ll grow spoiled if we always hold them while they sleep!”
Now he’s really pouting. “They’re one day old, baby! Surely, we can spoil them for a bit longer before it sticks!”
I laugh. “Nice try. Put them down and come to hold me a bit instead. I miss your arms around me…”
That does it.
Gage stands up and passes me our baby boy while keeping our little princess cradled against his chest.
I kiss my son’s little head and put him down in the nearby cot.
I check to make sure his nappy is still dry so he can sleep comfortably and watch as my hubby puts his sister down on her side so they can face each other.
We have two cribs in the room, but they fuss and immediately wake up when we keep them separated, so we’re using only one of them for both. They really seem to relax and sleep best when given the chance to curl around each other, which is exactly what they do right now and what they did when they were in my womb.
Gage lovingly kisses both of them over their heads while I check to make sure our daughter is as dry as her brother. Then we both step back, arms around each other’s waist as we look down at their tiny sleeping forms.
After a couple of minutes, I start to feel uncomfortable.
My stitches are troublesome if I stand up for too long.
Gage notices my distress before I can voice it, and gently guides me to the bed, helping me to lie down.
I open my arms to him and slide over a bit to make room for him on the narrow hospital bed. Once he lies down by my side, we’re basically stuck to each other like two sardines, but it still feels wonderful.
I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes. “Good night, my love.”
“Good night, baby doll.”
I sigh, breathing in his familiar scent, and drift off with a smile on my lips.
Our life is a perfectly imperfect dream I never want to wake up from.
I love everything about it.
I love everything about us .