Epilogue
Epilogue
Rory
Six Months Later
“Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear, Ryan, Happy Birthday to you!”
We all sing the song together and I watch as my little boy blows out the candle.
“What piece do you want, baby?” I ask him, moving in to cut the cake.
“I want this one!” he says, pointing to the one with the most icing. Somehow, I knew that would be the one he would pick.
“You got it,” I laugh. Dani hands me a dish with ice cream; I take it and deposit Ryan’s cake beside it and give it to him. “Here you go.”
“Thanks, Mommy!” he says, enthusiastically. His little face lit up in happiness.
He just started calling me that two months ago, right after Noah and I got married. We had a quick, civil ceremony at the courthouse and then a wild party here at the club, followed by definite, drunk sex. I found that not only is Dani smart, she is also very right. Drunk sex is the best—for many reasons.
Every time he calls me mommy, it hits me, but today it does even more so. I find my eyes tear up and I smile so big that my face hurts. I feel Noah’s arms go around me and he kisses the side of my neck, while Dani takes the knife and gives me a wink. Noah pulls me away slightly, tilting my head up to look at him.
“You okay, Gorgeous?”
“Unless you can die from happiness, I’m perfect,” I whisper and he kisses me softly.
“You deserve all the happiness in the world,” Noah responds and I know he really believes that because he does everything in his power to make sure he gives it to me.
“I love you, Noah.”
“I love you, too, Gorgeous.”
“Mommy! Daddy! Aren’t you going to eat cake with me?” Ryan asks, intruding on our moment, which is fine, because Ryan is our world.
“You got it, Bub,” Noah laughs, and we take our cake from Dani, sitting down beside him. He has friends that I thought he would sit with, but instead he climbs in between me and Noah.
“This is an awesome party!” he says excitedly. “Did you see all of my presents?”
“I did,” I laugh. “You get to open them after cake.”
“I can’t wait! I hope one of them has that dinosaur I wanted, the one that really growls,” he garbles, through a mouth full of cake. Noah looks over at me and winks, because he knows that he does indeed have that dinosaur.
“Is that what you wished for?” I ask him.
“What? Nah. I wished for something better than that!”
“What did you wish for?” I frown, hoping he won’t be disappointed. I could have sworn that’s the only thing he had been asking for.
“Mom,” he whines and dang it, I love it more every time he calls me that. Those dang tears spring up again and I try to wipe them away before Ryan can notice. My little boy though, he’s like his dad and he notices things way too easy. “Why are you crying?” he asks.
“Cause you called me, Mommy,” I blubber, without thinking.
“You don’t want me to call you, Mom? I thought you were now,” he whispers, his face falling.
I reach over and pull him into my lap, before that thought can settle into his mind.
“I love it when you call me Mom, Ryan. It makes me so happy that sometimes it just overfills and I cry… because…”
“Cause why?” he asks.
“Because if I had one wish I would want nothing more than to be your mom forever,” I promise him.
“Teacher said if you tell people what your wishes are, they won’t come true.”
“Well, I am your mom now and I plan on being your mom forever, so I think this time the teacher is wrong,” I assure him and Noah laughs, ruffling Ryan’s hair as he scoots in closer to the two of us.
“In that case, I’ll tell you what I wished for,” Ryan says.
“What’d you wish for, Bub?”
“I wished for a baby sister!” Ryan announces.
“A sister? Not a brother?” Noah questions.
“Nah! Dakota and Tyler say that having a sister is the best. Girls need us guys to watch out for them and make sure they’re safe, Dad.”
“Well, they’re right,” I tell him.
“Yeah, Little Leah is very lucky to have them,” Noah agrees.
“And me too! I help them, but it’s not the same cause she’s not mine. So I need to have my own sister,” Ryan says.
“Hey, Ryan! Come over and open the gifts,” Dakota urges.
“Can I?” he asks looking at me and Noah.
“Go ahead, Sport,” Noah tells him.
Once he leaves, Noah pulls me until I’m sitting in his lap and he takes his plastic spoon and feeds me a bite of birthday cake. I swallow it down watching his face the entire time.
“That’s quite a boy we have,” he says.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“You think we should tell him he’s going to be a big brother now, or later?” he asks and my stomach flips. I took a home pregnancy test two days ago and it was positive. We went to the doctor today while out picking up Ryan’s cake, and it was confirmed. I still feel like I’m on cloud nine.
“Maybe we should wait and tell him later. I think he has enough presents for now and besides…”
“Besides?” Noah prompts.
My hand goes down to my stomach and I swear in that moment I can almost feel the life inside of me. Noah’s comes over mine and I look into those beautiful brown eyes that I fell in love with in Montana—on a sunny day that seems like a million years ago—and I smile.
“Besides, I like sharing this magical moment with just you, for at least one more day,” I whisper. “We’re going to have a baby, Noah.”
“The first of many,” he says and I jerk, my eyes going wide with shock.
“Define many,” I murmur.
“We have to keep up with Dani and Crusher and they seem dead set on adopting all of the kids everywhere. But, I figure I could be happy with a smaller number…maybe ten,” he says with a shrug.
“Uh…. I don’t think I can handle having ten kids—at least not naturally. I mean adoption is a little easier on the body than labor, I’m thinking.”
“So, we’ll adopt the others and celebrate when the adoption comes through by having sex, and making a child the natural way.”
“That sounds like you have it all planned out,” I laugh.
“Someone once gave me the secret to the perfect relationship, Rory.”
“What was that?”
“A little give and a little take.”
“I thought you said the secret to a happy marriage was a blowjob every morning,” I mutter.
“That too,” he agrees.
I just shake my head.
“I love you, Noah Westin Cross. God knows why, but I do. I’ll love you for the rest of my life and for eternity after that.”
“I love you Rory Cross, I wanted you as a little boy and the reality is better than any dream I could have dreamed,” he vows.
“Mom! Dad! Look! I got my own camera! It does selfies!” Ryan squeals. “Let’s take a family picture!”
He runs over and gets between us and holds the camera up high. Noah helps him to steady it as we move in close together. Ryan snaps the picture and when I look on the screen it’s perfect. The three of us, my hand over my stomach, touching the spot where my child is resting.
A family.
Life can’t get any better than this… when Noah leans over and kisses the top of my head I realize I might be wrong. Every day I spend with Noah will just get sweeter and sweeter.
I just know it.
See Devil get his revenge in the next installment of the series
Fury
Did you like Agent Gavin Lodge? You can start his story here:
Letting You Go