Epilogue
DAISY
TWO MONTHS LATER…
“Ready?”
“I think so.” I smiled at Lou and turned my gaze around the living room at the Lamplight Inn, which looked nothing like a living room right now, but a secret garden.
“We did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself,” Frankie said, coming to stand at my left with a grin. “And I don’t think Max has any idea.”
It was just about as hard as it sounded to pull off putting together a wedding without the groom knowing when it was his flower company that was supplying the flowers.
“Oh, no.” Lou shook her head. “He’s definitely convinced one of our guests is getting married today. I think the fake contract Wade typed up and signed really sealed the deal.”
After Lucy’s birth and then Christmas, Max and I settled into a routine that felt as familiar as it did comforting, but there was one thing that nagged at me.
After how wild the last six months had been, I couldn’t believe how I’d walked out of chaos and into a fairy tale.
Every day I woke up next to him, every day he went and picked up our daughter from her crib and brought her into bed with us.
I couldn’t believe the dream I was living.
I couldn’t believe the dream I was living with him.
But there was one tiny, tiny thorn that kept pricking at me as the days and weeks went on. I’d never regret a single moment of the path that brought us here, but that didn’t mean there weren’t things I wanted to give Max—parts of his dream that he’d happily hopped and skipped over to protect me.
Like a wedding surrounded by his family.
“Chandler just texted. They’re on their way.” Frankie slid her phone back into her pocket and lifted her mimosa glass. Mine, filled with just orange juice, clinked with hers and Lou’s. “Have I mentioned how much I love that they decided on this whole ‘Dad day’ idea?”
Right after Christmas—though Jamie claimed he had the idea on Christmas and he and Kit bickered about it—the dads in the family, Jamie, Kit, Chandler, Wade, and Max, came up with the idea of a ‘Dad day’ that they took every other week.
They’d take all the kids and go out for the day, or most of it, and do something fun.
They’d done bowling days, hockey games. One time, Kit plastic wrapped his entire studio, and they did something that was more making a mess than it was painting, but Max had brought home a small canvas of Lucy’s footprints that Jamie then made a frame for.
“Such a great idea,” Violet said and joined us, but over by the window, where she could keep lookout.
Meanwhile, on Dad days, the moms got to play. Or, more accurately, relax.
“They’re here!” Ailene announced, beaming as she whisked my orange juice from my hand, and then my father-in-law offered me his arm, leading me to the end of the short, rose-petal-lined aisle.
George was performing the unofficial ceremony, keeping the entirety of the event contained to family members only.
“You sure you want to marry Max again?” His eyes twinkled at me in jest.
“Every day.” I smiled back and then looked to the entrance into the room, my heart rioting in my chest like I wasn’t already married to the man about to walk through it.
I heard the front door open. “Lou, I’m here. What’s wrong? You said—”
His determined stride skidded to a halt when he reached the threshold and saw the room we’d turned into nothing short of a secret garden.
My smile of happiness cracked, wanting to split wider when I saw Lucy sleeping in the carrier strapped to his chest. That little girl couldn’t have been more his even if it had been his genes woven into her DNA.
“Daze…what’s going on?”
Ailene went to him and slid her hand through the crook of his elbow, guiding him down the aisle. “Of all people, Max, I think you’d recognize your own wedding.”
“What’s all this?” he murmured, lifting his hand to trace my cheek as I bent forward and kissed the soft hair on the back of Lucy’s head.
“You’ve given me all of my dreams, Max. I wanted to give you one of yours.”
He looked painfully handsome the way he stared so intently at me. “You already did.”
I groaned and brushed away the happy tears that danced down my cheeks. “Marry me again, Max. Please?”
Max chuckled and looped his arm around my waist, pulling me close. “Every day, Daze. I’ll marry you every day if that’s what you want.” And then his mouth dropped to mine.
“Hey! That part happens at the end,” George protested to a ripple of laughter through the room.
“Backward…forward…in any direction, I’ll always end up with you,” Max said, looking only at me, and then kissed me again.
At some point after that, his dad started the short ceremony, and we said “I do” over the small, sleeping whimpers of our daughter between us.
I cried. His family cheered. Heaps of pastries appeared from the kitchen, and we ate and laughed and celebrated together until the babies started to get hungry and tired.
After rounds of hugs and congratulations from everyone, we went home exhausted and happy. After I fed Lucy and we put her to sleep, I led Max into our bedroom and looped my arms around his neck.
“I have another present for you.”
“Another one?” His brow lifted, a hungry look already infusing his stare. “Is it like my Christmas present?”
I tipped my head, giggling when his mouth instantly latched to my neck just below my ear. “Not exactly.” I wiggled out of his hold and spun around. “Can you unzip me?”
His answer was those big hands framing my shoulders, and then the slow peel of the zipper opening along my back.
“You know I love this present,” he rumbled and pushed my hair to the side so he could kiss the base of my nape, his knuckles skating up and down my bare spine.
A hum filtered through my lips. “Me too,” I said with a shiver and then took a step away before I got lost in his touch. “But I think you’ll love this one even more.”
I faced him and placed my hands on either side of my stomach, the swell not even gone from Lucy’s pregnancy. Max stared at me, stared at my stomach, and then back at me again.
“Daisy…”
“I’m pregnant, Max,” I said, still slightly in disbelief that it had happened so soon, though I knew it was possible.
“You’re…” His throat worked, the whole of him gone stiff, like he was about to shatter.
I flushed. “My due date is the week of Thanksgiving…again.” Technically, it would be possible for Lucy and this baby to share a birthday exactly a year apart. Unlikely, but feeling more and more possible after the unlikely things we’d been through.
Max let out a growl, and the next thing I knew, I was crying out as he lifted me into his arms with a loud whoop, spinning me around even as he kissed me.
“You’re pregnant,” he repeated, allowing me only to nod before he kept kissing me. Harder. Deeper. Tangling the two of us until we fell together onto the bed, me on top of him. “Fuck, Daze.” He beamed up at me. “We’re going to have another baby.”
My chest caved with a happy sob. “Yeah, we are.” He pulled me down to him, kissing me until my head spun. “You said you wanted a lot of babies.”
“All the babies, Daze,” he rumbled, spearing his tongue against mine. “I want a dozen babies with you.”
“A dozen?” I choked out, laughing. “That’s…a lot of babies.”
He grinned wickedly up at me and then rolled me underneath him. Using one hand, he opened the waist of his pants and drew out his cock, teasing it along my entrance.
“And all the reason we should keep practicing,” he said as he thrust inside me, the promise an end to our conversation…and the beginning of everything.