Epilogue
Some Time Later . . .
“Bolt! Don’t throw him up like that!” P’Nee thought her husband lost his mind.
It was Dash Benjamin Abloy’s first birthday. It was a celebration! P’Nee didn’t mind the celebration, but Dash thrown in the air so high that he could literally touch the ceiling was not a part of what she planned. As much as she hated it, baby boy loved it.
Dash was his daddy’s boy. He was a rough little boy when he was with his daddy and uncle.
When he was with his mama, he was the perfect mama’s boy.
Dash was Bolt’s twin down to the head full of hair.
With all his hair, he had the nerve to be tender headed.
Granny Cat would never have that, and she made sure by the time he was eight months that his tender headedness was gone.
Bolt snickered at his scary wife. “Calm down, mommy. I promise not to break him,” he jested.
Dash wiggled out of his father’s arms. He wanted to play in the baby gym on the other side of the party room.
The party was held in an event space that the Abloy’s owned courtesy of Anna.
They went to court nine months earlier, and P’Nee Abloy won big.
She was awarded eighty thousand dollars in punitive damages and another twenty-five thousand in lawyer fees.
Miss Anna didn’t have that. What she did have was a venue that she owned.
Anna offered to give Mrs. Abloy ownership of the venue that was fully paid for.
It was one of the top venues in Lake Wylie.
Anna attempted to beg P’Nee’s pardon to get her to drop her suit.
So much so that she offered the venue that sat on the lake for their wedding, free of charge.
That was how her ownership of the venue came to light.
Against her lawyer’s advice, Anna offered the venue in a settlement type of way.
P’Nee’s lawyer was gob smacked when the offer came across his desk.
It didn’t make sense for her to offer up a building that brought her in almost six hundred thousand dollars a year in revenue.
There literally was a payment option that she could have utilized to pay the one hundred and five thousand dollars.
Anna’s offer further cemented that she was an idiot.
Dash ran over to Benji first, who was his favorite person outside of his mommy and daddy. Dash grabbed his cousin’s hand and pulled him over to the baby gym. He needed his big cousin’s help to navigate the large structure that the Abloy’s had brought in for the party.
When Anna signed over the venue, it was already booked out for the rest of the year and some of the next. Memory Factory Venue was P’Nee’s baby. She committed all her free time outside of her duties as a principal, mother, and wife to it.
“Mrs. Abloy, you did an amazing job planning this little shindig. I know when you have our baby girl that her party is going to be something else,” Bolt commented after he wrapped his strong arms around his wife. He spoke with confidence.
P’Nee turned in his arms to wrap her arms around his neck.
She giggled to the feeling of his hands now gripped on her ass.
It was his hands’ favorite place. “Mr. Abloy, you have bumped your head if you think I am having another baby any time soon. I’m not sure if you know that your son is bad as hell.
Thank you and Josh for that by the way.”
Bolt’s head bucked back. “Why are you thanking us for that? We don’t have anything to do with that.”
His tone held fake conviction. He knew that he and Josh sometimes encouraged Dash’s rough, wild behavior. He was a boy! That was what they did. Although that was what they encouraged from time to time, they also vowed to teach him discipline. There was a time and place for everything.
“Bolt, I will chop you. You and Josh have that little boy thinking he’s a baby superhero.
Super Dash can do anything. Unfortunately, Super Dash thinks that means jumping from high surfaces, being thrown in the air like a football, and other life-threatening activities that an adult would get denied life insurance if they checked that they did them on the application. ”
Josh was very active in his nephew’s life.
“I can’t help it that my boy is adventurous.
Baby, our lil girl will be a princess like her queen mommy.
” He chuckled at her look of fuck you. He deeply kissed her lips.
A sexy smirk rested on his handsome face when he pulled away.
“The last one to get a kiss from Boltin Abloy will be pregnant by the end of the year.”
“Nigga!” She couldn’t finish her words because her laughter interrupted. She watched her husband bolt off, no pun intended.
She gazed around the room at everyone they loved.
So many had come out with their young kids to help celebrate the little boy that lit up so many lives.
P’Nee snickered at Granny Cat who sat off to the side at a card table with her circle of friends.
They played card games together. Granny Cat said she loved her great-grand boy, but she would not sit at a one-year-old’s party with nothing to entertain herself.
A bunch of toddlers was not the entertainment she wanted for three hours.
One person that was noticeably missing was Jordan.
The amends that he prayed would happen with his daughter never did.
The whole ordeal with his brother overwhelmed him to the point of the bottle.
Five months ago, when Jacob committed suicide in jail, it took him over the edge.
Yes, Jordan’s brother did an awful thing, but he still loved his baby brother.
After a night of heavy drinking at a bar, Jordan got behind the wheel of his car and took out his frustration with a tree. He didn’t survive.
Josh was completely devastated. P’Nee was there for him as a sister should have been. Surprisingly, Jojo was as well. That was a different story altogether.
There was a lot of pain in the last few years, but there was more love.
Over time, there were a few instances where Bolt and P’Nee had to come off the leash.
Those were volatile times for the people involved.
Bolt was a ‘if he fought a bear, you should root for the bear’ kind of man.
P’Nee was a ‘if her husband fought a bear, she would prepare the kitchen for bear stew’ kind of woman.
They were a perfect match in an imperfect world. In the dog-eat-dog world, it was best advised that the Abloys always stayed on the leash.
All Scootched In