EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
One year later ...
I sat on the couch, impatiently waiting for Camden to come home. We’d made each other a promise that we’d always be home by seven o’clock at night, no matter what. Even if we had to bring work home with us, we’d decided to make spending time together a priority.
I was supposed to be doing work right now, but I was way too distracted. I nudged the large stack of résumés sitting on my coffee table with my toe, wishing they would disappear.
Things had been going so well for me. Bridezilla Amber never filed suit when Gerald pointed out that, unlike Sadie’s NDA, Amber’s non-disclosure agreement prevented her from speaking about our arrangement. (Each NDA was customized differently with each bride.) She had publicly outed me and he had been excited at the idea of suing for breach of contract. I’d told him no, that I wanted to focus on the positive. I did make her submit an apology and had gotten more than my fair share of pleasure from that.
At Gerald’s direction I still hadn’t broken any of my NDAs, so there was no fear of a lawsuit. I turned down all the media requests, but they found other people who were willing and able to talk about my services and my business had continued to grow. We’d hired a dozen new employees in the last six months and the résumés I had were so that we could hire at least five more.
Camden had also been talking to me about franchising, a possibility that excited me. I was going to have my own little empire.
Instead of getting the résumés, I reached for our wedding photo album. I was feeling particularly nostalgic today, and I flipped through the pages slowly. I’d hired Troy to be my wedding planner and had done my best to keep it simple. Which hadn’t been easy with fifteen bridesmaids. Krista had been my maid of honor and all of my other employees had insisted they be part of my big day. Sadie had served as a bridesmaid, too, given how close she and I had become. Her baby bump was adorably small in each of the pictures.
Camden looked perfect in every shot, and I ran my hand across a photo of us kissing right after the minister had declared us husband and wife. I also loved the one just after that, where Camden stopped to hug Irene as we walked back down the aisle. She jokingly called the peach fuzz on her head her “Chia Pet hair,” but we were all just beyond relieved that she’d gone into remission and had come to the wedding happy and healthy.
My mom had spent most of the day crying with joy. I didn’t think there was a single picture where she wasn’t crying. The questions about grandchildren had tapered off because she’d gone back to school to get her master’s degree in special education and her days were currently filled with precious kids. “Have to get my fix somehow,” she was fond of saying.
Belle, Camden’s cat, who now loved me the most, jumped into my lap, purring. It was as if she knew something had changed with me.
I stroked her head and glanced up at the clock. It was 7:02. Somebody was going to be in trouble. I lived for this time of day. Today, especially. We were both so busy, Camden even more so after his successful IPO. But we always had dinner together and discussed our wins and losses, our hopes and our fears. In the quiet part of our evening we talked, laughed, and loved. No one understood me like he did.
Which he proved when he walked in the door. “Sorry I’m a little late! But in my defense I brought you pizza.”
“If I wasn’t married to you already, I’d marry you again,” I told him. I put Belle on the couch and came over to greet him, kissing him hello and then following him into our kitchen.
He got out plates and set them on the table, finally noticing what I’d put there for him. “What’s this?” he asked.
It was a line of rolled-up pieces of paper. “Open them and find out.”
Camden picked up the first one. “You.”
Then the second. “Are.”
“Going,” he read, then got another. “To.”
“Be,” he said. “This is taking a really long time.”
“It’s how you asked me to marry you,” I reminded him.
“Right. But will you marry me is only four words. This is like a novel.”
“Keep reading,” I said.
He unrolled the sixth one. “A. Okay, I feel like you could have added another word to this one and used less paper.”
I pointed to the seventh rolled-up piece of paper. “Just open it, wise guy.”
“Father,” he read, and it was like it didn’t register at first.
To be honest, I was more than a little bit nervous as to how he’d react. We both definitely wanted kids, but we had decided to wait. Until things calmed down a bit for us professionally. We’d been married for only a month and this didn’t figure into any of our plans.
But I’d already learned long ago that I had to let go of trying to stick to a plan and let life happen, and I was beyond thrilled to be having a baby. It was one of the best things that had ever happened to me, and I hoped he would share in my joy.
The timing wasn’t great, but I knew we could get through anything because we were a fantastic team.
“I’m going to be a dad?” he asked, sounding bewildered.
I nodded, both worried and excited, all at the same time.
Then he came over to me and picked me up, holding me against him. “Are you serious? You’re pregnant?”
“Yes. Are you okay with it?”
He kissed me. Then he kissed me again. And again. “Okay with it? I’m deliriously happy! You’re having my baby! You are going to be the best mother ever.”
I was so relieved and so happy. “And you will be a great dad.”
It was like I got a little glimpse into our future and in my mind I could see Camden running and laughing with a toddler, lifting her up into the air while she giggled. He was going to be such a fun and loving father.
He put me down and looked around, and then dived onto the couch. It took me a second to figure out what he was doing. He had grabbed my phone.
“Ha!” he said. “I get to call your mom.”
“She’s my mom,” I reminded him, but he didn’t seem to hear me. That was probably due in part to the fact that my parents had basically become his parents, too. I suspected they might like him better than me. The dogs certainly did.
“I want to be her favorite son-in-law.”
“You’re her only son-in-law.”
“Which means I can be her least favorite, too.” He had such a pleading look in his eyes that there was no way I could tell him no.
“Fine. You can tell her.” It honestly didn’t matter which one of us it came from. She was probably going to have a heart attack when she heard.
He grinned and turned on my phone, dialing the number. “Mom? Hi! Guess what?”