Epilogue
Sable
Nine months later…
“Holy shit, this thing is like a fire hose,” I exclaimed as I slapped a diaper over the spraying penis that had soaked the front of my shirt.
Babysit for Whitney they said. It would be fun, they said.
And, okay. Cameron was pretty fucking cute, but that cuteness only got him so far when I swear to God he always waited until I took the diaper off to start peeing again. Maybe I was just that fucking bad with my timing.
“You know, if you take it off by peeling down the front just a little, you could avoid that whole mess.”
I glared at Orion.
“Look at you, mister know-it-all. He’s your son. Why aren’t you the one changing him?”
Orion held up his hands in surrender, laughing. “I do it all the fucking time. You asked, and I wasn’t about to tell you no.”
Fuck him. He was right. He was lucky that I loved him so much.
And the thought made me melt a little as I finished cleaning up the baby in front of me. You’d think I would have gotten used to this after Justine had Angel four months ago, but I don’t think anyone ever gets used to the infant stage.
After securing the new diaper, handing Cameron back to his daddy, I placed a hand on my stomach.
There were days I was glad I didn’t have to go through what women endured during pregnancy.
Justine had been deathly ill, but had still had the most gorgeous of baby girls.
And then there was Cameron... who decided he needed to be a week late and tore his mommy’s vajayjay on the way out.
And yes, I was horrified when that story was shared with me.
Watching Orion as he took his son from me, holding him close to his chest as he bobbed him around the room only intensified those fluttery feelings.
While I’d never be able to give him a full family like Whitney had, this still felt meaningful.
Even if there had been a ton of hurt feelings along the way.
Some people even ended up in jail. This was us. This was our little slice of heaven.
“Are you okay?” Orion asked as he patted Cameron on the back.
For a guy who never wanted to be a dad, he was a natural at it.
Whitney hadn’t even needed to walk him through anything.
After his own father’s arrest, he’d sat down, started reading absolutely everything, and I sort of hated the little collection of ‘What to Expect’ books that were sitting on our bookshelf…
Because yeah. We had a fucking bookshelf at this point.
There wasn’t a lot for either of us, but it was filled with these obnoxious cardboard baby books.
Most of them were just pictures with one or two words, but Orion had insisted that they were really important for his son’s development.
The funny thing was that neither of us wanted to sit down and look at any of them with him, so it felt like the biggest waste of money ever.
“Fine,” and okay, it wasn’t the most convincing thing I’d ever said to him.
Maybe I wanted to hold his precious baby again.
There was a reason I’d asked Whitney if we could have him for the night.
It wasn’t just so the poor woman could go out and get laid without a baby getting in the way.
This little guy was two months old, and as much as I didn't want to admit it, I was so attached to him.
It was like he was my baby without being my baby.
Orion laughed. “Sure. I trust a fine from you just as much as I trust a fine from a woman.”
I glared at him as I pressed my fists to my hips—he wasn’t wrong.
If I said I was fine, it meant I was anything but.
How the fuck did I tell him I wanted to be so much freaking more in his life.
Not just his live-in boyfriend. Was it too much to ask to be a life partner? Fuck, it was crazy to want that.
It wasn’t new for me to live with someone.
I’d somehow ended up living with most of the guys I dated because I was a codependent little shit sometimes, but this was different.
Yeah, I needed to depend on Orion because I couldn’t really afford anything on my own, and most places that I could wouldn’t take me because of my shiny new criminal record.
For fuck’s sake. It was a misdemeanor—it only happened once. It didn’t matter that I made promises that it was something that was behind me—no one wanted to rent to a former prostitute. So much for allowing people to better their lives.
“We’re like... a family.” The words spilled from my mouth before I could stop them.
“And, like... that feels special.” Fuck, I was sweating.
Why the hell was I sweating? We’d been together for a year.
Why couldn’t I tell him I wanted us to be more?
I was helping him raise his child with his ex-wife.
“What are you trying to say?” he asked.
I wanted to pull my hair and scream, but I also didn’t want to scare the cute as a button little pipsqueak that was currently making his daddy look like the sexiest man alive. How did babies do that?
It took everything I had in me to take a deep breath. My lungs wanted to seize up, refusing to work.
“What are we?” The question was out there. Maybe it was vague as fuck. I probably should have been a little more specific because, but in the grand scheme of things, I knew we were boyfriends. I didn’t know anything beyond that.
He laughed before setting Cameron down in a little bouncer, strapping him in. The baby kicked his feet, making the device shake. At least the little guy was really easy to entertain.
Orion approached me, framing my face with his big hands before leaning down, planting a soft kiss against my lips. God, the man knew how to make me melt.
“You’re my person. The one who saved me helped me to realize that the way I was living my life wasn’t complete. I was a fucking wreck until you came into the picture.”
Oh shit, were my eyes burning? He was going to make me cry. I hated it when he did that. He’d made me realize a few mistakes about my own life, and maybe that was why we’d found each other.
Orion wiped away a tear that tried to escape with his thumb. “I know we’ve never made anything official, but outside of Whitney, you are one of the few people I would trust with Cameron. I might not have said it before because I didn’t know when the right time was, but I love you, Sable.”
I hiccupped at the name, the confession. Orion saw me. He’d seen me since the moment he’d walked into Faded Sins. Not just some half-naked dancer on a stage.
“Kevin,” I’d said it, and as scary as it was, there wasn’t anyone else I wanted him to know the real me. Orion had proven time and time again that I could count on him. That just as much as I was his person, he was mine.
“Are you sure?” he asked. It was a fair question. The last time he’d used my name, I’d freaked the fuck out on him. I mean, it was right after I’d gotten out of jail, and he’d said he’d gotten it off of a piece of mail in my apartment. I had a right to be upset.
Instead of answering him with my words, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, standing on my tiptoes and kissed him with so much force it nearly tipped us over. Realistically, I wanted to jump up wrapping my legs around his waist. Okay, fuck it. I was doing just that.
When I jumped, Orion didn’t hesitate to catch me, placing his hands under my butt to keep me from falling. God, the man was so fucking strong. Not that I was very big, but still. Any man who could lift another fully grown man like that had my respect.
A soft little “ahh” broke the moment. I dropped out of Orion’s hold to rush to Cameron’s side.
“Hey, little man. Are you trying to talk?”
A smile stretched his little face like he knew what the hell I was saying. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Did anyone really know what babies understood?
Orion was at my side in the next moment. He sat on the floor, playing with his son’s feet. The whole picture was so adorable.
“So, we really are a family?” I asked because I really did need him to spell it out for me.
“Of course we are,” he said, like I were an idiot for even asking the question.
Over the last year, my life had changed in so many unimaginable ways.
I’d gone from living with a boyfriend who made me feel like shit for what I did for a living, to finding the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
The first person I trusted to use my real name for the first time in years.
We were a family. Orion, Cameron, Whitney, and I.
Of course, there were the other stragglers we’d picked up along the way.
We wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for Justine, Victor, and Whiskey.
Our lives had faced upheaval, but we’d come out on the other side so much stronger. More fulfilled. In love.
“I love you, too. In case I forgot to say it.” I had,that was why I was saying it now.
Orion looked over at me, smiling. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him since my face felt like it was sitting in the middle of a furnace. But he’d earned it. Deserved it.
I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together.
THE END