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"Yeah, bub?" I asked, looking up from the potatoes I'd been skinning.
"There's someone at the door."
"And..." I said, rolling my eyes.
"He says he's here for dinner."
"Again... and?" I asked, knowing exactly who it was, but enjoying my son's discomfort. Like Fee, I would never get sick of that.
"It's Collings. Detective Collings."
"Last I checked, he was retired," I said, shrugging a shoulder. "So he is just Connor now."
"You actually invited him?"
"I actually did," I agreed, nodding.
Shane's confusion only deepened.
"He brought a date."
"The more, the merrier," I agreed, but felt my heart swelling at the idea that he had finally found someone worthy of him. "Why are you standing here when you should be getting them a drink?" I asked. "Did I raise you with no manners at all?"
"No, ma'am," he said, rushing off to do as instructed.
Peyton let out a dreamy sigh.
"One day, I hope my full-grown children piss themselves in fear of me," she said, smiling a little when I threw a potato skin at her.
It was an hour later when we finally all started to file into the dining room, the table already weighed down with the heaping piles of food. My boys never did seem to lose their appetites, and we had several boys growing up with hollow bones that needed constant stuffing. We hardly ever even had leftovers anymore.
"Happy Anniversary, baby," Charlie said, coming up behind me, placing his head on my shoulder, his arms twining tight around my waist.
My hands closed over his, squeezing.
We didn't say anything, just stood there, watching our boys file in, wrangling children into seats, then having to separate them when they objected loudly to being placed next to their siblings or too far away from their cousins, or whatever objection children could possibly have to where they sat at a table. Which was a lot of them.
We watched as Eli pressed a kiss into Autumn's temple as he moved past. As Hunt's hand grazed Fee's lower back as she leaned down to hear what Little Eli said to her. Scotti pressed her head into Mark's arm as he stole the dinner knife out of the place setting of one of the kids. Thinking no one was looking - or simply not caring - Shane's hand gave Lea's ass a squeeze before he helped her into her seat. Over near a corner, Ryan's hand was closing over Dusty's that was around her throat, gently easing it down, kissing the knuckles, then leaning close to whisper in her ear until she started breathing normally again.
Our boys.
Their wives.
So, so much freaking love.
My heart, already so full, seemed to swell more in my chest watching them interact.
My eyes drifted toward King and Savea, trying to wrangle their little hellhound of a dog back out of the room to the backyard before he could steal food off of anyone's plates. Atlas was showing Little Eli a video on his phone, both of them laughing. Nixon and Rush were each trying to ease their women into the chaos of the room.
Across from them, Peyton smacked Sugar's hand away from her belly, having a pet peeve about anyone touching it. But Sugar leaned over, nipped her ear, and put his hand there again, rubbing the swell where their love had overflowed to make another life.
Charlie's arms squeezed me as I spotted Collings, his hand on the knee of a woman at his side, a woman who was watching his profile like he had hung the moon while he reached to refill her drink.
"God," I said, trying to exhale, to ease the heaviness of my chest from a heart too big for the small space it resided in. "We created all of this," I said, wonder plain in my voice.
It hadn't been an easy road.
The speed bumps had been enough to knock out our chassis, stalled us on the side of the road for days, weeks, months, even years.
There was blood and pain and ugliness.
But more, way, way more, there was beauty.
In the way our love was too much to be contained, spilling over into five perfect boys who in turn found love deeply enough to ensure a legacy, to overflow themselves, to create future generations of Mallicks whose legacy would be that for the books.
"Knew it would come to this the first time I kissed you," Charlie told me, lips brushing my ear as he did so. "Tasted forever on your lips."
This man.
There weren't words for how much I loved him.
The depth of it was almost frightening when I thought about it at times. Bottomless. Never-ending.
"I love you," I told him, the words too simple for what I felt, but Charlie knew me enough to understand the depth in my tone.
"I love you too, baby," he told me, mouth opening to say something else, but he didn't get the chance.
