Gasps and whimpers could be heard around the room. I glanced over at Shane’s foster dad and he was doing his best to keep the tears at bay, but his eyes showed us everything he was feeling. “I…oh, God,” he stuttered, and because he couldn’t speak, he just walked over to the bed and hugged the shit out of Shane. After a few seconds, he whispered, “I love you, kiddo.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered back.
When I returned my attention back to Michael, the look on his face said it all. At this point, the women were all a crying mess with Denise wrapped in Aiden’s arms and Justice in Gabriel’s. Sophia was standing next to Maggie and my mother, all three women crying happy tears. Sophia was looking at Michael with so much love in her eyes, I was immensely grateful that she was in my brother’s life.
Michael’s green gaze kept swinging back and forth between me and Shane, until it finally landed on mine and he asked, “M…Michael? You named him Michael?” His eyes were watering, and he wasn’t embarrassed by it at all.
“Yep,” I confirmed. “We named him Michael, because…every one of us, me, Gabriel and Aiden wouldn’t know the true meaning of love without you, Mike.”
Michael handed the baby back to a weeping Shane and dragged me into his embrace, hugging the holy fuck out of me. I hugged him back, hoping my little brother knew how special he was to all of us. “I love you, Michael.”
“I love you, Mason,” he returned. “I love you guys so fucking much.” He let me go and took a step back. “Sophia.”
I watched Sophia make her way over to Michael, and as soon as he felt her by his side, he reached over and pulled her into his arms. They stayed like that for a few minutes as everyone else took this time to pull themselves together.
This moment; this occasion was as emotionally intense as I thought it might be.
Once Michael gathered himself, he stood to his full height, threw his arm around Sophia’s waist, and said, “We’re pregnant.” Squeals and laughter engulfed the room, but once everyone settled down, Michael continued, “We weren’t going to say anything, because we didn’t want to steal Shane’s spotlight, but,” he glanced over at her, and then me, “I’m calling dibs on Mason’s name now.”
“You can’t just call dibs on his name,” Aiden protested. “Mason belongs to all of us, damn it!”
“Yeah,” Gabriel chimed in. “What kind of bullshit is that?”
Sophia planted her hands on her hips. “Thought you were only having girls, Aiden?”
That stumped him for a bit, but then he countered with, “What if you have a girl?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Doesn’t matter,” she replied. “We’ll still be naming her Mason and we’ll just call her Masey for short.”
“What’s wrong with naming your son after me, you asshole?” Gabriel barked at Aiden, and then added, “And if it’s a girl, you can name her Gabriella with Gabby for short.”
Aiden pointed his finger at Gabe. “Then you better do the same, jackhole,” he countered. “And if it’s a girl, her name will be Aiden, too. Period.”
Justice raised her hand. “And us mothers have no say in the naming of these children, I take it?”
“No!” came all four Buchanan responses, including mine.
She threw her hands up in surrender. “Just double checking.”
“Calm down everyone,” my mother instructed. “What with you all giving me about 16 grandchildren, there will be plenty of kids and names to go around.”
“You’re expecting four a piece?” Aiden asked.
“You boys are forgetting that there is a great probability that there will be a few sets of twins thrown in the mix,” she reminded us. “Reaching 16 won’t be that hard to do.”
Sophia’s eyes immediately began studying her feet.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Sophia?”
And then Michael narrowed his eyes at her. “Sophia?”
Her arms dropped and her head was thrown back in quite a dramatic fashion as she announced, “I wanted to wait until things were past the…delicate stage, but…ugh, fine,” she huffed and then looked at Michael. “I did an actual ultrasound at my appointment the other day and,” she grinned, “there were two heartbeats, Michael.” The entire room was shrouded in a second of silence before the whoops and hollers became deafening.
I looked down at my wife and her face was positively radiant in the glow of the aftermath of birth and with the love evident in this room. I jerked my head to the side, and she immediately scooted over to make as much room for me as she could. And, with no shame at all, I crawled into the bed with my wife and son.
Shane nestled into the crook of my arm, and feeling her relax against me, knowing she felt loved and safe, meant everything to me. “I’m going to worship everything about you until the day I die, Shane.”
“I love you, Mason,” she whispered against my chest. “I love you, so much. You’ll never know just how much.”
I didn’t need to know the extent of her love for me. Hell, I didn’t care if she only liked me a little. All that matter was my love for her and how I was going to prove that love to her forever.
Well, my love for her and for my family.
Always my family.
Epilogue
And they lived happily ever after, with many more Buchanans added to the mix!
The End.
