Page 106 of Fall Over You

I laugh and she mirrors me, lifting her head to deliver sweet kisses to my lips.

“I gotta say, watching you is great, but being the one inside you is much preferred.”

Becca giggles and nods. “Yeah, I like it better too.”

I bury my face in her neck as I come down, telling her how beautiful she is, kissing her, celebrating that this is us now.

Becca isn’t just the sunshine after the rain. She’s the goddamn pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I discard the condom in the bathroom and wash my hands, smiling at my reflection. I’m naked and sweaty and tired as all hell, but I’m . . . happy. And it’s not just sex. I’m a man again. This is the first time since I found out CJ was expecting that I chose something for myself. Life isn’t steering me anymore. I’m finding myself.

I took this rapid trip from party boy to responsible dad to single dad and I haven’t had a chance to just be me. I’m more than a single dad. More than the guy who spends hours awake worrying about how to keep the shop going.

I’ve been in here all along, but I almost don’t know this side of myself.

And I wouldn’t know him at all without her.

When I get back into her room, Becca is sitting up, holding her knees to her chest and resting her head on top of them.

“You okay?”

“You’re back,” she says. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”

It feels weird standing here naked, but I consciously remind myself that Becca wants me like this, stripped bare and open with her in all the ways. “I want to stay, if that’s okay with you.”

Her sweet smile tells me that’s just what she wanted to hear. “Yeah, I want you to stay.”

I’m beaming as I run toward the bed and launch myself at it, landing partially on top of her while she squeals. We wrestle and laugh until she’s nestled tight against me. We slow down, and I take the liberty of caressing the skin between her shoulders while she clings to me.

“Night, Ty,” she mumbles sleepily.

I smile and stroke her hair as she tucks her head into my chest. “Night, Reba.”

FORTY

BECCA

“Alright, we’ve got a mystery reader today. Can anyone guess who it is?”

A burst of tiny voices shout until Miss Kristen says, “One at a time, raised hands please,” over top of them. Guesses are made, but T-Bone’s ears perk up when Ellie guesses. She can’t help herself, so she peers around the corner and starts pulling on her leash to get to Ellie.

“T-BONE!”

I let go of the leash as the kids surround and love on my first little angel.

It’s strange to think it, but now I have two little angels and both are positively beaming right now. Ellie has permanently stolen T-Bone from me as her bedmate, but it’s all working out. I have a new bedmate who I’m pretty fond of too.

I fight a blush thinking of what he did to me before the sun was up this morning.

I’ve done about everything a human body can do and blushing about it disappeared a long time ago. But when I think about who I’m married to and how he’s growing just a little brighter every day, I want to squeal and kick my feet.

“And Miss Becca,” Miss Kristen laughs. “How are you?”

“Good!” I say, taking my tote bag off my shoulder and removing a book. I flourish it to the handful of kids who aren’t giving their attention to T-Bone. “Ready to read to all these little turkeys about some chickens!”

Ellie didn’t know I was coming, and now that she’s done worshiping her fuzzy best friend, she scurries over to sit on my lap while I settle in to read to her class. I savor the moment, sniffing her sweet hair and having that scary, fleeting thought that she’ll only be this small once.

I read three chicken-themed books to her class, stopping to ask them to make noises and tell me some favorite thing of theirs.