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Epilogue
Dear Unnamed Baby,
Hi, it’s your dad. You’re only twenty-four weeks old now and still in your mom’s belly but I wanted you to have this later, when you were older. I would’ve written sooner but I was scared you wouldn’t stick around. Your mom—who’s much, much smarter than me—told me you would. That there was no way you’d come out before your prescribed nine months and only to the sound of her blood-curdling screams (her words, not mine.) She’s not really looking forward to delivery. I am. I can’t wait. I bet you’re going to have dark hair and gray eyes just like your mom. And when we give you more brothers and sisters down the road, God willing, you’ll be the best big sister ever.
Your mom’s going to cry when she sees you, I just know it. She’s a much bigger softie than she’ll admit to. Right now she’s yelling about the game, pretending to be all excited because the Patriots are winning. I know it’s really because Brady keeps charging across the field.
Uh oh. Now she’s yelling at me. She thinks I’m writing bills. I’ll save this and show it to her later and she’ll scrunch her face all up then wave it off like she doesn’t care. And when she doesn’t think I’m looking, she’ll get all misty.
I’ll talk to you soon. Until then, do a favor for your dad, okay? Stay right where you’re supposed to. Even if your mom jumps around like a complete maniac screaming, “Hell, yeah, now that’s a fucking touchdown!”
Love,
Dad
Summer in full bloom. Lots of things were blooming. Some expected, some not. The bucket of mums they’d picked out from the florist had begun to sprout, though the actual flowers wouldn’t show their colors for a few weeks.
Their other sprout would take a while to grow yet.
“I gotta go to work,” Rory said from behind him.
“So stop wallpapering,” Sam said, amused as always by her impatient huff of breath. “We’ll do it tonight.”
“Just gotta finish this section.”
Sam fought a smile as he turned away from the wide picture window. She stood near the doorway of the adjoining room. Hands flat on the wall, gaze intent. A tape measure somehow hooked from the vee of her maternity top.
Their place would have the most cheerful design ever, assuming Rory could ever stop changing her mind about the color of the darn wallpaper. First it had been mint green. Then yellow. The latest acquisition was sunset orange with tiny white flowers.
Orange, green, he didn’t care. He already had been given the world. Everything else was just details.
“You know, we’d get this done a lot faster if you helped and stopped standing around looking so—” A couple months ago, when she’d been in what she called her “hormonally horny” phase, she would’ve ended that statement with something dirty. Now she just scowled.
His smile broadened. “And get in the way of your redecorating dreams? Not a chance.”
The big airy loft in downtown Haven hadn’t been either of their first choices, but the price was right. Billy had purchased the building to open a bike shop on the first floor and he’d offered them the second level for a great rate.
Home rarely seemed to end up looking like a person expected, Sam mused as he crossed the room to slip his arms around Rory’s waist. She grumbled a little, as she was wont to do before ten a.m., but he didn’t miss her contented sigh.
Three years had passed since they’d bumped fenders. In that time, they’d traveled all over the States, usually a new trip every few months to coincide with the car shows Sam wrote off as work. They’d laughed their asses off in Vegas when she won a thousand dollars her first time playing Blackjack. Stumbled over the rocky shore along the Atlantic in Massachusetts when he’d decided he wanted to find her authentic sea glass. Poked tentative hands through fence slats in Kentucky to stroke horses who looked every bit as awed at the sight of them as they were over the horses.
None of those adventures could swish a pony’s tail at the one stretching before them now. In a little over two months, their lives would change again.
“You know, we could hire someone to do this,” he murmured against her hair. She’d grown it longer and the ends just brushed her shoulders. “Just like we could run away and—”
She turned in his arms, more than a little awkwardly, and tucked her tape measure in her bra. “Uh uh. You know my answer to that.”
“I do. Or I don’t, since you won’t.” He tipped his forehead to hers and smiled into her eyes. They’d been engaged for over a year and Rory didn’t seem to be in any hurry to check a new box on her tax return. Married or unmarried, they were in love. Their child would have his last name. And hers. So it didn’t matter.
Much.
“It’s a timing thing, big guy.”
“So you say. Since going with the flow has brought us here, I can’t fault your methods.”
“Exactly. I’m all about the spontaneous.”
“Which means we’re gonna be living in sin forever.”
