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Epilogue
Wes
“Bloody hell, Millie! What are you doing? Give me that!” I rush over and grab the heavy tray from her hands, carrying it the rest of the way into the kitchen.
“Relax, Wes, it’s just a ham,” she says with an eye roll, following after me.
“A massive ham in a giant ceramic dish. Way too heavy for you,” I counter.
She lets out a grunt of annoyance. “I’m not a bloody invalid, Wes. I swear, you’re worse than Devon.”
I gasp and hold a hand to my heart. “I can’t believe you’d say such a thing to me!”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, then stop fussing over me as though I’m the first woman in the history of the world to ever carry a child.” She gives a wry shake of her head and accepts a glass of orange juice I’ve poured for her. “I genuinely feel for any surrogates the two of you use in the future.”
This is the part where I’d usually scoff and comment that the future she speaks of is light years away, but I have to admit that, lately, the idea of settling down and having kids and building a whole future with Devon doesn’t actually seem as far fetched as it used to. The change definitely started about six months ago, when my awesome little niece, Lucie, was born. Thanks to her I realised babies aren’t quite as scary as I always imagined they were. And now with Kira and Millie only a couple of months away from their new arrival, it’s definitely got me thinking.
As though my thoughts have summoned her, I can hear Lucie’s little squawk from the hallway and I know Emma’s arrived. I rush out of the kitchen, finding my sister and Devon chatting near the front door.
I make a beeline for my niece, prying her gently from Emma’s arms and into my own. “Hey, there, beautiful girl. Did you have fun on the train? Are you excited about Father Christmas?”
As though she can understand me, Lucie lets out the cutest little chuckle and clumsily claps her hands together.
“Happy Christmas to you too,” Emma says dryly.
“Oh yeah, Happy Christmas,” I say absently, waving behind me as I take Lucie back toward the kitchen. To my niece I coo, “Look at those shiny new teeth. You want some gingerbread?”
“Wes, no!” Emma calls after me, completely aghast. “No sweets!”
I spin back around and stare at her in horror. “Don’t be such a grinch, Em. It’s Christmas!”
“Don’t worry, I’ve hidden all the chocolate,” I hear Devon reassuring my sister.
I let out a wry chuckle, shaking my head. Yeah, like I can’t sniff out chocolate from a mile away.
I glance down at my niece and offer a wide smile. “Don’t worry, kid. I’ve got your back.”
It did take a little while for Mum and Dad—Mum, in particular—to adjust to the reality that Emma had no idea who the father of her baby is, and would therefore be raising her daughter alone. But once Lucie arrived, none of that seemed to matter one bit. They’ve even temporarily relocated to Paris so they can help Emma out with childcare now that she’s back at work.
And it’s definitely helped distract Mum from all those probing questions she had about where my relationship with Devon is heading, so that’s definitely a bonus.
And speaking of, I feel a familiar presence approach behind me, and then Lucie is plucked from my arms. “My turn,” Devon says.
I spin around, my eyes narrowed in a hard glare. “Thief.I wasn’t done fawning over her yet.”
Devon arches an eyebrow at me. “You mean you weren’t done stuffing her full of biscuits yet. You’re going to be one of those uncles who buys her alcohol at fourteen, aren’t you?”
I scoff at that. “Of course not. I’ll make her a fake ID so she can buy it herself.”
Devon just lets out a wry chuckle, shaking his head. “Our kids have no chance, do they?”
Devon
I wake on Christmas morning to the familiar sensation of Wes’s arms around me. It’s been over a year and I still haven’t grown tired of sleeping in his arms. In fact, any night that I’m forced to sleep alone—when I’m away on business, for example—I can barely manage to get a few hours in. My body just doesn’t seem to work that way anymore.
The only thing that’s really changed in the past year is that now we’re basically living at my place. Wes still has his flat “just in case,” but the heatwave back in July pretty much made the decision for us; like most residences in the UK, Wes’s flat doesn’t have A/C, so we spent the week at my townhouse and then just never went back to our old habit of splitting our time between the two.
Admittedly, as much as I love the area, it’s not exactly the most convenient for either of our jobs, so maybe we’ll look for somewhere in the East End at some point. But for right now, this works.
