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And he was right.
I pick little Jack up, figuring for the evening he’ll be just fine in his little blue cop t-shirt and his squishy white diaper. I hold him in the crook of my arm and walk down the hall to the door. I have to chuckle. All the time I spent agonizing at the gym and all I really needed to do was have a child; it’s like a free, 24-7 workout. I feel great.
I glance at the clock, and, with his ever-reliable precision, Brady comes through the door at 5:07.
“There she is,” he says, beaming at me. I swear every time he sees me it’s like he’s been away for a month, at least judging by the smile on his face. He hangs his coat on the rack by the door, scrapes his boots on the mat, and comes over, taking us both in one of his big hugs. “How was your day?” he asks, kissing Jack on the top of his head. “What’d I miss?”
I point to my cheek. “Well, for starters…”
He laughs and gives me a peck. “What’ve you two been up to? Causing trouble?”
It’s one of his favorite lines, implying so many things. Jack. Brady’s job. My, what he’s come to term, “friskiness.” As if he’s not the one climbing in the shower with me every morning, lingering till I just about have to kick him out or he’ll be late for work. Something he seems to never quite understand is sort of important.
“Nothing too wild,” I say. “This one has decided he doesn’t need to nap anymore, apparently.”
Brady reaches over, plucking Jack from my arm with a gentleness that is so endearing. “He just wants to see his old pop,” he says. “Every time I come home he’s snoozing and we miss out on all our male bonding.”
I laugh. “That’s what it is, huh? Well, don’t go bonding too much. We’ve already got one wild man in the house; I don’t know if I’m ready for two.”
“Oh, two is nothing.” And I know what he’s going to say before he even does. “You’ll be fine when there’s four of ‘em. You settled me down, after all.”
I just shake my head, smiling at the idea because, as always, it doesn’t sound too bad at all. “I settled you down, huh? Is that why we woke up the baby last night?”
He looks at me in faux shock, covering Jack’s ears. “Madam, not in front of the baby.”
I roll my eyes. “Coming from you… are you sure you’re the same man who decked a police officer and proposed within a fifteen-minute period?”
“Hey, now,” he says, pretending to not enjoy the story although, for me, it’s one of my favorites. “I was just doing things that needed to be done. I never said I wouldn’t.”
“That is very true,” I say. “You are a man of your word.” I sit down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table, still always a little surprised we even have a kitchen big enough for a table. But when Brady had said he’d been frugal, the man hadn’t lied. After the wedding, a destination one that he’d planned entirely on his own, though I still wonder if St. Thomas wasn’t partly appealing because he knew Margaret refuses to fly, we’d come back to yet another surprise.
He was tired of apartments, he said. Tired of having to share walls. He didn’t want us trying to climb over each other and fit two people’s worth of stuff in a place that could barely hold one. I’d told him he didn’t seem to mind being close before, and he’d given me that half-grin, knowing I was entirely right.
But, good man that he is, he’d apparently already started the hunt, surreptitiously putting some probies on the job so that by the time we got back from our honeymoon, he’d narrowed down the list to three options, and this two story Tudor on the edge of town was like he’d built it from my own imagination. “Figured if we’re gonna stretch out, we oughtta do it right,” he’d said the first time we’d walked through the door. “Looks like we got some bedrooms to fill,” was what he’d said after carrying me across the threshold. It was a silly gesture, something I told him didn’t even make sense considering the timing. But he’d insisted, as he always does, on making me feel like I was in a storybook.
And now, here we are, only a few miles from the place we’d first met, in a place that was finally ours. Our home. Starting our family. Being us, but just a slightly bigger version.
I look over at the two of them. Jack is laying across Brady’s chest, the baby’s tiny head on his father’s shoulder, eyes peacefully closed.
“Now that seems like male bonding at its finest,” I say softly, gesturing to Jack.
Brady smiles and holds up one finger, then slips off to the nursery to put him down. It’s a side of the man I wonder how many people get to see. He always jokes about his Friendly Cop persona, but, without quite realizing it, I think it’s starting to take over more and more. Maybe it’s hokey, but I guess love will do that to a person.
I walk over to the window looking out on the front lawn. His car and mine are in the driveway. There are actual rose bushes lining the walk. My breath fogs the glass a little and I smile. I didn’t even know what happiness was before.
I hear him pad across the kitchen floor and feel his hands on my waist.
“You know,” he whispers in my ear. “We need our bonding time, too.” He nips at my earlobe.
I turn around in his arms and lean back against the window. A flashback to the hotel room brings a smile to my face and I lean in and kiss him, murmuring against his lips. “I’m not nervous this time, buster.” I lick his lower lip. “But maybe you should be.”
He laughs and scoops me up. “Sounds perfect.”
Extended Epilogue
Brady
She pulls in at the same time I do and, through the car windows, she gives me that ornery smile of hers. After a decade, it still makes my heart rate pick up.
