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“I’m the luckiest son of a gun to still have you by my side,” Todd says. “I do love you, you know. I mean every frickin’ word—I love you so much, it hurts…”
“I love you, too, baby,” I reply and deepen the kiss before pulling away to face John again with an awkward half-smile. “So, yeah… it started out as a lie… but it turned into something real, and we just… we just thought you deserve to know the whole truth…”
John thinks about it for a hot second, then lets a heavy, raspy sigh roll out of his chest. “To be honest, it’s a much more interesting story than having met your wife on HeartMatch,” he begrudgingly concedes. “Miss Piper, give me the papers and let’s get this over with.”
I squeal with pure joy. “You won’t regret it.”
Todd gasps with relief. “Thank you, John.”
“You two deserve each other,” he says as he scribbles his name along the marked dotted lines. With a trembling hand, Todd takes the fountain pen from John and adds his signature to the deal, making it final and irrevocable. “Oddly enough, you literally deserve each other and the five kids coming your way, all of them at once. Nothing is sweeter and harder than karma; that much is obvious…”
I can’t help but laugh, though I have to admit, he’s right.
What comes next isn’t going to be easy. It will be painful and scary and a multitude of new and crazy experiences to unravel at once. But I won’t be alone anymore. I will have Todd by my side. Elliot will have the chance to grow up with not only a father, but a bunch of brothers and sisters, too.
“If you’ll excuse us, John… Becky and I have some catching up to do,” Todd says as he takes the papers and slides them back into the legal folder, which he then hands over to Piper with a huge grin drawn across his handsome face. “You know what to do with this. And by all means, please, make sure John here has a few drinks from the good whiskey I keep behind the marketing shelf… Oh, and book us for a celebratory dinner at Rico’s for Friday night, will you?” He looks to John again. “Please, do me that honor.”
“Sure. You’re buying, considering I’ve just made you a ridiculously rich man.”
Todd laughs with all his heart. “We’ll spring for the caviar and the priciest champagne, then, but you’ll have to excuse me and Becky for now…”
It’s not like anybody can object. I end up laughing as he yanks me away from the desk and out of his office. Within minutes, we’re hiding in the elevator like horny teenagers as we head for the ground floor, having left John and Piper behind to probably chuckle and pass dry jokes about us. We deserve it. I don’t care, though.
I’m holding the man of my dreams so close to my chest that my heart is about to burst.
“I mean it,” he says it again, darkness swirling sweetly in his eyes. “I love you, Becky. I never thought I would; I never imagined you’d get to me the way you did, but I mean it. Please, don’t push me away… Let me be a part of your life. Let me be a good man to you and a good father to our children.”
“What about your travels?”
“Thailand isn’t going anywhere. We can visit it together someday,” he replies, cupping my face as he pulls me into a soft and delicate kiss. He presses his lips against mine, and I’m putty in his hands as I dissolve into him, as I give up and scatter into a billion little flecks of light and love.
By the time we reach his place, my clothes no longer make sense.
By the time we land in his bed and he makes sweet and endless love to me, the whole world disappears and I know that this right here, this is precisely where I needed to be. This right here is where I will always be for as long as I can draw a breath and look him in the eyes. I have found true love when I least expected it
Something tells me we’ll be good to each other.
We’ll be goodforeach other, just the way we are.
EPILOGUE
BECKY
Two years ago, if you’d told me I would be getting married on a sapphire-and-gold beach in Bali, I’d have laughed so hard…
But as my feet dig into the warm sand and as the sun kisses my skin, as my boho-style wedding dress flows freely and my hair dances in the breeze, as I hold a bouquet of white roses and walk toward my future husband, I realize… this is exactly how it was supposed to happen.
It’s just us and the kids, my sisters, my mom and dad, Piper, and Vincent. No one from Todd’s family wanted to be here to celebrate with us, but it’s okay. We have six kids now to keep us both busy and uproariously happy. My little man Elliot, now almost five, is the esteemed ring bearer, walking ahead of me, our golden wedding bands atop a decorative satin pillow.
The pastor awaits as I step toward him and Todd. Todd, my beloved Todd, so nervous-looking and devastatingly handsome in his white shirt and linen pants. We opted for a vagabond kind of wedding. We flew only our closest people with us and kept everyone else out of the loop. John and Tamara were kind enough to send us a wedding gift for the ages by arranging our honeymoon itinerary—it’s going to be insane and crazy-fun.
Todd wanted the kids to tag along, but Laura and Callie wouldn’t hear of it.
“Here comes the bride,” Mom says, tears flowing from her tired eyes. She’s been feeling a lot better, and while Dad hasn’t been in the best shape of his life, he’s still strong enough to be here for his daughter.
“Gorgeous as always,” he says, offering me his arm so that he might give me away.
Life has been sweet since I gave my heart to Todd. What’s happening now is merely the natural progression of our love and our time spent together. I can’t help but stop for a moment to just look around at all that surrounds me. The beauty, the love, the absolute tranquility, and our five gorgeous children clinging to their aunties’ tanned legs. Three boys and two girls. Taylor, Brandon, Henry, Lucy, and Alaina. Five bundles of joy and noise and laughter and sleepless nights.
