AllFreeNovel
Share Us
One year since we said,I do.
I’m pretty sure he knocked me up that night.
Tiptoeing into the room, my fingers tingle when I smooth my palm over his bare chest. His skin is hot, but my blood gushes hotter.
It has since the day I set eyes on him.
I still get a little dizzy when I kiss him. “Happy anniversary. I love you.”
“More and more every day.”
Bonus Epilogue
Jake
“Hey, beautiful.” I place the fresh lilies on the grass and crouch while running my fingers over every feature in the photo. “I can’t believe it’s almost sixteen years, Jess.”
The wind picks up, and I swear, I smell the hint of vanilla.
“Jay-Jay is doing good. He’s keeping his grades up. He’s still playing the piano, but he’s traded it in for a very loud electric guitar…and girls. I guess I’m getting a taste of my own medicine. But we’re going to the beach house today, so I think those girls will fall to the wayside for one in particular.”
I know she’s laughing wherever she is.
For an hour, I sit, I talk, I relive memories.
When I stand, I press a kiss to my fingers and place it on the picture. “I love you. I’ll be back soon.”
I feared after Jess died that if the impossible happened, and I found love again, I couldn’t love them as much.
But that’s not how it works.
I never loved one more than the other because when you love like that, it’s everything, it’s all-consuming, it fills every gap, and every injured crack in our interior.
It just is.
And I was lucky enough to find it twice.
***
“Daddy!” Little legs come running toward me from the piano room and my goddamn heart constricts in my chest.
“There’s daddy’s princess.” I scoop her up. Long eyelashes flutter over bright blue eyes.
I’m screwed.
She’s her mother all over again. Three years old and she has me wrapped around her little finger.
The sounds of the piano float through the air.
“Is Mama playing?”
She nods, holding a tiny finger over my lips. “I wanted her to play for me, so we have to be really, really quiet, Daddy.”
She squeals when I lift her onto my shoulders.
I never thought I could find a piano sexy until I watched my wife play one.
She sits there every chance she gets, eyes closed, that beautiful full mouth slightly parted, and she sways as her fingers work their magic, moving at an unnatural pace. Always barefoot, her pink-painted toes press up and down on the pedals, her long legs bare in only sleep shorts, and it takes everything in me to stay in one spot.
