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She turned her head upward to look at me. “Did you ever expect things to turn out like this?”
“Never in my wildest dreams. I thought I was destined to be a single dad forever, and I had come to terms with that. I was okay with the possibility of being a one-parent show. I never imagined you coming into my life, but God, I’m so grateful that you did. I cannot picture my life without you now.”
She leaned up and kissed me softly on the lips.
“How about you?” I asked. “When you offered to be my surrogate, did you ever imagine that we’d end up like this, that you’d be my partner, my lover, helping to raise our four babies?”
Bella let out a short little laugh. “No, I had no idea. I’m not going to lie, I’ve always had a crush on you and part of me dreamt of us ending up together, but I never thought it was possible. I was planning to earn the money and go to school, I wasn’t even thinking of dating and babies yet. I was so focused on my career and now—”
“What?” I asked.
“Well, now, I’m rethinking what I want from life.”
That raised an eyebrow. “Really? You don’t want to study journalism?”
“I still want to be a writer, that much is true, but I have some other ideas in the works. I’ve been considering taking some time, and not going back to school until the babies are a little older. It gives me a chance to think through my options.”
“Well whatever you decide to do, just know that I am going to support you, one hundred percent.”
She kissed me again before relaxing against my chest. “Thanks, Gabe,” she said. “I just can’t wait until our family is together, all of us, Vincent included.”
“Soon, sweetheart. Very, very soon.”
* * *
“Elio, meet your sisters,”Bella cooed as she held the baby close. Ava was holding Lucy and I had Ari in my arms. We had our hands full, but we were a happy bunch and that’s all that mattered.
Roman and Dante were also there for Elio’s homecoming. After a brief investigation into the shooting at Tony’s house, Roman was released from custody, all pending charges dropped. Dante would hold the babies, but Roman was still too afraid, saying he feared he might break them. He liked watching them from a slight distance, and I caught him smiling at them a lot. He seemed to want to be in their lives, and as long as he walked the straight and narrow path, I was happy to have him.
“So now that things have calmed down a bit, maybe we should discuss Dad’s funeral,” Roman said. “Whenever you’re ready, of course.”
Being busy with the babies, along with everything else, made it easy at times to forget that my dad had died. Sometimes I wanted to forget everything and tried extremely hard to do so, but I knew that it wasn’t only about me. My brothers wanted closure, and Dad had other family that had been asking about a service.
“Sure, I think we can plan something. You two set it up and I’ll be there,” I said. “As long as you have it here in St. Louis. I’m not going out of town again anytime soon.”
“Understood,” Roman said. “Are you doing okay about all that?”
I was surprised Roman was checking in on me. We were never a family that really talked about our feelings.
“I am. There’s still a lot of resentment and anger, questions I wish I had answers to, but I think I’m finally at peace with everything. How about you?”
Roman shrugged. That was his answer. He was going to leave it at that.
“What are your plans now that you’re out of the family business?”
“Hell if I know,” Roman laughed. “But I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”
“My security company could always use guys as good as the two of you,” I said, looking over at Dante. “I have my hands full these days, I could use some help running it.”
“I’ll give that a thought, thanks, man.”
“Me too,” Dante added.
There was something else I wanted to talk to my brothers about but wasn’t sure how to go about it. I’d already discussed things with Ava and she was fine with it, but she also didn’t feel the same way about mom’s property as my brothers and I did, she had less attachment to it.
“Since the deal fell through and we have mom’s property again, I was wondering...” I looked over at Bella. We had already discussed it very briefly, and I knew where she stood, but I wanted to be sure we were all in on this, “...well, I was thinking Bella and I might live there, raise our kids out there, if you two didn’t mind.”
“Yeah, I don’t mind,” Dante said. “It’s a bit too rural for my liking, I prefer staying in the city.”
