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The future I saw that stormy day on the cliffs, watching the angry water devour it…
This is what I saw.
He climbs over the wall, and scoops our squirmy son up, and blows a raspberry into his belly. Drawing out the quietest, most adorable baby giggle ever.
Skyler looks up at me through his inky black lashes, and the power of this moment seizes my lungs, stalling my heart.
“You’re staring,” he whispers, dropping his gaze as Everett burrows in his neck, just like he did me mere minutes ago.
Wrapping an arm around Skyler’s back, ignoring the water seeping through his shirt and dripping down his hot skin, I pull him toward my body, our son tucked securely between our hearts.
“You stared first,” I whisper against his ear.
He shivers, and I feel his cheek flame against mine, hot even through my beard.
Some things never change.
Gangly arms come around our waists, and I glance down at my daughter’s sparkling blue eyes.
I give her a wink, and she squeezes us tighter.
My gaze lifts, finding Mel watching us with reddened eyes.
She shrugs, and rolls her eyes, fighting a rueful smile.
Wrong or right—messy that it is—I know as well as she does that we wouldn’t trade a single, goddamn second of what led us here.
Because we’re here.
All of us.
Happy and whole.
No longer exiled…
Butloved.
* * *
SKYLER
Lightning flashes faintly from beyond the pine trees surrounding the lake.
While sunset is still an hour away, it feels much later with the thick gray storm clouds rolling in, creeping toward the blue horizon pressing against my back.
“Boom,” Everett whispers from where he sits in my lap with his back to my chest, his pudgy legs curled up to his chest.
As if summoned, thunder rumbles quietly from the distance, and he giggles in that soft, shy way of his.
Chuckling quietly, I rub my cheek over his hair. “Boom.”
The lake stretches out before us dark and still. Nolan’s back at the house with Mel, Vance, and her parents, finishing cleaning up. I was going to stay and help—despite everyone’s insistence that the birthday boy doesn’t lift a hand today—but then Everett woke up from his nap, earlier than expected. He was cranky, so I brought him out here to have a bottle and just chill for a bit away from everyone.
The party had ended, and almost everyone had gone home, but that kind of energy clings to a place. I’m pretty drained too.
But so worth it.
Ever since Nolan and I officially got together, he’s made it his mission in life to give me everything I never got to experience before. Like birthday parties that don’t include tuxes and ballgowns, and expensive catering and stringed quartets.
