"Hey, Thomas." I reach out my hand to shake his.
"Ackson, Ackson, look, it's a cat!" Lilah says, running to me with her animal balloon.
I bend down to pull her into my arms, and Bella walks up beside me, wrapping her arms around my waist. "Hey," she says softly, and I lean down to kiss her on her head.
"Bella, right?" Kendall asks.
"Yes. Hi, we met once before. I brought over cookies," Bella says.
An awkward silence grows until Lilah pipes in. "I so hunbry."
We all laugh.
"Excuse us, you two. I gotta get my girls fed." I smile at them and say, "It was nice seeing you." I turn to walk away, but Bella smiles at them.
"We should have you two over one of these days. That would be fun."
I think to myself that would not be fun at all.
Thomas, who is clearly not feeling the ‘hell no' vibes both Kendall and I are throwing off, actually agrees with Bella. Giving them a polite nod, I pull my girls to the hot dog stand.
"I hope you realize that is never going to really happen," Bella says quietly as we walk away.
I have no answer, but I am in full agreement, so I just laugh at her.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Bella
We walk into the house with Lilah passed out on Jackson's shoulder. It's way, way past her bed time.
She didn't even open her eyes when I unbuckled her from the car seat. She is down and out for the count.
Making my way upstairs, I walk into her room, watching him place her on the covers. "Undress her or leave her?" She wore her best dress for her Nan today. It's a long, flower print dress that matches her doll's, with black ballerina shoes.
"Angel, the house could shake right now around her, and she wouldn't notice." We both lean down, kissing her goodnight before turning on the night light she sleeps with.
"I can't believe we just left Brenda at her house without forcing our way in," I tell him while taking off my shoes.
He looks at me with one eyebrow cocked up. "Angel, she said she would shoot me with my own weapon if I walked into her house." He laughs and adds, "I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure she would do it, too."
I let out a little laugh, rolling my eyes at him. "Like you can't defend yourself." I walk to him, placing my hands on his chest, getting up on my tippy toes. "You're so big and strong." I continue to joke with him.
He rubs my arms with his hands, and just the feel of his hands on me makes my heart beat faster each and every single time.
"I'll show you big and strong." He picks me up and my legs automatically wrap around his waist.
"Yeah," I tell him while one of my hands snakes around his neck and the other one strokes his cheek. He hasn't shaved in two days, so his stubble is long. I lean in, placing a kiss on his lips.
His beard pricks my lips like little needles. "You really need to shave. It's starting to get dangerous to kiss you." I rub his beard with one finger.
"You know you love my beard," he says as he kisses my neck. The sensation of his beard along my skin is rough and tingly, a sensation I've come to love a bit more each time I feel it.
"Hmmm, really?"
"Remember the last time I ate your pussy? Your thighs had a lovely razor burn, and every time you saw those marks, you jumped my bones," he reminds me, and he isn't lying. The thought of being marked by him was a huge turn on.
"It's not my fault. You made me into this." I laugh at him.
He places me on my feet, and I look at him in confusion. "I thought we were going to have a repeat of the performance." I'm almost whining like Lilah does when she doesn't get her way.
"Wait here," he tells me before walking over to the closet and pulling out his duffle bag.
I can't see what he's doing, but he comes back with a smile on his face. He pushes me until I'm sitting on the bed and then kneels in front of me.
"My sweet, Bella," he begins. My heart starts beating just a bit faster, not sure what he is going to say. Did seeing Kendall make him change his mind? What if he doesn't love me? That thought alone has tears forming in my eyes.
"Did you know I watched you that first night you went outside to watch the stars with Lilah?" I shake my head no, because I had no idea, I thought I was invisible.
"I watched you from my house, darkness all around me, all around you, but even then I knew I was watching an angel."
He grabs both my hands in his. "I kept thinking I had to meet you. I kept wondering who you were. Then you opened the door the next morning." He laughs at the memory. "I only saw your head. The rest of you was hidden behind the door. I remember thinking you really did look like an angel."
"You were very pushy," I add in, thinking back to those first days.
"You were a pain in my ass, even then. I came home and you were doing the one thing I asked you not to do. I remember thinking, of course I'm going to fall for someone who would bust my balls. And I sure did."
I glare at him. "I don't bust your balls, Jackson."
"I fell in love with you while I made sand castles with your daughter. I fell in love with your daughter the minute she asked me to save her from monsters." His voice is rough, husky. "From that moment, I vowed to always do what I could do to protect and care for you both." He reaches into his pocket and takes out a black box.
He raises one leg off the floor. "Bella Cartwright, I never want to know what a tomorrow will be like without you in it. I never want to wake up in a bed without you in it. I don't want to go through this life without you by my side. I want to love you. I want to cherish you. I want to honor you. I want to grow old with you sitting next to me in that swing watching stars."
A tear rolls down my face, which he wipes away.
"Marry me?"
I look at this man with the crystal blue eyes, who has personally chased off every single one of my demons. The man who showed me what it was like to love and to be loved. The man who shows me tomorrow will be better than today.
"I used to watch your house after that first day, too, just to get a little glimpse of you," I tell him shyly.
"Before I even knew you existed, though, I used to dream of a man with blue eyes who would chase away the bad that was in my life," I tell him. "I fell in love with you as you built sand castles with my daughter. I fell in love with you when you told her you would build it so high no monsters could get her."
I lean in to kiss him, because I can't not kiss him. "If I say yes, does this mean you'll actually move all of your stuff over here?" I ask him with a sly smile.
"Angel, I'm already moved in. You just didn't realize it," he jokes, and looking around, I actually see all of his stuff is here. Even his television. "Well then, I guess we have no choice."
"You got that one right. You're stuck with me," he says while slipping the ring on my finger.
Tears of joy run down my face as I look at the ring that will show the world I am his. Knowing everyone who sees it will know I'm his, but more importantly, they'll know he's mine.
I kiss him with everything I have and wind up knocking him down to the floor.
"When can we get married?" I ask him, not even interested in waiting.
"How is next week?" he asks me while tucking the hair behind my ears.
"Perfect."
It really is fucking perfect.
I'm in the middle of the house that was just a shell when I moved in, but it's a loving home for our family now.
We have both been to the gates of hell, but together we fought our way back.
Back to life, back to happiness, back to love.
Epilogue
Seven years later
"DDDDAAAAAAADDDDDD!!!" I hear being yelled as soon as I walk into the house.
It's like they have a tracker on me. I throw my keys on the table by the door and make my way in the direction of the noise, to the kitchen.
"I'm home," I say, walking over to the sink and kissing my wife on her neck as I wrap my arms around her.
"You guys are gross!" I hear from the table beside us. Lilah is doing her homework at the table while her brother tries to color next to her.
Lilah is now ten going on twenty, and Frankie is almost five.
Little Frankie, as we call him, is named after my dad and is the spitting image of me. "Yeah, Dad, you gwoss," he says while coloring his picture, his tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration.
Lilah's iPad beeps with a notification of a message coming in. She quickly reads it and then erases it. I look at Bella, who just shrugs then looks away smiling.
"Who is that?" I ask, pointing to the iPad.
"It's Jeremy," Frankie says, not taking his face off the picture he's working on.
"Who is Jeremy?" I ask Lilah, then look at Bella for the answer to my question.
The iPad dings again. This time Lilah gathers all her stuff up, placing it in her schoolbag. "Okay, I'll be back."