“Ha! No. But I’m hoping you’ll like it just as much.” She grabbed her tiny purse off the table and opened it, pulling out a bunch of folded up papers. Her hands shook slightly as she handed them over.
As soon as I unfolded the document, my jaw dropped. Tears burned the back of my eyes as I read the first page over.
“Adoption papers? Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m very serious. I mean, only if this is what you want.”
“Hell yeah, beauty!” I shouted, jumping from my chair and dragging her with me. “Hell yeah, I want this.” I dipped her backwards and kissed the shit out of her. My girl just made my day. Hell, she’d just made my entire life.
“So you’re happy?” she asked me once the kiss was broken.
“Ecstatic, baby. Never been so happy in all my life.”
“I love you, Brett.”
“Love you, too, beauty.”
Life was perfect. I had my future wife in my arms and we’d be going home later to tuck our kids into bed. I was living the dream.
It was worth the wait.
Five Years Later
“Oh, for the love of…” Emmy muttered from her perch at the picnic table. “Matthew, stop pulling Chloe’s hair!”
“But, Momma! She started it!”
“I’ll get him,” Luke stated, planting a kiss on his wife’s cheek before he stood to pull his son off Savannah and Jeremy’s daughter.
“I swear,” Savvy huffed. “Those two are gonna kill each other before the hit puberty.”
“Nah,” Stacia chirped. “I’m putting my money on those two getting married one day. Just you wait.”
“Like hell, Jeremy grumbled as he took a pull of his beer.
“You sayin’ my kid’s not good enough for yours?” Luke asked defensively as he made his way back to the table.
“No, what I’m sayin’ is Chloe’s never dating anyone. Ever.”
Mickey let out a laugh as Jeremy glared in her direction. “Good luck with that. She’s already a hardcore flirt, just like her mom.”
Savannah gave Mickey a playful shove before stating, “Well then, she comes by it honestly. And like you have room to talk. With you and Ben as his parents, Conner’s destined to be a tatted-up lawyer when he grows up.” She gave a nod in the direction of Ben and Mickey’s three-year-old son. “He’s already doodling on his arms with sharpies.”
“Dad!” Cameron called as he and Callie ran over to where their parents sat with all their aunts and uncles. “Uncle Trevor’s hogging the ball again.”
Everyone laughed as Lizzy let out a frustrated breath. “Every damn time,” she complained as she passed her one-year-old baby girl, Maggie, over to Stacia so she could try to wrangle her husband. Maggie was their second child. They had a four-year-old boy who Trevor insisted be named Merle. After five months of silent treatment and no sex whatsoever, he finally broke down and agreed to name their unborn son Rick.
“We gonna have to ban flag football from our Sunday family day?” Gavin shouted after her as he bounced his and Stacia’s eight-month-old daughter, Delilah, on his knee.”
“Wouldn’t do any good,” she yelled back as she made her way over to where Trevor stood with the rest of the kids. “He’d find a way to act like a big-ass child no matter what!”
The gang burst into laughter at the sound of Trevor’s whiny, “What’d I do now?” from across the park.
“They kicking a lot today?” Callie asked, rubbing on her mother’s protruding belly as Kenzie leaned back in Brett’s arms with her feet resting on the bench. It was her third pregnancy. Only about a year after getting married four and a half years ago, Brett and Kenzie welcomed their son, Cole, into the world. The second pregnancy was unexpected, but no less welcome. And when they discovered they’d be having twins, they were on cloud nine. They were also done. Five kids was more than enough. Kenzie had even gone as far as to threaten Brett with bodily harm if he ever tried to knock her up again.
“Like soccer players, honey pot,” Kenzie answered her daughter.
“I can’t wait to meet them,” Callie said in awe, smiling up at her mom and dad.
“You’re such a great big sister, ladybug,” Brett told her, kissing her on the top of her head.
“Thanks, Daddy.” She grinned lovingly at Brett before she and Cam took back off to play football with—a hopefully better behaved—Trevor.
As the gang watched their little ones run around the park, all giggling and happy, each one sent up a prayer of thanks for the life they’d all been granted. They had it all. Friends who had become their family in the quaint little town of Cloverleaf.