Epilogue
Colton
Kit toddles across the sand, his baby-like screams ringing through the air as Jamaica Alvarez, my cousin-in-law, and one of the scariest woman I have ever met, chases him around.
Her husband, Santiago, a man I have come to see as family and a very good friend, strolls after them, his daughter Gabby skipping in front while he cuddles his son Luis and smiles indulgently.
The last few months have been a blur of activity with Emma finally throwing in the towel and accepting defeat when it comes to work. She comes in three times a week, half day, because as much as I love my wife and need to make her happy, I need to make sure she is healthy, unstressed and above all else secure.
For Em that is being with Kit, our little boy, and keeping up with demand for the little candle business she started called Gam’s Light. She doesn’t do a booming trade, not because it isn’t popular or that she doesn’t know how to make it more, but because she is content to keep it small and only fills so many orders, preferring to be unencumbered.
Most days, I can find her toddling around the apartment, playing with Kit, cooking or yelling at Mira when she refuses to send her work on the sly.
Yeah, my Emma is a sly, sly woman. Always trying to fudge the deal by taking some work under the table.
Right now we’re both lounging beside the pool, Emma’s pregnant belly still small but making her breasts fill out the top of her bikini nicely. Later, when the kids are asleep and the others are occupied, I’ll take her upstairs to the bedroom of the house I bought in Hawaii, just for her, and show her again why I am the best husband ever.
At least that’s what she tells me.
“You can stop smiling, I hate a bad winner.” She grumbles, sucking on her lip as she glares at me.
“What? I told you it was a girl. You’re the one who insisted on betting on it. Is it my fault I just knew it?” I ask, looking away to hide a grin.
“It’s not fair! You always know. Why don’t I know?” she whines, sitting up to grab the bowl of fruit beside her and nibble on a slice of orange.
Yeah, she eats in front of people now. What broke her phobia was pregnancy, something I never would have anticipated. When she was pregnant with Kit, she’d literally tackle a person to get food if she was hungry and her hunger did not allow for shyness, no sir. She almost bit Buck’s finger when he refused to share his taco and she took matters into her own…teeth.
With this baby, I guess she’s over trying to stay shy Emma. She eats all the time and I can’t say I disapprove, her ass is phenomenal with some extra padding.
“Em, you can’t be right all the time, baby,” I point out while she sniffs and pouts.
“I’m never right. You always win.”
I can’t argue with that and don’t bother trying to lie. I do always win but that’s because I stay one step ahead of my crazy wife at all times to anticipate a disaster.
Duncan, for instance. I fully intended to have him arrested and locked away in a maximum security prison where no one but his cellmates would ever see him again.
The place I had in mind would be a favor that I was owed by a politician I shall not name but has a very keen interest in global warming. I helped on a campaign and he owed me.
Duncan would have disappeared. Would have. Now he’s sitting in a state facility in a wheel chair because my Emma, my sweet angel, snuck out of the hospital and took Buck and a baseball bat with her.
By the time Harley and I found them, there were cops outside the guy’s house, a screaming Duncan and a smiling Emma. No one pressed charges, for reasons I am not at liberty to disclose because I like being with my family and not rotting in jail for bribery.
I know a few things now that I never knew before; no one should ever mess with a mama bear and Emma is one vicious mama bear and, furthermore, Buck taught her to handle that bat. Really well.
“You know, Emma, I love you,” I blurt out, making her smile and melt against me, her orange slice dripping all over my chest.
I don’t need to say anything more because she already knows.
Some days she yells at me that I am a sucky husband, some days she says I’m an asshole but most nights when we’re in bed and playing, she calls me her terrible, dominant boss.
What more could I ask for?
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Bonus books ahead :)
Happy 2018!