EPILOGUE
Sloane - 5 days
The slamming on the door made my entire body jolt.
I had gotten used to many things lately.
I hadn't gotten used to that.
Having people unexpectedly at the door.
The neighbors I had in the city minded their own business. I couldn't have picked them out of a lineup, or them me. The only time someone was at my door was when I buzzed them up because I was expecting them.
It was startling to never know when someone might show up.
Even if I knew who it was.
"Guess Billy's magic is complete," Gunner called in from the open door of the balcony where he was standing, taking a work call.
I shot up from my place at my easel, going to the door to unlock it, stepping back when I opened the door because I knew Auddie was the storming in sort.
Which was exactly what she did.
With a little red wagon that belonged to her daughters loaded down with cardboard boxes.
"Are those full of books?" I gasped, thinking she was going to get five or six extra copies made, not close to one-hundred.
"Well, our group has about thirty kids. And then I figured that if they knew anyone not in the group, they might want some. And I am going to give a few copies to the library and the girls' school. And just have a few laying around and stuff for guests. You'll understand when you see them. Billy worked with me a bit to get it all perfect. And they are. Perfect. Look!" she demanded, thrusting a book into my hands.
There it was.
A real, bound, children's hardcover book.
With the cover I had designed.
The title.
Auddie's name.
And mine.
Well, sort of mine.
The fake me.
Sloane Livingston.
My fingers moved over the cover with something I could only call wonder before I flipped open the first page, seeing the title with all that copyright mumbo jumbo on the back side before the story - and my pictures - started.
"Wow."
"Right?" Auddie asked, reaching for another copy to fawn over as well. "It's so beautiful. It's like we're the real deal, y'know? Author and illustrator!"
"Well, technically... we are," I told her with a smile.
"I guess we are," she agreed, nodding.
"I'm getting a signed copy, right?" Gunner asked, moving in behind me.
Auddie and I shared a look, something hard to explain, but we both somehow understood.
This was the start of something.
We both felt it.
We said nothing then.
But years later, we would both tell each other about the feeling we felt right at that moment - that moment before we signed a book for the first time together.
Gunner - 2 weeks
So this was her place.
I couldn't claim to be surprised.
When the cab pulled up to the curb, all I could really do was nod and think Yeah, this seems to fit.
Big, expensive, in a nice area. The people who milled in and out were dressed much like Sloane always would, so lost in their phones that they didn't notice a damn thing around them. Not even the doorman who held the doors open for them.
Even the hallways and elevators screamed money. Everything updated, modern, but comfortable.
"One second!" Sloane's voice called as I waited outside her door, hearing some slamming going on inside, likely from the kitchen since she promised me lasagne. With chopped meat and sausage. "Ow," she hissed before there was another slam and a shuffle as she moved across her apartment. "Sorry. I was burning myself," she told me, holding up a finger that was red, but not blistered. "You better appreciate that lasagne. My hands are precious," she informed me, taking a step back, inviting me in.
Somehow, the space was mostly neutral-colored, but also screamed feminine. The walls were an off-white. The furniture was white. The couch was a tufted beige color. The accent carpet even had various shades of whites, creams, and a small hint of gold in it.
Upscale. Feminine. Expensive.
It suited her.
I wondered if she would feel the same way about my house.
I had never given the place much thought before. It was a place I slept, kept my shit, took care of. But like... shit that needed fixing, tasks that needed doing. Like mowing the lawn, raking the leaves, fixing the front path.
I never painted a wall inside except the bathroom since I had to rip some of the old tile off of it because it was molded when I moved in.
I had some furniture, but not any personal touches, any knickknacks, anything that said I really lived there.
"Nice place, duchess," I said, pulling her in for a quick kiss before following my nose to her kitchen. "That looks great."
"Don't touch it," she warned, slapping my hand as I tried to peel the tin foil away. "That is for dinner. In your place."
"We could hang here tonight instead."
"No. We are coming back here after the weekend," she reminded me.
I knew this.
We had an entire month planned out.
Planning out time wasn't exactly my style, but it was - as it would turn out - necessary.
And it was her style.
I learned something else about Sloane.
Apparently, she slept with her day planner.
Literally.
She had told me that over the phone after I had dirty-talked her the night before and we started talking about our schedules, and she said she had to find her planner under the mess of her blankets.
So then she sat there and debated weekdays and weekends with me until we had it all figured out a month in advance.
There wasn't - it would seem - room for playing it fast and loose.
"You knew very well that the lasagne wasn't going to get eaten here," she added, grabbing two long sleeves of tin foil, something I imagined was garlic bread.
"You could have cooked it at my place."
"Then we'd be eating even later," she reminded me.
"Got a point there," I agreed. "So where are all the bags?" I asked, looking around.
"I have one bag. And one small toiletry bag."
"Plus your purse, that makes three. I think that qualifies as all the bags. You're not bringing any art shit?" I asked, locating the bags that clearly were meant for clothes and shampoo, no room for easels or sketchpads.
"I was looking into it. Navesink Bank just put in a huge craft store. In the A&P plaza," she informed me, impressing me with her obvious research because there was no way she could have known about the A&P since it went out two years before, sat vacant, then finally got turned into the craft store she was talking about.
"Yeah, they did," I agreed, watching as she fiddled with the ends of the foil on the lasagne even though they were all already crimped down perfectly. Nervous energy. "Were you thinking of stocking up there, and storing them in my spare room, so you don't have to keep lugging a ton of shit back and forth?"
"I mean, I was thinking that... until I can get a place... it would really..."
"Duchess, relax," I cut her off, smiling at her obvious discomfort. "I think that's a good idea. We won't have time to drop by tonight, but we can hit it after breakfast tomorrow if you want. I'll show you around the town some more."
"That'd be great. It would be nice to know my way around in case you ever got called away."
We'd had that talk on the drive back across the country. About my job. About what it entailed, how unpredictable it could be, how it could take me away for weeks at a time sometimes.
She'd taken it better than most would.
I've been on my own since I was barely more than a teenager, Gunner. I will be fine for a few weeks here and there.
She would too.
She wasn't just saying that.
She would occupy her time with work or with her drawing.
And she wouldn't be resentful for it.
It was a freeing thing to realize that.
It made life easier.
It made building a relationship easier.
Since that was what we were clearly doing.
"Alright. I think I'm ready," she said, lifting the cookie sheet with the garlic bread sitting on top of the lasagne.
So I grabbed her shit, and we hit the road.
Sloane - 2 hours later
I had no idea what to expect of Gunner's place.
I knew ahead of time that he owned a house, not an apartment, because he thought it was ridiculous to pay another man's mortgage. And he liked having a yard.
Why?
I wasn't sure.
He didn't have a dog or kids to use it.
But when I had pressed, he had just shrugged and said he was used to the work, having grown up on a farm.
From the outside, there wasn't much to differentiate it from many of the other houses in the neighborhoods - all what one might call a 'starter house,' or maybe even an 'empty nest house' since they were all low ranches with two or three bedrooms, two baths, and smallish living and dining areas. They all had large picture windows out front, one-car garages, and about a quarter of an acre each.
His was an off-white color with brick halfway up, a gray roof, and black shutters.
And, well, the inside was very similar.
Meaning bland.
Impersonal.
The front door led straight into the living and dining combo. To the left, the living. There was a black TV cabinet with a flatscreen on top, a scuffed coffee table, and a well-loved brown leather couch.
The dining space had a table that I would bet my brand on came straight out of a box store, too perfect to have been made on anything other than an assembly line.
The kitchen joined off the side of the dining room, butting up to the living space, but completely cut off.
In there, the tile on the floor was broken off in pieces, the countertops looked straight out of the nineties, and there wasn't a single thing out of place. Not even a rogue coffee pod from his Keurig on the counter.
I guess maybe that was a military thing - the cleaning. It was likely drilled into him early on. And then was a habit he never thought about breaking. Had he any personal touches lying around, it might not even have jumped out at me.
"And down here is the bedroom," he told me, going on through the dining room again to the hall at the right of the house, leading me past a hall bathroom, a small, empty bedroom, then the master.
Much like the rest of the house, it was bare. A dresser. Another TV. Two nightstands. A king-sized bed with plain blue sheets and comforter.
To the side, a door was open to a typical bathroom from the fifties when this house was likely built, a shower/tub combo, cabinet sink, and toilet. The towels were white. The shower curtain was white.
"How long have you lived here?" I asked, looking around as he placed my luggage on the floor near the closet.
"Couple years."
"So... you're just a fan of aged-white walls then?" I asked, smiling when he looked at his walls like he had never seen them before.
"Never thought about it really. Kinda what I'm used to."
"Well, you could maybe get used to, and I know this is an extreme idea... but colors."
"Alright, smartass. We can paint."
We.
That certainly didn't escape me.
It wasn't the first time he had used it either.
There was no fear there for him.
Meanwhile, I had this tendency to do verbal gymnastics to avoid using the w-word. Just because things were so new. Because I was quite aware of the fact that I wasn't great with knowing what to say and when. Because neither Gunner nor I were on familiar ground.
"Any preferences?" I asked, looking around, liking the idea of giving his home some personality. He certainly had enough of it himself; his house should have reflected that.
"Not that clean-line, minimalist, modern crap. I like things comfortable."
"I can do comfortable," I agreed with a nod.
"Oh, yeah?" he asked, looking down at my feet. Which were in heels. High ones. Ones he would likely charmingly call Tiffany or something equally as ridiculous, having not a bit of an idea about designers. Which, honestly, was refreshing to me. I was around that at work. It was nice to get away from it outside of that.
"Hey! You were the one who insisted on showing up at my apartment at five. I didn't have time to change into anything else."
I had gotten into that habit.
After Carson City.
After realizing that jeans and a tee were a lot more comfortable than blouses and slacks.
It wouldn't fly at work, and it wasn't the image I wanted to project there, but at home, around Gunner? I found I liked letting my hair down a bit.
"And go ahead and go HAAM on that guest room, duchess. If that's gonna be your studio, it should have you all over it."
My studio.
It was odd to feel wonder at those words.
I did, after all, have a large apartment in Manhattan and a business that had a giant office. I had plenty of spaces that were my own.
But the word studio did something to me, it unsurfaced something I had tried to bury as a teen when my mother had done her best - and somewhat succeeded - in dashing my dreams of being an artist.
"That's a good look," Gunner said, head ducked to the side as he watched me.
"What?"
"Hope," he said easily.
Hope.
I guess it was that.
Hope.
It was new for me.
But I had a feeling I was going to get used to it.
Gunner - 2 months
Mateo was pretty much Sloane 2.0.
I couldn't really tell if that was a good thing or not.
I guess it was good in that it allowed Sloane to take a step back, that she had more time to live her life, to spend with me, to work on her art, to just be a person.
But if I thought Sloane worked too hard before, Mateo put her to fucking shame. Maybe it was because she had just given him a lot of power, and he was trying to prove himself.
I had a feeling it was more than that, though.
Because the word that came to mind when you met him was hungry. It was the exact same thing that allowed Sloane to rise as she had in her life.
It was admirable.
But it also meant that when Sloane didn't pick up her phone - because we had been fucking in the shower - he showed up at the door, let himself in, and launched into some work issue as though we weren't both mostly-naked, clad only in towels, Sloane's hair dripping down her shoulders as he paced her living room, ranting about some swatches from France that were delayed or some shit.
And then Sloane said something that, in her past life, I doubt would have ever even occurred to her to say.
"Mateo, relax. It will all shake out."
Shake out.
That wasn't her talk.
That was me talk.
"Shake out!" Mateo exploded, literally throwing up his hands, pacing all over again. "'Shake out,' she says!" he hissed to the universe at large.
"Okay," Sloane said, turning to me, holding back a smile. "Please tell me I wasn't that bad," she said, eyes dancing.
"I could. But then I'd be lying," I told her, chuckling when she swatted me in the chest. "You gotta do something about him before he has a fucking conniption."
So then I got to watch one high-strung workaholic try to calm down another.
I was half-pissed there wasn't popcorn and Twizzlers being sold for this shit.
But, I realized as I watched them, that some shit, it happened for a reason.
I had never been someone who subscribed to beliefs like that, who put stock in the idea of fate and shit.
But even a skeptic would have to start putting two and two together.
If Sloane had never seen a man lose his life, had never done the right thing, had never been punished for it, had never hired security that failed her, but pointed her in my direction, this never would have been possible.
She would have stayed in the same place for her whole life.
And, well, so would have I.
So maybe, just this once, I could believe in it.
Sloane - 5 months
"What?" I hissed into the phone, sure I misheard her. It was loud there in Gunner's office, with all his people gathered, talking loudly about someone named Fenway. Who everyone had very strong opinions on. And not a single one of them was positive.
"You heard me," Auddie insisted.
"No. I don't think I did. It sounded like you said that your book is getting published."
"Our book is getting published!" she half-screamed into my ear.
I don't know how to describe the feeling inside at those words. It was a mix of wonder, shock, elation, and a healthy dose of disbelief.
Because in what universe was some book two women who had met while one was in 'witness protection on steroids' worked on casually for her daughters be getting published.
"You mean like with a publishing house?" I asked to clarify. Anyone could publish nowadays with a computer and an account online. Whether that was good or bad was up to interpretation. It would also somewhat sway the feelings inside if that was the case.
"Yes, dummy. With a publishing house. And an agent. And an editor. And book signings and, ah! I can't even believe it myself."
"Wait... how did this happen?" I asked, shaking my head.
"Well, I handed out the copies to the people in Margo's group. And, apparently, Michelle - she's the one with two sons with autism," she explained even though I had never heard the woman's name before. That was a funny quirk of Auddie's - she thought everyone knew everyone. Maybe because she did. "Anyway, she loved it. And she has a cousin who is an agent. So she asked if she could send her a copy. I just thought it was sweet, y'know. I didn't think anything would come from it. Or I would have asked you first. But any who, lo and behold, a few months later, I get a call from Michelle's cousin Tamara who said she absolutely loved it, that there was a huge market for this kind of book, that she would be interested in working with us to bring it to market. I'm pretty sure I half-deafened her with my scream," she added, sounding not the least bit remorseful about it.
"That is so awesome," I said, smiling even amongst the loud argument going on around me. Something about the wife of a Cuban drug lord.
Life could be funny that way, I found.
Success often came when you were least expecting it, when you had all but given up on it.
It liked to blindside you like that.
For a fuller effect, it seemed.
I'd had that moment when I had gotten a call from an actual, real-life A-list celebrity about my handbags, asking me when my line was going to come out.
Everything changed for me then.
So I understood Auddie deafening her new agent.
This was that moment for her.
"I can't wait to tell the girls when they get home. Oh, hell. I might just go pull them out of school, and take them for ice cream," she rushed to say, sounding like she was bouncing with excitement. "Oh, and she was wondering if we could do another."
"Another?" I asked, brows drawn together. That didn't usually happen, I didn't think, a publisher wanting the next book before the first one even came out. That involved a lot of risk when they weren't sure of the reward.
"Yeah! She was thinking maybe one with a male protagonist this time."
"But the first one isn't even out yet," I objected, not sure why I was so unwilling to believe this. But, then again, I had been sure the call from my movie star had been a cruel prank until we started talking about meeting to show her my line.
"I know! She said it was unprecedented, but they had a really good feeling about this, about how the market needs to address these more pressing current issues that parents and their children face. And she wanted me to explicitly tell you that your drawings were some of the freshest ones she has seen in the past few years. She was raving about them."
There it was again, that rush of feelings.
I don't think I had ever actually felt them about my design business. I had felt other things - comfort, namely. But I guess because it wasn't a huge passion of mine, because I didn't find myself smiling until my cheeks hurt when I sketched up a purse, it wasn't the same.
I had loved working with Auddie's story, bringing her characters to life for young kids to look at while their parents read the story.
I had loved it.
And now she was telling me that it was good? Good enough to have a publisher raving about it?
The excitement inside was indescribable.
"I can't believe this."
"I know! I've pinched myself like twenty times already. I got the call when I was downstairs... and asked the postman to pinch me. Which led to a very uncomfortable stare, I might add, but oh my god. This is... I don't have words for this. And I have words for everything. You and me, we make a great team!"
"We do," I agreed, smiling. She had already agreed to coming up to the city for a week when school let out this summer. I had been scouring the internet for ideas for things to do with the girls that wouldn't over-stimulate them, but be fun at the same time.
"I can just see it now. Us on the bestseller list. Auddie Cranston. And Sloane Livingston."
"Oh," I said, heart thudding hard suddenly. "About that..."
Gunner - 9 months
"This is so sad," Sloane said, leaning into me slightly.
"It's supposed to be a happy occasion," I reminded her as we watched Jules talking animatedly to Aven and Miller.
"I don't mean for Jules," she said, taking a deep breath. "I mean for Kai." Her voice sounded a little thick, drawing my attention down to actually find her eyes somewhat glassy as she stared at Kai across the room. As he watched Jules flash around a ring. A diamond. On the fourth finger of her left hand.
The poor fuck.
She was right.
I might never have gotten his thing for Jules. And most especially his steadfast determination not to act on his feelings. But there was no denying the man had been fucking head-over since the first week he started at the office. It had only grown since then. It had become something almost painful to watch - his unwavering dedication, and her complete ignorance of it.
We'd all known this moment was coming.
In fact, we were all a bit surprised it had taken this long.
She'd been dating a guy for about a year. They had moved in together after three months. The shit was serious. We'd been expecting this to happen for almost five months now.
We'd even said that we thought it would be good. For Kai. So he could finally move on, find a girl who understood how into her he was.
But seeing him now, fuck.
I felt bad for even thinking that shit.
I don't know if I had ever seen a man look so devastated.
And then Jules's head turned toward him, bright, excited, eyes and smile just beaming. "Did you see, Kai?" she asked, thrusting her hand out at him.
I knew that must have been a punch to the gut. Fucking knocking out all his air.
But this guy, this guy who - as far as I was convinced as I watched this - no woman would ever deserve, he swallowed back his pain, grabbed her hand, and gave her a smile that would be convincing to anyone. Especially Jules who was always so clueless about him.
"I'm so happy for you, Jules," he told her, giving her hand a squeeze.
"Okay. Fuck. You're right. This is sad," I agreed.
Sloane - 2 years
I never gave much thought to this before.
To settling down.
To building a life that was more than just my own.
It had just never seemed like something I could have, so it was pointless to wish for it, to look for it, to dream about it.
It was possible now, though.
Mateo was all but running every aspect of my company. I really didn't even need to go into the office all that much. So, well, I didn't. Just here and there, to consult on big projects, for staff meetings, to approve new hires.
I had ample 'free time,' something I barely knew even existed before. I spent a lot of it with Gunner. The rest, on art. Sometimes for the books with Auddie, sometimes just for fun, for myself, for the walls in our homes, for our friends.
So things had always been changing, shifting, going in a direction that was new to me.
But this, this was the newest of it all.
My hand felt heavier.
That was silly, of course. I had worn rings all my adult life. Many with stones just as big as this diamond.
It wasn't a physical thing.
It was deeper than that.
Because it wasn't just a ring.
It was a ring that stood for something.
That promised things.
Things I hadn't given much thought to in the past.
Not even after Gunner and I started genuinely living together, after he had caught me looking at apartments in Navesink Bank, slammed my laptop shut, and informed me that I would be living with him. Since I had been the one to decorate his place - from paint colors to art to new tile and countertops and curtains - it did seem fitting.
That had just felt like a rational thing to do, to live together. Since we spent most nights together. It was impractical to pay another rent, another round of utilities.
This was different.
"Duchess," Gunner's voice called, making my head snap up as I realized I had been staring at my own hand for what had to have been a long few minutes. "You alright?" he asked, smirking a little at my obvious discomfort.
"Yeah. This is just... I don't know. It's big."
"Yeah," he agreed, nodding.
"I never gave much thought to settling down."
"I figured. Me either. Before you, anyway. It didn't sound like my kind of thing."
"But?"
"But, as it turns out, you are my kind of thing. And the things I like, I lock down."
"That is very romantic," I told him, words dripping with sarcasm.
"It is though, if you think about it."
"I mean, if you think about it, it is kind of archaic," I countered, smiling. "You want to make someone be with you, so you get the government involved to make it harder for them to leave."
"Cynic," he shot back, but he was smiling. "You want to give it some thought?" he asked, the slightest bit of a guard back in his voice.
Did I?
I mean, shock aside, did I actually need to think about this?
About marrying this man who had started to mean so much to me.
About continuing to build a life with him.
Maybe a family with him.
Did that actually require more than a second's thought?
The answer to that was simple.
"No. I don't need to give it any thought. Of course I want to marry you," I told him, lacing my arms around his neck, pulling his body flush to mine, crashing my lips to his, trying to make him see how I was feeling since I didn't quite know the words to describe it.
"Love you, duchess," he said as his forehead pressed to mine.
"I love you too," I told him, from a deep place I never knew existed until he had unearthed it for me.
Sloane - 4 years
"Stop staring at me like I am about to explode," I demanded, knowing my tone was surly, and just this once, not particularly caring.
I was fat.
I was swollen.
I had a nose that didn't look like my nose.
I had skin that decided to start getting all splotchy.
And I had something pressing on my bladder twenty-four-freaking-seven.
He could take a little snippy.
"You're working too hard," he objected, watching as I walked across our New York apartment. In my heels. No matter how many times he told me to take them off.
Gunner, usually the most laid-back, easy-going, mind-his-own-business man had become a freaking helicopter, hovering around me every moment of every day since the stick turned blue.
It should have been sweet.
And, really, at the beginning, it was.
He refused to even let me bring my own clothes to the dry-cleaner, insisting that was too much for me to carry.
While the doctor said I was perfectly healthy, he had me on practical bed rest right from the first trimester. And, well, I didn't mind it then. Since I was sick all day and night those first three months or so.
But now, now that all that had passed, I was sick of bed. I was sick of him lecturing me about not eating enough - even though I was clearly putting on plenty of weight if the basketball under my shirt was anything to go by. I was sick of him jumping if I so much as slid a little in my sock-clad feet like I was going to fall, whack my head against the counter, and also spontaneously go into labor.
It was too much.
He was being too much.
It might have come from a place of love, but he was going to love me right into the nuthouse at this rate.
"Gunner, I have to get this line of diaper bags out," I objected, waving a hand at the sketchpad I had set up on an easel because sitting down was giving me a stabbing in my back lately. "We promised them by fall. I have about half a day left to get this design to Mateo before he has a stroke."
"Let him have a stroke. You need to rest."
I needed a martini, that was what I needed.
Just another four weeks, I reminded myself.
"Sloane, you have been..."
"Oh thank god," I said when my cell started ringing. I practically dove for it. And, as expected, he did his jumping thing like he was ready to catch me if I fell. I took it with me toward the bedroom, needing some space. "I'm gonna kill him," I informed Auddie as a greeting.
"Uh-oh. What now?" my best friend - and business partner - said.
"Apparently, sketching is too strenuous an activity for me," I told her, rolling my eyes.
"It's funny."
"What is?"
"How these big, tough guys turn into these anxious messes when they become dads."
"I'm not delicate," I objected.
"But to him, you are," she reasoned.
"I need to work."
"You want to work," she corrected.
"Hey, whose side are you on?" I shot back, smiling because she just was able to calm me down like that.
"Give him a little slack, Sloane," she said, sighing out a bit wistfully. "He's out of his depths here. His life has been all hard. He never had much exposure to softness. And there's nothing softer than a baby."
"The baby isn't here yet!"
"Right, but you are. And you are y'know... growing it inside you. He is worried something could happen to the two of you. He wants to make sure you are taking care of yourself and the little one."
She wasn't wrong.
"So, I can just hope that when I push the baby out, that he transfers all this overprotective, overbearing part of himself onto him or her, right? And I can go back to wearing heels without getting side-eye from him?"
"Ah, well, we can hope," she said, not helping at all. "If it is a little girl, he will be all about being her big daddy protector. If it is a little boy, he will be all about playing catch and teaching him to be a little man. I think things will go back to normal between you two," she told me.
"How are the girls settling in?" I asked, knowing they had been having some issues with their new school. In New Jersey. Not Navesink Bank where Gunner and I spent most of our time, but close enough that I could see them much more often. She claimed she moved here because the publisher was in New York, and it was smart business sense to be nearby. But we both knew it was because she wanted to be closer to me, to us.
"They're doing better. I found them a friend group, so they've been happier about that. They can't wait to meet their little cousin. Margo said to tell you to tell him or her to come out already."
"Duchess, maybe pacing in heels isn't the smartest thing to do when you're pregnant," Gunner said from the doorway, making me have to take a slow, deep breath before speaking again.
"Yeah, tell Margo I am thinking the same thing."
Sloane - 10 years
"He'll be fine," Ranger assured me as we both leaned on the railing of the pen, watching as Gunner hefted our son onto the back of a donkey. With no saddle, I might add.
You'd think I would be used to this by now.
That punch to the gut that was fear anytime Gunner did something with Nico that was somewhat dangerous. Which was almost all the time.
Nico.
That was what Gunner wanted to name him.
He was technically Nicholas because I had insisted. Because maybe he would want to grow up and be a businessman someday. To do that, Nicholas would work a lot better than Nico.
Though, I think it was clear from the moment that kid could use his own legs to get into trouble that he wasn't going to be a businessman. He was too active, too curious, too drawn to things that would leave him with scars and stories someday.
He would be like his daddy. And all his uncles - and some of his aunts.
And that was fine by me.
I was all for whatever made him happy, a lesson I learned much later in my life that I wanted to make sure he learned as early as possible.
But in having a more hands-off approach to whatever brought his little self joy, it meant that I had to have an almost constant knot in my stomach, worried about another cut, another fall, another trip to the hospital for an X-ray.
We'd lucked out so far.
No broken bones.
But I knew that was coming.
Possibly today.
"There's not even a saddle," I objected.
"Donkeys are pretty calm. If it were a horse, I'd make them saddle him."
"You're no help," I told him, giving him small eyes that he just smiled at.
Smiled.
Ranger.
A lot had changed for him too.
Which had everything to do with the woman inside the cabin that she had made him expand slightly who was making us coffee that wasn't the consistency of sludge.
"He's a kid. He's gonna get bumped around a lot. If you make yourself sick every time, it is gonna be a long ass decade or so ahead of you."
He wasn't wrong.
Even Auddie told me to calm down.
The girls were always crying at his age. Something was always bruised or bleeding. You learn to get used to it.
There was some truth in that too. I didn't almost black out whenever I saw blood now, though I did make Gunner deal with the cuts if they were really nasty.
"You don't know what the hell you're doing," Ranger declared to Gunner who was trying to give Nico what were, apparently, the wrong directions on how to correctly ride a donkey without a saddle.
With that, he hurdled over the fence, none-too-gently pushing Gunner out of the way, and taking over himself.
Gunner came back to me, shaking his head.
"He's crazy about our kid," I declared, watching the two of them.
"He needs to make one of his own, so I can teach mine this kinda shit."
"You've never ridden a donkey," I countered as he moved in behind me, pressing his front into my back, putting his hands wide on either side of mine on the rail.
"Ridden a horse and a camel. Can't figure it would be too much more difficult than that."
"Ten years," I said, shaking my head.
"Hm?" he asked, nuzzling into my neck in a way that was creating very inappropriate feelings in my body.
"Ten years, and I still learn things about you that I never knew before," I clarified.
"I'm interesting as fuck. That's why you married me."
"Really? I thought I married you for your body," I said, smiling a little when he chuckled into my ear.
"Keep it in your pants, would you? We're leaving in an hour. Then you can get as much of this body as you want," he declared, and he was close enough that I could feel it when he flexed his chest muscles behind me.
"I'm worried about him," I admitted, meaning Nico.
"It's a long weekend," he reminded me. "We've left him before," he added.
"Yeah, with Quin or Smith or Kai or Lincoln or Miller or even Finn. In Navesink Bank. All of an hour away if he needed us. Not out here in the woods with the bears and the half-feral dogs."
"And the snakes," Gunner added.
"Not helping!" I said, slapping the top of his hand.
"Come on, if there is anyone he is safe with, it's Ranger. For a multitude of reasons. And then we can go up to the city and have a fuckfest without worrying about someone happening in."
"Well, when you put it that way..." I said, smiling.
We didn't do it often, weekends away. Maybe once every six months or so. We had worked out a system with the rest of his coworkers - who were really like family - as well as Auddie. Someone would always be happy to take the others' kids with the agreement that when they wanted to go away, you would take theirs. It gave us all the chance to not just be parents, but to be human beings, and husbands and wives again. It was a nice break. And when you got back, you were refreshed, excited to slip back into mom or dad-mode.
"Ten years," he said, something like wonder in his tone.
I thought that too every once and a while.
Ten years.
You could explain it so many different ways.
Ten Christmases.
Ten anniversaries.
Ten books, in my case.
Ten different lines of handbags and diaper bags.
But ten years.
With this man.
This man who, had life not tossed him in my path, I never would have given a second thought to, I never would have gotten to know, fallen in love with, made a life with, raised a child with.
It was amazing how much could change, how much impact a person could have in your life. Sometimes in big ways, but also sometimes in a million small ways.
With Gunner, I had both.
He came in like a battering ram, knocking me off my usually very firm footing.
And then every single day, he changed something. He helped me see something in a new light. He taught me things. He shared things with me. He pushed me out of my comfort zone, so I could experience something new.
It was a strange thing to think of my life before.
How empty it had been.
Full of pride, sure, but that was it.
No joy.
Not like now.
I found a reason to smile every single day.
At Nico.
At Gunner.
At the two of them together.
There was so much joy that I felt like I was going to burst at times, sure I wasn't built in a way that could hold it all. But I did. Just when I thought it was full, my heart would simply swell to make room for more of it.
All because of this man.
"And you're still a fucking freak about the dining table," he finished.
And there it was.
A little more joy.
A little more swelling to accommodate it.
Ten years.
And a lifetime still to go.
XX