CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

 

Luca

 

I’M A NERVOUS FUCKING wreck. My knees bounce up and down and my palms are sweaty. Nausea swirls in my stomach so much I feel like I’m going to puke my brains out.

Shit!

I didn’t know this was going to be so hard. I thought I had prepared myself, but I was fucking wrong. I don’t think anything would have prepared me.

Jules sits beside me on the couch, her nerves no better than mine. I take her palm in mine and find it just as damp.

I gather all my strength and pull my shit together. Worrying won’t help either of us. It’s been two weeks since we realized Aria was our child. Those two weeks have felt like two years.

I’ve turned into a damn coward. What if Aria refuses to believe we’re her parents? What if she doesn’t want us as her parents?

I grind my teeth and blow out a hard breath.

“You ready?” I ask in a low voice.

Jules blows out her own deep breath. “Yes.”

Mom and Dad are due to be here any minute now. It’s time Aria knows the truth. I still can’t fucking believe it. She’s our precious little girl.

I drop to my knees in front of Jules, forcing her legs apart and wedging myself between them. Putting my palms on her cheeks, my fingers in her hair, I bring her head up so I can see her face. Tears run a river down her cheeks, but I can see the unmistakable joy in her eyes.

“She’s ours, baby,” I rasp, then repeat it again. “She’s ours.”

“I still can’t believe it,” she says softly after several minutes. “I’m so scared I’m going to wake from a dream, and I won’t have any of this.”

She launches herself at me, and I fall back on my heels with the force. We both laugh and cry, a blubbering fucking mess, but deliriously happy. I pull back and kiss her over and over again. Simple kisses, but they mean so much.

I look deeply in her eyes. “Believe it, Jules. Believe every single minute of it. This is our time, and nothing can take it away. You, me, and Aria… nothing or no one will ever change that.”

A knock sounds at the door and we both tense. I help Jules to her feet and go answer the door.

Aria’s carrying a baggy of carrots as she prances in the house. “Hey, Uncle Luca and Jules!” Mom and Dad look somber as they follow her in.

I take a moment to look at Aria. Really look at her. I’ve always thought she looked so much like Theo, but it wasn’t him she took after, it was me. She looks like me. She has my eyes, my nose, and my high cheekbones. I look closer, and although Aria definitely favors me more, I see Jules in her too. Their eyebrows arch the same, and Aria has Jules’s full lips. They even have the same smile. Now that I see it, it’s a wonder I never noticed before, but I know it’s because there was no reason to look for a resemblance.

“Uncle Luca, are you okay? Why are you and Jules looking at me weird?”

We laugh; so do Mom and Dad. I know it must hurt them to find out Theo lied about so many things, but in the end, Aria is still their grandchild.

“Come sit with Jules and me, boo. We’ve got some news to share with you.”

She shrugs and takes a chomp of her carrot as she goes into the living room.

Jules and I were there when Mom and Dad told Aria the news about Theo a couple days after she came home from the hospital. She took it surprisingly well. She was upset and sad, but I think she somehow knew Theo wasn’t coming home even before Mom told her so. She and Theo have never had a very close relationship. In a sense, I think Theo did love Aria, but I also believe he kept himself distant from her because she wasn’t his. I also think he held some resentment toward her because of who her real parents were. Aria was a constant reminder of what he wanted but never had. He cared for her but was never the best father. She’s always been closer to my parents, Ella, and me than she was with him.

I just hope the news we’re about to drop on her is something she can accept.

Mom and Dad stay quiet as they sit on the love seat, but I feel their anxiety. I pat the cushion between Jules and me and Aria comes over and flops down. Her head turns back and forth, looking at us curiously. Reaching behind Aria’s back, I grab Jules’s hand. Some of the tension wanes from her face. She’s nervous, and damn it to hell, so am I.

I look back at Aria. “There’s something we need to tell you and it’s going to be confusing and may hurt, but we’ll try our best to explain it to you.”

“Okay.” She frowns, and it reminds me of Jules’s.

I clear my throat to unclog the lump forming.

“Jules and I found out some news the other day. It’s big news. You remember when Gamma explained to you that Jules and I are married? That we did it years ago, but we both forgot.”

Her bottom lip goes between her teeth. “Yeah. She said that Daddy’s head was sick and it made him tell some lies.”

I nod. “Yes. That’s right. Well, we found out that there was another lie he told.”

Her lip begins to wobble, and her eyes turn glassy with tears.

Fuck, this is so damn hard.

With her free hand, Jules grabs one of Aria’s. “It’s okay to cry,” she tells her tenderly.

Aria sniffs, and I’m so proud of her when she pushes the need to cry away. This little girl acts so much older than her almost seven years.

“I’m a big girl,” she says stubbornly with a jutted chin. “Tell me what Daddy lied about.”

“Do you know how Jules was asleep for a lot of years?” She nods. I look at Jules for a brief moment then back down to Aria. “Well, she had a baby while she was asleep. The baby was mine and hers.”

Her eyes turn wide. “But how did she have a baby? Don’t you have to be awake to have a baby?”

Aria looks at Jules when she’s the one to answer.

“Most of the time you do, but the kind of sleep I was in, I couldn’t wake up. My brain wouldn’t let me.” She releases my hand and lifts up the bottom of her shirt until the scar on her lower stomach shows. “You see this line right here?” She points to the four-inch silvery line and Aria nods. “To get the baby out, they had to cut my stomach open.”

Her mouth drops open. “Didn’t it hurt?”

Jules smiles and pulls her shirt back down. “No, sweetie. I didn’t feel anything because I was asleep. But even if I was awake, they give you medicine so you don’t feel anything. It numbs you.”

“Oh. That’s good.” She shudders, then her eyes turn curious. “Did you have a girl or a boy?”

“A little girl.” Jules’s voice cracks, and I snatch her hand back in mine behind Aria’s back.

“Oh, wow.” Aria’s face lights up a million watts with a look of wonder. “Can I meet her?” she asks in excitement. “How old is she? Maybe we can be friends!”

“Aria, you’ve already met her.” Her eyes swing back to mine.

“I have?”

“Yes. You wanna guess who she is?”

Her lips purse out, another one of Jules’s expressions, as she thinks over the possibilities. “I don’t know.”

I shift my eyes to Jules once more. Love and affection shine in her eyes as she gazes down at Aria, our daughter. As if sensing my stare, they lift to meet mine. She smiles nervously at me, and I return it.

I look back to Aria. “It’s you.”

Aria straightens, her blue eyes as wide as saucers and filled with confusion. “Me?” she squeaks.

“Yes. You.”

I watch and wait as her little innocent brain thinks over what I’ve just told her. I know she’s perplexed, anyone would be, but more so her because she’s so young. Her eyes leave mine to look across the living room, staring off at nothing. I want to grab her and haul her into my arms, but I force the urge back.

What seems like forever later, but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, she looks back at me.

“Does that mean you and Jules are my momma and daddy?”

“It does.”

She frowns again. “But what about my daddy? Is he not my daddy anymore?”

This is the part I was dreading the most, because no matter how much I hate Theo, I won’t hurt Aria by telling her Theo isn’t her father.

“Theo will always be what you want him to be. If you still want to think of him as your daddy, then he’ll always be your daddy. But Jules and I created you with our love, so I’m your daddy too and Jules is your momma.”

She ponders that for a moment. “But everyone says I look just like him.”

“That’s because Theo and I are twins. We look just like each other, so in the ways people say you look like him, you actually get from me. Even though Theo didn’t help make you, you still have some of his blood in you. To everyone else, he would be your uncle.”

“So, he’s still my family?”

Hell no. A portion of his blood may run in her veins, but he’ll never be considered my family again.

I keep that to myself, and instead say, “Yes.”

She looks to Jules next. “I have a Mom now? A real Mom. You’re not just my stepmom anymore?”

Jules’s hand jerks in mine, so I squeeze hers. Her face turns red, and I know she’s fighting her tears.

“Yes,” Jules croaks. “You have a Mom. I’m your Mom. If you want me to be.”

Her eyes close in pain when Aria looks away from her and to Mom and Dad.

“And you’re still my Gamma and Pa?”

“We’ll always be your Gamma and Pa,” Mom answers immediately.

The uncertainty and fear are what do me in. That and Jules’s silent struggle on the other side of Aria. I need them both closer.

I pick Aria up and put her in my lap then scoot over so I can pull Jules to my side. This is my family, and I fucking love them with every single inch of my heart, every breath I take, and every part of my soul.

The tight threads around my heart loosen when Aria puts her arms around my neck and hugs me tight. Her innocent child scent surrounds me, and I breath it in deeply, loving the smell.

Aria pulls back, and her lip goes back between her teeth. She releases it and says softly, “I love you… Daddy.”

I have to tip my head back and blink away my tears. She fucking guts me, totally unmans me with that one word.

Daddy.

She doesn’t know, couldn’t possibly understand, what she just gave me. She gave me the entire fucking world with one simple word.

I look back at her and beam at her with a big grin.

“I love you too, baby girl.”

Her own lips form a smile before she turns to Jules. She crawls from my lap and onto hers, giving her the same tight hug she just gave me.

“I do want you to be my momma.”

A hiccoughed sob leaves Jules’s lips. “Good, because I want to be your mom so very much.”

“I love you… Momma.”

Tears slide down Jules’s cheek, but her smile is megawatt and stunning. Another favorite of mine.

“I love you too, Aria.”

I lift both my girls in my lap, and I hold them. I hold my family close to my heart, knowing life couldn’t get any better than this. It was a damn bumpy road, and I’m sure we’ll find more bumps along the way, but for right now, in this very moment, my life is complete.

It can’t possibly get any better than this.