Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
She rolled her eyes, then smiled at the rest of the men who were leaning against the fence next to me.
“Thanks for coming, y’all!” She smiled.
I took the baby from her arms just as she received hugs from every single guy on the SWAT team.
“Shhh,” one of the parents complained.
I rolled my eyes and jerked my head to the side. “You ready to go home, sweets?”
Her smile was wide.
“Oh yes. Time to blow this popsicle stand for good.”
And we did just that.
Epilogue
I like your face. You should let me ride it.
-Avery to Derek
Derek
One year later
“I’m exhausted,” Avery mumbled to the table.
My mother was holding Katy’s youngest daughter, who they actually had decided to call Riggs, against her chest.
My father was holding Sunny, who was sound asleep, against his chest.
“Welcome to motherhood.” Katy snickered.
“I’m not sure I’m cut out for this,” Avery murmured. “I didn’t realize that I’d be this tired. All the freakin’ time.” She pushed around the food on her plate. “And when I’m not trying to take naps, I can’t eat. I can’t do anything, actually. Even the smell of the laundry detergent is making me want to vomit these days. I didn’t realize that sleep deprivation was this… in depth.”
I agreed.
“I thought by a year old that she was supposed to sleep better, not worse,” I found myself saying.
Katy walked over, a twin on one hip, and placed a basket of chicken fingers onto the table. Then she deposited the toddler into the highchair and pulled the basket closer to him.
“You don’t even know the meaning of sleep deprivation,” Rowen said, plopping down into her seat and handing the baby over to her husband, who followed her into the booth.
“I know that I got up last night at two, three, four, five, and six only to be called out at seven for a SWAT call,” I said.
Rowen scoffed. “I didn’t even go to sleep. I didn’t realize that colic was so awful.”
Rowen had her son, Maximillian, named after her father-in-law, a couple of months ago. Honestly, he was a good kid, even if he did have colic and make Rowen work hard.
“Maybe you’re pregnant,” Mom suddenly said, her eyes trained on Avery.
Avery opened her mouth and then closed it.
I felt something inside of me start to warm at the thought of getting her pregnant.
However, we’d been unofficially ‘trying’ for a while. I say trying. Really, it was just us having unprotected sex, not caring if it happened or not.
I looked over at the ring I’d put on her finger two months ago.
When I’d asked her to marry me, she’d said yes, on one condition.
I don’t want to have a big wedding. I want to get married at the courthouse, where I’m not reminded that I don’t have any family.
Something which I’d immediately agreed to.
Though, my mom had thrown a big shindig and taken Sunny for the night.
Sunny who was officially Sonja Reese Roberts.
My daughter in the eyes of the law, as well as Avery’s.
“I could be, I guess,” Avery said shyly.
I snickered as I took a large swig of my drink.
Avery leaned her head against my bicep just as the rest of our orders started to filter out.
“Why are we eating at this joint again?” Dax asked curiously, eyes taking in all the kids. “Not that I’m complaining or anything, but there are a shit ton of kids here right now.”
“We’re supporting Avery,” my mother said. “Just like we support you.”
Dax grinned.
Today was Avery’s special congratulatory dinner that was in celebration of her selling a piece of photography to the biggest art dealer in Texas.
She made a whopping thirty-five grand off of it, and he’d commissioned more prints just like it.
Avery had gone to court and gotten her money back for her mother’s and father’s medical bills. She’d also become the guardian of Sunny’s estate, which had a cool million in it thanks to her father’s life insurance.
Sunny, one day, would have the world at her fingertips thanks to that money.
“I’m excited,” Avery said. “I’m taking photos of a couple of baseball players and their wives tomorrow. The Longview Lumberjacks of all people. Can you believe that?”
I curled my arm around Avery, whose business had absolutely boomed in the last year.
Honestly, she now had everything that she could ever ask for thanks to the calendar photoshoot she’d done of us.
I was so proud that sometimes it hurt.
“Speaking of which,” Rowen pulled out her phone and showed a picture of her living room. “I got a twenty-inch-by-twenty-inch canvas made of Uncle Derek and Maximillian. It’s hanging in my living room, right next to the one you took of him and Dax in the delivery room.”
Avery leaned forward, her face happy, as she studied the canvas hanging on Rowen’s wall.
I, of course, had recreated the photo with not just Rowen’s baby, but the twins as well. Even though they were older. It’d become a tradition. One that I’d also done with Sunny.