Page 106 of Keep You Close

But I could feel it notching up even more as I read all the lovely comments that complete strangers had to say about me.

She’s the sweetest thing ever. Marry her.

Omg, she’s like so pretty.

I know she doesn’t mean to be hilarious, but I’m cryingggg.

Look at her dimples when she smiles at you (heart eye emoji)

“So, what I’m saying is… it seems like we have some travel plans to make,” Atlas said, clicking open a new window, and bringing up a search engine. “What do you want to learn next? Skiing? Bungee jumping? Zip lining?”

I never imagined there would be a time in my life where I could not only live as freely as I wanted, but that I could do it out in the open for others to see. Without fear.

Sure, I’d done a lot of the work myself to get to this point.

But Atlas had been right there with me, pushing me, building me up, reassuring me that I was safe and free to do whatever my heart desired.

And my heart desired one thing above all else.

Him.

“Anything,” I said, leaning my head into his shoulder. “So long as you’re there with me.”

Atlas - 12 years

“I’m jealous of an eight-year-old,” AJ said, shaking her head as we watched our son on his surfboard.

AJ was tanned and glowing with a belly as round as the beach ball our four-year-old was chasing down the beach.

“Because he can actually lay on his stomach?” I teased, standing beside her. “Or because he didn’t inherit his mother’s noodle arms?”

“Both,” she admitted as we both watched our son pop up in one smooth, graceful motion, standing on his board, and leaning his body back and forth like he was actually catching a wave.

He looked like, well, both of us.

He was tall and lean with more muscles than you’d expect on a child, thanks to the very active lifestyle he’d been raised in. He had dark hair and eyes, but a set of dimples just like his mother.

Those fucking things let the kid get away with a lot more than he should.

And, I imagined, in fifteen years or so, they would get him all the girls his heart desired.

He was a lot like I’d been at his age. Daring, reckless, never afraid of a challenge. But he had more roots than I had, thanks to his mother, who had been very dedicated to creating a home base for all of us, so that no matter how much we traveled and explored, we had a place to come back to, to settle in to.

Turning, I saw our four-year-old grab the beach ball and start running back toward us.

He was still round-faced and muscle-free. But with how much he liked to follow around his big brother, I had no doubt that he would be learning to surf and skate and bike like nobody’s business once his limbs lengthened out a bit.

“So what do you think?” I asked, reaching over to rest a hand on AJ’s belly. “Does Mark finally get to win a bet, or what?” I asked, feeling the baby kick restlessly against her stomach. Like it was ready to get out and get moving. We were a week past her due date. So it probably was.

“I think Mark’s losing streak is going to continue,” she said, pressing her hand over mine. “I’m pretty sure it’s another boy.”

We figured when we’d started this whole parenting journey—thanks mostly to a drunken night trying to warm each other up in a ski lodge in Colorado where we’d stopped using protection—that, given my own family dynamics, we were likely to have a bunch of boys.

We didn’t care what we had. We just wanted them healthy and happy.

We’d spaced them out. Each four years apart. It gave us time to bond, and figure out how to navigate traveling with extra passengers.

It got a little harder with each kid. But we were determined to give our kids the world. As well as a home they wanted to come back to over and over afterward.

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