Page 28 of With This Wish

Kendall scoffs. “Please. I’m a city boy through and through,” he insists haughtily. “I am happy to accept the virtual assistant position, though.” His eyes brighten and he claps his hands. “Does this mean I get to work from home?”

I chuckle and nod. “It would be hybrid with a few days in the office now and then, but yes, mostly from home.”

Kendall stands and offers up a hand. “Deal,” he says happily. “You better do well on this presentation. Don’t screw this up for me.” He points to me as sternly as his mostly sunny personality will allow.

“Of course,” I tell him with a curt nod. “You getting to work from home is clearly my top priority here.” With a smile, Kendall exits my office just as Billie saunters in, looking much more professional that she usually does in a dark pantsuit, her hair in a tight bun.

“What’s with the getup?” I ask, waving my hand in her uncharacteristically modest attire. “Are you attending a funeral later?”

“Har-har,” she says, sitting across from me. “I came for moral support and thought it best to look as boring as possible so as to not detract from your presentation.”

“Mission accomplished,” I tell her, smiling when she rolls her eyes and flips me off. She may not be as spoiled and vain as she put on, but she does still care about her appearance, so I know my good-natured jab hit its mark. The alarm on my phone chimes, letting me know I have exactly ten minutes to get my ass upstairs to the executive conference room to set up.

Billie slaps her thighs and stands with me. “You ready to do this?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I tell her, gathering my laptop and printed materials Kendall set out on my desk. As we pass by my assistant, he grins and gives me a thumbs-up. I return his enthusiastic smile and nod, but when my gaze turns to Billie, the smile slips off my face. She looks upset and I’m not sure why. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“What? Nothing.” Billie mashes the elevator button harder than necessary. She continues to mash the button while mumbling curse words at it. Reaching over, I still her hand and give her a searching look. With a sigh, she drops her hand and looks at me, a pained expression on her face. “I want this to go well for you. I want you to get to be with Maya and JJ,” she says, shrugging a shoulder. “I’m just going to miss having you around.”

My brow furrows. In all of this, I hadn’t really thought about my best friend and how she would feel about everything. She’s been endlessly supportive of me and I haven’t thought about her once. Guilt trickles in and tightens my chest. I feel like such a jerk. “I’m going to miss having you around too,” I tell her, pulling her in for a hug. “You can come out and visit whenever you want. We’re only a few hours away.”

“I guess,” Billie says. The sound is muffled against my chest as we continue to hug it out. When she pulls back, the pained look is gone, replaced by a devilish gleam in her eye. “Coming for a visit and annoying Carter could be fun.”

My head leans back on an exasperated sigh as we enter the recently arrived lift. “Why do you insist on annoying the man? He’s just trying to do his job.”

“I don’t know. It’s fun,” Billie offers. Her head turns away from me, but not before I catch the slight blush on her cheeks.

While I could warn her away from Carter again, I don’t see it being much of an issue with them living so far apart. Billie will probably move on from whatever weird fascination she has with him and onto something else soon enough. I don’t really have the mental space to think about all this anyway, so I let it go. Right now, I need to walk into that conference room and crush this presentation.

****

The view from my windshield never looked as good as it does now. In the near distance, I can see Starlight Lake and the sense of peace that fills me is unimaginable. Soon I will be back with my family, and not just temporarily. The presentation went better than expected. Both my father and Billie’s agreed that I could easily do my current work remotely and loved the idea of setting up a small business wing of the firm, using my work in Starlight Lake and the surrounding areas as a pilot program. It will mean a good amount of groundwork on my part, but it will be worth it to be able to be with Maya and JJ.

As I make the turn toward downtown, the suitcases and boxes in the back of my SUV shift slightly, banging against the window. They are filled with everything I will need to get by until I have a more permanent place to live while everything else sits in storage in Denver. Breaking the lease on my apartment was a no-brainer and totally worth the cost to be able to leave as quickly as possible. What was less easy was saying goodbye to my parents and Billie. I’ll see them when I travel to Denver once every other month, but it will be different, especially for Billie. She insists she’ll be fine, but I’m a little worried about her getting lonely. I wasn’t one for the party scene, but we still had lunches, dinners, and hung out at my place all the time. Hopefully, one of the many other friends she has will step up and keep her company.

Finally, the sight I have been waiting three days to see comes into view and a wide grin spreads across my face as I pull into a spot in front of Hodgepodge. The night I told Maya I was coming home for good, she shrieked into the phone so loudly I had to hold the speaker away from my ear for a second, laughing in giddy happiness along with her as we talked about my plans and all the details we still had to hammer out. As I walk into the store, my eyes immediately spot Maya as she shows JJ how to dust the shelves lightly. We talked every night on the phone, but I still missed the two of them like crazy. Maya’s back is turned to me, so I try to sneak up on the two of them. Before I can surprise Maya, JJ peeks out and spots me. “Daddy,” he exclaims before rushing over to me. Maya spins around, her eyes wide and happy as I lift our little boy into my arms and hold him close.

“Hey, bud,” I choke out. All the emotions I’m experiencing has my tongue feeling thicker than usual, so I’m surprised I got those words out at all. It’s the first time he’s called me Daddy. This moment will live in my mind forever, and I don’t think I’ll ever get over hearing my son call me that. My heart is filled with happiness as I cuddle my boy impossibly closer. “I missed you.”

“Miss oo, Daddy,” JJ tells me, wiggling in his arms until I let him down. He runs over to the office and Maya steps into the space he just occupied.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” she says in greeting. Upon seeing her and feeling her so close to me, I can take my first full breath of the last three days.

“Glad to be back, Beautiful.” I lean down and kiss her. It only lasts a moment, but that’s all I need to feel our connection strengthening again. JJ comes crashing back into my legs and holds a picture frame up for me. I grab onto it and look, the image starting to blur slightly from the moisture that gathers in my eyes. The frame says, “Daddy and Me,” and inside is a picture of he and I that Maya must have taken when I wasn’t looking. JJ’s head rests on my shoulder as I hold him, and the two of us look so relaxed and comfortable with one another that it takes me a moment to realize it’s from one of the first days I was here. I reach down and pick JJ up once more. “This is great, bud. I love it.”

“It’s for your office,” Maya says, a shy smile on her face. “Whenever you get one, that is.”

“This is amazing. I love it,” I tell her, leaning over and kissing her once more. “Now I need one of you.” I can’t wait to decorate whatever space I work in with pictures and photos of the two most important people in the world to me.

Maya smirks, her cheeks turning pink. “Oh. I, uh, have a couple of pictures for you,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “Maybe not for your office, though.”

My chest rumbles with the need to be with her, but the little boy in my arms works as a good libido killer. “Show me later,” I command.

“Absolutely,” she tells me with a wink. “Until then, what would you like to do? The store closes in an hour. Should we go out to dinner to celebrate?”

I nod, gathering her close so my arms are filled with nothing but the people I love. “We can do whatever we want, Beautiful. We have all the time in the world.” This time, we actually do, and I plan on using every minute of that time making sure the two people next to me know just how much I love and care for them. Three years ago I wished for something extraordinary. What I ended up with was that, and a whole lot more.

Epilogue

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