Page 121 of Always Us

He props himself next to me on his side. “Go ahead.”

“I can’t promise you three kids. I know you want three, but I can only agree to one, at least for now.”

“We don’t have to have three. I’ll be happy with whatever we have.” His hand brushes over my cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” I smile up at him. “We’re going to be parents someday.”

He glances back at the cliff. “I’m definitely gonna have to put up a ten foot wall.”

“No, you’re not.” I yank him over me and kiss him and keep kissing him, stopping just briefly to say, “We can practice now if you want.”

“Finally.” He grabs the blankets and covers us up and we have outdoor sex. I was hoping for the Halloween sex but he was in too much of a hurry to grab the candy. And so was I. But we can do it later. We have all afternoon.

This is celebration sex. We’re celebrating that I finally made a decision. A decision that’s made Garret very happy. And more importantly, a decision that makes us both happy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

29

GARRET

Jade just told me she wants to have kids, which kind of shocked me. It’s not that I didn’t think that would be her answer. I knew it was a possibility after she made that comment about wanting kids when we were at Frank’s house. But she said she needed more time to think about it, so I thought she’d need a year or two. I didn’t think she’d decide this soon. I hope this really is what she wants and she’s not going to change her mind later. But I don’t think she will. I know she’s given this a lot of thought and talked to her counselor about it.

All I can say is she’s made me a very happy man with that decision. And if she only wants one kid, that’s fine with me. It’s better to have one than none. Her timing is perfect, too. I thought she’d want to wait until she was 30 or even later than that, so when she said 25, I was relieved. To me, that’s the perfect age. Before I met Jade I would’ve said that’s way too young, but I’ve matured a lot the past year and by 25, Jade and I will have been married six years, so it seems like a good time to have a baby. That gives us plenty of time to just be a couple. Just the two of us, doing things like we’re doing today, spending the afternoon hanging out on our own private land.

“Garret, when should we build the house?” Jade’s gazing up at the sky, a blanket wrapped around her naked body.

We just had outdoor sex, one of my favorite kinds. Who am I kidding? They’re all my favorite kinds. But doing it outside in the cool fresh air is up there at the top of my favorites list.

“I thought you wanted to build it this spring.” I sit up and grab a bottle of water from the cooler, a blanket covering my lower half. “We should probably put clothes on in case someone drives by.”

I start getting dressed, but Jade remains under the blanket. “I’d only build it this spring if we planned to live here this summer. But we don’t have to do that. We could find another beach house to rent. We talked about doing that anyway.”

“That was when we thought Sean and Harper would be living next door. But now they’re not together, so would you still want to rent a place?”

“I think so. I’d like more time to plan the house. I don’t want to rush into building it and then wish we’d done something different. And now that we’ve added a kid to the equation, we need to plan for another room.”

“It’s just one room, Jade. It’s not that big a deal.” I hand her my water and she sits up just enough to take a sip, then hands it back to me.

“We should plan for more than one, even if we’re not sure yet. It’s too hard to add bedrooms later.”

“How many rooms would you like?” I set my water down.

“We should probably have three, for the three kids you might end up talking me into.”

Holy shit. She’s actually considering three? How’d we go from one to three? She seemed pretty adamant about only having one kid, but hey, if she’s open to three, all the better. I’ve always wanted three. I don’t really know why.

“Then three for the kids and a big master bedroom for us. What about the guests?”

“I’m not sure. What do you think?”

“A couple guest rooms should be plenty.”

“That’s only enough for Frank and Ryan. What if your dad was here, too? We wouldn’t have room.”

“My dad can stay at a hotel.”

“No, that’s no good. I want him here with us.” She sounds so determined it makes me laugh. “What’s so funny?”

---