Page 129 of Love Me Tomorrow

WhilePut A Ring OnIt has reached its tumultuous end, and will not be renewed for another season, it’s lovely to note that those who live authentically, dream big, and lead with kindness, will always get ahead.

Signing out as today’s guest columnist,

Matilda Houghton

Epilogue

Owen

Two Years Later

Marrying Savannah Rose Harvey came with its ups and downs:

The ups: waking up to her beautiful face every morning; seeing the joy spark in her eyes the very first time she held our baby boy, who we named after my dad, in her arms; and knowing without a shadow of a doubt that when she reaches for my hand, it’s still because she loves me with every ounce of her being.

The downs: if she’s asking me, there are none because I’m a smart enough guy to know when self-preservation is necessary. If she’s not, then here they are in all of their miraculous, shortlisted glory: she has an obsession with cats, and since we got hitched a little over a year and a half ago, we’ve somehow ended up with five.

Five.

She’s single-handedly made me into a cat man, through no assistance of my own, and the only one who feels my pain is poor Pablo. The antichrist sticks to my side nowadays like glue on paper, as though I’m his only saving grace in a world of rambunctiousother catswho are not nearly on his level.

Which is probably why I’m hiding from my wife in our hotel bathroom, for the honeymoon we never found time to take, and video-chatting with Pablo. And Gage, too, but mostly the cat.

My adopted, firstborn son paws the screen and, goddammit, the little fucker is cute, I’ll admit it. “You’re feeding him the good stuff, right?” I ask Gage, careful to keep my voice down so I won’t wake Savannah while she’s sleeping in the room. I stick out a foot and crack the door open some, so I can make sure she’s still snoring peacefully.

Another down: the woman can wake the entire house with all that racket, but I haven’t smothered her in her sleep yet. Ironically, Savannah’s snoring was the first step to me bonding with her dad, after he apologized to me personally when we returned to New Orleans post-reunion show. An apology I readily accepted for the sake of Savannah and our relationship and for my own sake, too. Edgar and I may never be best friends, but we’re working on it and I know, with every bit of me, that he loves seeing Savannah and I together.

As it turns out, though, chronic snoring is a DuPont trait, and is single-handedly the reason why Edgar often ends up sleeping in another room halfway through the night. “Just wait until she’s pregnant,” the old man told me one night when we tentatively agreed to hang out by watching the Saints and drinking beer, “it gets worse. I promise you, Harvey, it gets so much worse.”

I probably should have prepared myself for the inevitable—me investing in a good set of ear plugs—but I didn’t, and when Savannah got pregnant, she refused to believe me when I called her out for snoring, which she should have realized I would take as a challenge.

One more up: unveiling her thorny side is still my favorite pastime, particularly when it’s Ben’s naptime and therefore I can seduce his mother the way she likes it best. Her begging, me on my knees, and my face buried between her legs.

I grin, which I hope Gage doesn’t notice.

On my tiny phone screen, my twin glares down at Pablo. “You know you’ve spoiled him rotten, right? The little asshole stole my tuna right off the sandwich I put down on the coffee table today, and you know what your son did?”

My chest puffs up with pride at the mention of seven-month-old Ben. God, even now my heart aches with being away from my little guy. This is the first time Savannah and I have taken a trip alone since he was born. Neither of us wanted to step away, but it felt like a now or never sort of deal. We want another baby—more than I want another cat, that’s for damn sure—and then our already tight schedules will string even tighter. “I don’t know, man,” I tell my brother, “what’d he do?”

“He laughed so hard that he pissed himself.”

“That’s not so bad,” I say, “it’s not like you haven’t been there yourself with Ari. How many times did she wet herself before y’all potty-trained her?”

Gage’s eyes narrow visibly, over the top of Pablo’s furry head. “Owen, somehow the kid managed to whip off his diaper and throw it clear across the room. It hit one of the cats.”

“Not Pablo, though, right?”

My twin stares at me, unblinking. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

I shrug. “We have a special bond, what can I say?” I shift my ass on the closed toilet lid. “Plus, the way I look at it, Ben’s clearly just prepping for a throwing arm. Little League, I’m already seeing it. You gonna bedazzle some signs for him the way you did for Ari’s dance recital this year?”

“That’syourjob as Ben’s dad.”

“But you’re so good at them. Everyone in the family knows it. Keep it up, and one of them might end up in Amelie’s new art gallery. Can you imagine the sort of press you’d get?”

“I hate you, man, just so you’re aware.”

I grin widely. “That’s fine. Hey, can you pan back over to Ben again? I know he’s conked out but—”

---