Page 149 of One More Chapter

“Okay, wait, let me see it,” she giggles, scooting backwards on my lap. I open the box that was snapped shut during our embrace, and watch her eyes dazzle. “Oh. My fiancé didgood.”

I growl. “I didnotexpect that word to do things to me, but we’re about to defile this chair a second time if you keep that up.”

“Put it on my finger and see where that gets us.”

She lifts her brow in challenge, and I have to stifle another animalistic sound, because sliding the band onto her finger fills me with a caveman sort of possession I didn’t know I had in me until Penelope Barker said yes to being mine until death.

And then, we just stare. At the glittering band around her finger. Absorbing what it symbolizes. The way our path might not have been a perfect circle, but it brought us right back around to the beginning.

Exhaling, I lift her hand, turning it delicately in mine so that the diamond sparkles in the moonlight.

“Wow. I justcannotbelieve I’m going to be Mr. PJ Layne.”

That same hand comes to smack me in the chest. I let out an over-exaggeratedOof!but hold her there. She’s giving me that deadpan stare where only one of her eyelids twitches, so I lean in to kiss it. She surrenders, leaning her head against my lips. I cup the back of her head, taking my time with my forever.

Staring out into the same night sky that is somehow worlds different.

Back then, I had wished on the stars above for the answers.

Now, I’m looking back up at them with all the answer I need right in the palm of my hands.

epilogue

Penelope-5 Years Later

A lot can happenin five years’ time. I just never imagined it could be this wonderful.

Quitting teaching was the best decision I could have made. I won’t say that I miss it, but I do get a little wistful from time to time, when all of my friends work at the same place and have shared experiences. But I know I’m not on the outside. I’m the farthest thing from it. Not knowing makes the stories that they share more exciting, in a way. It also makes dinner and bedtime conversation with my husband more attentive. I hang on his every word, because I’m not there to live them beside him.

When my book contract was up for renewal, we had a little reconfiguration to do. While book tours with toddlers were doable, I hated being away from my babies, if only for a few days at a time. Even with Super Dad at home, and Grandma Deb holding down the fort so Ant could come with me, we decided as a family that, while the kids are little, I want to be closer to home. Especially with a third on the way.

We decided early on that December would be our month—for family, for friends, and for us. On top of Anthony having a full two weeks off from school, I always plan my writing calendar to be blank. Books with the editor, no socials, no press, no tours.My readers have come to expect it. And because they’ve been so good to us, I’ve tried to drop in surprise holiday novellas to hold them over. It’s kind of fun to drop a book and then shut off the rest of the world.

Now that the Christmas holiday has passed, our annual friends holiday party is about to begin. As I do the last tidying before our guests arrive, the flick of my duster over the living room reminds me of just how lucky I am.

Our home is filled with memories. The ones I just dusted are displayed on canvases, moments frozen in time that we swap out for new ones every once in a while. There are several from our wedding on the beach—not in Florida, but in Aruba, where PJ Layne was generous enough to fly out all of our friends and family for the week. I think back on that day—the red in my toenails matching my husband’s tie, the pastel pinks of my bridesmaids, and the pocket squares of the men; how my tribe had stepped behind me to give me away, all six of their hands somewhere on my shoulders as they told Anthony to be good to me.

There’s a photo of our first kiss as husband and wife, and one that our photographer snuck of us walking down the hotel hallway toward the vending machines; me, wearing nothing but an oversized tee withWifeyalong the shoulders; Ant in nothing but his dress pants, suspenders hanging loose by his thighs; our clenched hands between us held high in the air.

Of course, no one could have predicted that one of our wedding photos would have our three month old son in them. Did I expect my own son to be the ring bearer at my wedding? No. But when your fiancé is as gorgeous as Anthony Ellis, and when you frequently need his help with the mechanics of writing sex scenes, and when you’re both working so super hard, sometimes you can’t help it.

Sometimes, I forgot to take my birth control. Sometimes, I did it on purpose. Sometimes, the sweet nothings Ant whispered in my ear were about how much he wanted to get me pregnant. We were not at all upset that Claire and Nathan walked down the aisle holding our baby boy so that Theo could be our ring bearer. The photo of us holding him between us, squishing kisses to his once chubby cheeks, his red hair sticking up at odd angles, is one of my favorites—right beside the one of our newborn boy wearing the blue hat his dad knitted together with his own fingers.

Of course, his sister was nearly his Irish twin—again, we can blame my husband and his constant inspiration for the spicy scenes in my books. Piper came in thirteen months later as the absolute “second child” to Theo’s quiet mild-mannered demeanor. There’s a photo of her with underwear on her head and a popsicle in each hand standing on the bathroom counter next to one of Theo wearing a toy hard hat, holding a Little Tykes hammer, cheesing in front of the treehouse he “helped” Daddy and Pop Pop build.

Quite possibly my favorite part of the whole picture walk that encompasses our living room, though, is on our mantle. In the center of preschool photos and our latest family Christmas card, along with the sonogram of the little guy currently stepping on my kidneys, sit two frames. One is Anthony and I as toddlers. Him in a swim diaper. Me sticking out my tongue. His lips planted on my cheek in a pudgy kiss. Beside is the recreation from our wedding day. Only this time, my husband isn’t wearing a diaper. And, there’s no denying the love in my eyes. Besidethatframe is the moment captured immediately after, when I’d tugged him by the collar of his dress shirt and planted a big one on him.

“You getting sentimental there, boss?”

He has snuck up behind me. His chin rests on my shoulder, hands coming to clasp possessively around my belly where they are ninety-nine percent of the time nowadays.

“Always,” I say, wiping my eyes. I pluck the frame—of us as toddlers—from the mantle and hold it up for both of us to see. “Do you think they knew what they had in store?”

“Absolutely not. My only focus at that age was eating popsicles for lunch.”

I elbow him in the ribs, but he smiles, nuzzles my neck, and holds me tightly.

The doorbell rings, and I dust the frame one more time for good measure before Ant kisses my cheek and snags a tissue from the box on the coffee table.

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