Page 122 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

When I assumed the baby kicked, Anleigh picked her head up in awe.

“That’s adorable,” Grams whispered.

“Agreed,” I murmured.

A quick vision assaulted me of Anleigh doing the same to Merriam when she was pregnant with my baby.

It was so desperately wanted that I stopped walking and just took that vision into my soul.

Yes, I could definitely get down with having Merriam be permanently mine.

“Come on.” Grams patted the seat next to her. “Sit down. Trust me.”

Merriam sat, and I grinned at the hesitant way that she did it.

Walking farther into the room, I headed to the first pile of presents and started to hand them out.

The first present that Anleigh got, Merriam frowned.

The first present that Merriam got, her breath caught.

As the presents started to flow, and the pile at the end of the chair that Neesha was sitting at started to grow, I could see the tears begin to well in Merriam’s eyes.

She looked at me, and I could tell that she was overwhelmed.

I cupped her cheek, swept my thumb over her cheek for a second, then went back to passing out presents.

Once they were all handed out, the wrapping paper started to fly.

The first gift I opened was from Chris.

My mouth dropped when I saw the canvas photo.

“Don’t know why, but I got it because I loved it, and felt like it’d look great on your wall,” he said. “I found it at a thrift store.”

It was an old black-and-white photo.

You could tell that it was old by the yellowing of the photo.

Someone had done some creative work on the photo itself, and somehow plastered it onto a canvas and given it a new life.

It was a photo of a man and a woman on a motorcycle.

They were both on the bike. The man was stopped in front of a mountain overlook. From the back, you could see the woman had her arms thrown around the man’s shoulders. The man had both hands on the handlebars, feet planted on the ground on either side of the bike, and he was looking up at the woman.

Neither one was wearing a helmet, so the woman’s blonde hair was a tangled mess behind her. The man’s hair was short, but his beard was impressive.

I loved it.

“I love it,” I told my brother.

He winked when he tore into his own gift. “I’m glad.”

My eyes went to the chair across the room where Anleigh was sitting with a mountain of gifts in front of her.

Neesha was bent forward—as best as she could with how pregnant she was—helping Anleigh tear into her presents.

Only when she’d gotten the hang of it did she lean back and open her own.

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