Page 31 of What About Now

“Come, let’s go spend some time with our family. I need to threaten my new brother-in-law.”

“Please don’t,” I beg her, and she giggles all the way up the steps. “Briar,” I say, grabbing her attention. She stops and turns to look at me. “Remember that tattoo we always talked about?”

Her eyes light up. “I do.”

“Are you ready?”

She nods. “I think we waited for a reason. We were waiting for our husbands.” She winks, and I smile as I follow her into the kitchen in search of the girls and our husbands.

We find everyone in the living room. River is painting Forrest’s nails, and Rayne is painting Maddox’s nails.

“Look!” they say in tandem.

Briar heads toward Forrest, and I do the same to Maddox. “Wow, you’re doing a great job, Rayne,” I tell my niece.

“Do I look pretty, baby?” Maddox asks, as he raises his left hand that’s already painted. His wedding band catches my eyes, and my chest tightens. I ignore it and settle on the floor next to him.

“Handsome,” I tell him.

Maddox reaches over and places his hand on my thigh. He gives a soft squeeze and leaves it to rest there while Rayne works on his other hand.

“I can do yours too, Aunt Brogan.”

“After this it’s bedtime,” Briar tells the girls. “We’ll have to plan another day for Aunt Brogan to come over so you can paint her nails. Maybe we’ll even go to the salon and we can all get our nails painted.”

“Daddy too?” River asks.

“No, a girls’ day,” Briar replies.

“Oh, we love girls’ day!” Rayne exclaims.

The girls finish their job, and Maddox and Forrest make a huge deal about how great they did, and their little faces beam with pride.

“All right, little ladies, time for bed,” Briar tells them.

“We should be heading out too.” I stand and offer Maddox my hand, to help him do the same. Once he’s on his feet, he wraps his arm around my waist and presses a kiss to my temple.

“Thank you for dinner, and the manicure,” he says to the girls. “Our place next time?” he suggests.

“We’ll be there,” Forrest tells him.

After a round of hugs, we’re heading out to the truck. Maddox opens the door for me, and this time, I smile and thank him. The drive home is quiet. Once back, we go through our nightly routine, and when Maddox turns off the light, he whispers my name.

“Brogan?”

“Yeah?”

“Come here, baby.”

It’s like this every night. I try to sleep on my side of the bed, but he insists that he holds me. Without a word, I move, and he meets me in the middle, wrapping his arms around me. He places a tender kiss on my shoulder. “Night, beautiful.”

For the first time since we’ve been living together and sleeping in the same bed, I don’t think about how I’m going to handle life when I no longer have him here. This time, I snuggle a little closer, and whisper, “Goodnight, Mad,” before allowing myself to drift off to sleep.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

Maddox

---