Page 145 of Passed Ball

You know what else looks good? The ring on my finger. Just like he promised, the diamond he gave me a few weeks ago gleams brightly under the lights of the dance floor. Next to us, Cruz and Lilah dance together, and right next to them, Holland toddles around, attempting to force Jarrett to dance with her. At fourteen-months-old, he's still wobbly, but that doesn't stop her from trying to force her favorite person to keep up with her.

Another promise Xavier fulfilled--a secret no one knows about--is the sibling growing inside me. Not that we were trying. That one was a surprise.

Well, kind of. After watching Indie struggle through her egg retrievals last year, I took my IUD out. (Side-note, it should be illegal to do that to a woman without pain meds). So while we weren't trying, we weren't very careful.

"You've got that look on your face," Xavier whispers, his voice as smooth as the fabric under my fingers as I run my hands over his shoulders.

"And what look is that?"

"The one that makes me want to drag you out of here and up to our room to put another baby in you."

"We need to brush up on your biology. That's not how it works."

"Not going to stop me from trying."

"We can't leave early."

"Why not? Let's start a tradition."

I roll my eyes and he rolls his hips, letting me feel how serious he is. "My hormones are supposed to be the ones causing trouble, not yours."

Mia and Dean waltz over and he raises an eyebrow at Xavier. "I know what you're plotting over here."

"You can't possibly--"

"No one leaves early," he cuts him off.

"You would have thought he'd stop being such a groomzilla now that we're married, but here we are. He gave everyone the same warning." Mia laughs.

"Micah is finally over his colic. We survived the first six months as parents and you look stunning in this dress, wifey. Our friends can stick around until ten o'clock instead of running off to their hotel rooms to try to repopulate the world." Dean grumps.

My cheeks heat. We're not ready to share the news yet, and we both agreed that the wedding was not the place to do it.

"There goes that idea. We could always sneak into a coat closet. We still haven't crossed off sex in public."

"And we're not going to tonight." Just then Holland and Jarrett bump into our legs.

Xavier has the same idea I do, each of us bending to scoop up a baby.

"Momma, cake," Holland says, her two tiny hands grabbing my face and turning my head towards the table of cupcakes.

"You already had one, Estrela," I remind her.

"More."

"How about we go find your water?"

"Milk," Jarret squawks from Xavier's arm.

"Did all that dancing make you thirsty, little man?" Xavier asks, brushing a dark curl off Jarrett's forehead as he follows me off the dance floor to the stash of diaper bags behind the head table.

We set them down and they race, stumbling and falling into the bags before they fish their cups out and roll to their backs, side-by-side, on the floor.

I lean into Xavier's embrace, watching the two of them giggle. "I love this life."

"There's no one else I'd rather do it with. And someday very, very soon, when you're my wife and Holland's adoption is finalized, everything will be the way it was always meant to be."

I sigh, letting him hold me and kiss my temple. "How would you feel about a California wedding?"

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