Page 67 of All of Me

I grinned, and then I started laughing. Finally, we stood up and went to bed. We had loving to do. To sleep in each other’s arms…

And plant a million daisies so Dolly would never run out of them.

Epilogue

The Birthday party

Drake

Never in a million years.

I hadn’t realized. I mean, how would it ever occur to me that this was the first child’s birthday party I’d ever attended?

I didn’t have this when I was a kid. Oh sure, Mom and Dad invited their friends around, but it had nothing to do with me. I was on display for maybe fifteen minutes while I was touted by my dad as the future chief of police and I was pretty sure an hour after because of the number of beers he downed, he would struggle to remember my name.

It wasn’t like this. It wasn’t a huge bouncy castle. It wasn’t all the adults making sure the kids were front and center. It wasn’t Dolly dressed up in princess finery to give rides to little people that were so excited I think one of them actually peed on her makeshift saddle. Not that Dolly cared. As far as Dolly was concerned, she was performing to her adoring public, and she had as many flowers pulled up by little hands as she could eat.

The new puppies, all eight of them rescued two days before, were a huge hit and five of them had already found homes. Jay had been particularly taken by a brown and white bundle of fluff with huge paws you knew was going to be enormous when he grew. I’d heard he’d just split up from his girlfriend, so I didn’t know how he would manage a puppy, but look at me.

Things changed.

Danny had made a huge website for the sanctuary, and we’d employed two ex-service guys that found working with animals after what they’d gone through easier than navigating people. And of course, when Diesel realized that, we had the full backing of Rawlings Security behind everything. He brushed sponsorship off as tax breaks but I knew differently.

Shae didn’t have to worry about anything except making sure the animals were looked after, and while he might need someone to take care of the paperwork, he excelled at everything else.

Albert sat down next to me, and we clinked our severely rationed beer. “I figure we’re the same, you and I,” he said after a moment.

I raised my eyebrows.

“We somehow got stupid lucky and found someone that loves us no matter how much we screw up.”

Which deserved another bottle clink.

“I don’t intend on screwing up ever again,” I vowed, and looked over to where Shae was lifting one of Pink’s kids onto Dolly’s back. He must have known I was looking because those gray-blue eyes turned on me with so many promises in them, my breath caught. All my stitches were out, and I felt good. I wasn’t going to suddenly drop and do fifty, but I thought it was time we had an after-party of our own.

“Heard you got a call from a case worker this morning.”

I sighed because it seemed nothing that happened in my life was going to be private going forward. Not that I cared. I’d hadway too much private. I could cope with the next forty being family all up in your face. It was even kind of good.

“There’s a kid. Thirteen. Up to two months ago, he was going to be adopted from foster care along with his nine-year-old sister. But then he woke up with a scar on his face, and the prospective parents freaked the fuck out. Long story short, they want the girl but not her older brother, and it’s landed on Gerald Slater’s desk.”

“That’s Tammy’s social worker?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “The little girl is refusing to go anywhere without her brother, no matter how many ponies and designer dresses the prospective parents promise her, and somehow Slater likes us for both of them.”

Albert chuckled. “You’re gonna have a house full.”

I fucking hoped so.

My throat was so tight for a few moments; it was only when Shae helped Tammy to cut the cake that I could join in singing my girl happy birthday and speak again.

“Just so you know, the farm and the hundred acres are yours,” Albert said after a moment of cake stickiness when I got my two kisses.

“The fuck?” I shot back, not completely sure I’d heard correctly.

He grinned. “Now, you know Shae is trying to make your language kid-friendly.”

“It’s just us,” I ground out.

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