Page 18 of Holiday Friend Zones
And then his mouth was on mine, and I knew that being snowed in with my best friend might have been the best near accident ever.
* * *
Five years later.
“Tasha,please stop banging that spoon against that pan,” I said as sweetly as I could as my three-year-old daughter sat on the floor, grinning up at me.
“Yes, I know you love that pan, but Mommy has a headache.”
“Mom!Mom!”Jake said as he ran into the room, our eight-year-old son grinning at us with his backpack over his shoulder.Cullen walked in behind him, our infant daughter in his arms.
“Oh, did you get your paper back?”I asked, smiling as Jake wrapped his arms around my waist.
“I got an A.Can you believe that?Me.”
“I’m not surprised at all,” I said with a grin.
In the past five years, life wasn’t always easy, but I had learned to take a second chance when I never thought it was possible.
Because not only on that long stretch of road did I fall in love with my best friend, I also started a whole new life I was never prepared for.
Because we not only celebrated Christmas at my parents’ house, we celebrated the day after Christmas with all of Cullen’s family.
Because just like that, we were family.
After all, we had been accidentally dating for a good two years.Just nobody ever bothered to tell us we were already on that path.
We had adopted Tasha and Jake together, only a little over two years ago now, and they were two joys and lights in our lives.So having baby Natalie at the ripe age of forty, had been quite a shock.We hadn’t been trying, because neither one of us had wanted to worry ourselves like we had the first two years, and now, here we were, proud parents of three, and exhausted.
I spun Jake around the room, before picking up Tasha and watching as Cullen walked towards me, Natalie still in his arms, looking happily up at her father.
“I thought you were going to take a nap,” Cullen whispered before sliding his lips over mine.I sighed into him, that familiar feel of him still feeling new at the same time.The paradox of it unyielding.
“I was in the mood for a snack, and you had kidnapped my baby girl.”
“She needed Daddy time, and now Jake’s home from school, and I see Tasha is starting a band,” he said as he tickled our daughter.
I sat Tasha down, and she chased after Jake, before Cullen handed me Natalie and forced me to sit down on one of the kitchen chairs.
Then I proceeded to watch the love of my life make us dinner, cleaning up messes and letting me rest.
Because this was the man who had not only gotten me out of my house all those years ago but had broken me out of my shell.
And I loved him more than anything.
“Hey, did you hear our favorite cabin is open for the next holiday season.”
“You do realize that both sets of our parents will murder us if we spend Christmas in a cabin alone.”
“That is true, but I already have a plan.”
“Oh?”I asked, keeping an eye on the two other kids while I nursed Natalie.
“We’re heading to my folks’ house, and your parents will be there as well, then we’re going to have Mommy and Daddy time only thirty minutes away in our favorite cabin.”
“Are you telling me that you want me to leave a then six-month-old, as well as the other two, with both sets of grandparents?”He opened his mouth, probably to explain what a good idea it was, but I started laughing.“I’m in.Totally in.”
He moved around the kitchen island and pressed his lips against mine again.“That’s good, because I already booked it.I’m evil that way.”
“I guess it’s good that one of us takes the initiative.”
“With you, I’ll do anything.”
And then he went back to cooking dinner, and I nestled in my chair, forever grateful for a snowstorm, a broken car, and a tiny cabin in the woods.
