Page 135 of The Rest is History

Reece looks shocked. The only reason I don’t tease him about it is because the attorney is sitting right there.

This level of commitment is as committed as we can get. The fact that we will now be connected in the normal everyday things like life and health insurance makes our relationship more real than even the physical intimacy between us.

“Also, Reece—” Pippin says. She looks at Asher and me.

“Go on,” I tell her.

“Sawyer and Asher are Ezra’s godparents. They have all the legal rights to raise him as their own if anything were to happen to me. I would like you to be Ezra’s third godfather. Would that be okay?”

Reece stares at her for a long moment. “You want that?” he asks quietly. “You really want me to be a part of his life like that?”

She nods, smiling broadly.

“Yes,” he whispers. “Yes.”

Reece hogs Ezra the entire evening while all the paperwork binding me, Asher and him together in as legal a way as possible is completed. Ezra doesn’t seem to mind. He likes Reece the most, it’s obvious.

Later, after Norman has left, we eat dinner, the five of us. Reece refills my plate with mashed potatoes and chicken wings as I eat, and I catch Asher watching him with profound affection.

Ezra sits on Reece’s lap, and they share a plate, and I think Pippin and Reece are going to have many fights about how much he spoils Ezra, and that might be the best part of our family.

Epilogue

Reece

Three years later

Faye comes home on an early release for good behavior on November first. Asher and the North Wynn Bulldogs defend their three-time championship trophy three weeks later, and we celebrate our commitment ceremony one week after that.

It was supposed to be a quiet dinner at our house with our people, until we realized how many people we have who love us – Faye and Pippin, who have been inseparable since Faye came home, Mrs. Cameron, who cooked all the food, Abdul Patel because he said he’s never seen three people marry each other before. Dotty came too with enough chocolate caramel cake and apple pies to feed a small army. All the boys from the woodlot, Brennan too. Principal Branson and most of the staff from North Wynn High. Even Elaine is here. She just hugged me and told me happiness has many faces.

I told Julie about my life, and she said she was happy for me. I informed my father of our commitment ceremony, a small part of me hoping he’ll change his mind about me, because Sawyer always says everyone needs a chance. He didn’t come. I left it at that.

Now, after the exchange of our rings, I offer Sawyer something else as a sign of my eternal gratitude for his love for me.

He looks at the old, tattered journal curiously.

Asher presses his lips to my hair. “You kept this?”

I nod. “My father used it to tear us apart. I want it to be proof that we were meant to be together. Me, you and Sawyer.”

Asher explains it to Sawyer. “Reece and I used to write in this journal when we were teenagers, about how much we loved each other and all the dreams we had, and other nonsense.”

I hold out the journal to him. “Write something,” I tell him.

He takes it from me, and underneath the note I made when I first arrived in Iowa about how kind and welcoming he was, he writes: Reece belongs here, always. Reece, and Abby too.

He dates it, and I don’t know how to keep myself from crying like a baby in front of all our friends. So, I panic and blurt out the first thing that comes to my mind. “Your handwriting is so ugly.”

He laughs. “I love you too, Reece,” he says, and then he kisses me, and I do cry this time.

Asher is swallowed up by our guests and he plays the perfect host while Sawyer finds a seat and begins to page through the journal.

“Uncle Reece?” Five-year-old Ezra pulls on my pants.

I get down on my knee. “Yeah, buddy?”

“I’m overwhelned.”

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