Page 20 of Their Virgin Valentine

Epilogue Two

Javier

Today is Valentine’s Day. It is the seventh Valentine’s we’ve spent with Sophia as our wife, each one more special than the last. Ryan and I married Sophia in a private ceremony in Aruba with only a few of our closest friends in attendance. Mike walked Sophia down the makeshift aisle on the beach, handing her over with the promise that we’d rather die than let anything happen to his baby sister. We stood shoulder to shoulder and vowed to love Sophia with every last breath in our bodies and she promised to be the soft to our hard, the light to our dark, and to never accept roses from anyone else except us.

Sophia graduated from college with her master’s in education and went on to become a middle school math teacher. She loves kids, especially those preteen monsters. We go in and help every couple of weeks to make sure those fuckers aren’t messing with her sweetness. She’s never come home and told us otherwise, so it must be working.

When she got pregnant her second year of teaching, she was a little nervous about how she would be able to juggle being a mom and a teacher. We promised to help with whatever she needed if she wanted to keep teaching but told her she didn’t have to if she wanted to stay home with our son, Finn. She chose to keep teaching, not because she had to, but because she loved it. I admire her for it, but sometimes wish she’d just stay home with the kids. It’s safer after all.

Mike is doing a hell of a lot better now that he’s home and got that whole deceased thing taken care of. It was a nightmare for him legally for months. Sophia and Mike are closer than they were before and we see him and his family at least twice a week, but oftentimes more.

“Papa, how old are you?” Simone, our four-year-old asks.

“Forty.”

“And how old is Daddy?

I quirk my brow at her. “Fort, why are you asking?”

She shrugs her shoulders and lifts her hands in the air. “Momma said my daddies were old men. I wanted to know how old is old.”

“Oh, she did, did she? Where is that momma of yours?”

“The kitchen with Finn.”

I throw my daughter over my shoulders and run with her into the kitchen to find Ryan sitting on the counter with Finn, each of them licking a beater with chocolate batter covering Finn’s face.

I kiss Sophia tenderly, tasting a bit of chocolate on her tongue as well. “How much batter made it into the pan?”

Sophia glares at me. “Enough,” she sasses. “Come here Simone, I saved you the bowl baby.” She says grabbing our daughter and putting her on the counter next to Ryan. She hands me the bowl and the spatula to give to Simone.

“Where’s my taste?” I ask feeling left out all of a sudden.

“You just got it.” She smirks.

Our road hasn’t been traditional, but it’s been ours and I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. Sophia wraps her arm around my back and leans into me, rubbing her swollen belly. In another couple of months our family will be complete, but today our world is perfect.

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