Page 105 of Resilient Love

“It’s almost my birthday and this is what I get?”

“No, it’s almost your birthday and your two favourite people in the whole world are taking you on holiday in France. Now stopyour complaining, we’re almost there,” Dad tells me, shifting his luggage into his lap as we prepare to get off the train.

“Ah, so I see her incessant need to askare we almost there yet?” Rafael says, raising his voice in a mock interpretation of mine, “is not a new development.”

“Definitely not,” Dad says with a deep chuckle.

The conductor announces our next stop, and the train comes to a screeching halt a minute later, opening the doors with a puff.

Beautiful sunshine spears through the train cars as we make our way to the nearest exit. Stepping onto the platform, we’re surrounded by passengers rushing by, pulling their children behind them or carrying their large shopping bags filled with designer items.

When in France, I guess.

EPILOGUE PART TWO

Elise stretches against me,pressing her ass into my erection. Heat smoulders at the base of my spine, but I groan into her ear. “Your dad is right next door,mi vida.Andyouare entirely too loud for this to go any further.”

She huffs, rolling onto her back, but the pout on her lips doesn’t last long before my mouth is wiping it right off.

She moans into my mouth, and I relish the sound, the taste and feel of her under me. Reluctantly I pull away, tugging her lower lip as I do. “Happy birthday,mi vida.”

“It’d be a much happier birthday if you’d fu—” her words are cut off by the shrill ring of the phone on the nightstand.

I release a steadying breath through my nose, wrenching the corded phone off the line, and press it to my ear. “What is it, old man?” I grit out.

“Well, good morning to you too, Rafael! My most favourite future son-in-law who I justknowis wide awake and ready for another beautiful day on the coast of France for my equally lovely daughter’s birthday,” he says, rambling on and on in that annoying sing-song way that he does. I don’t know how he manages to lead a goddamn thing because all he seems to do is drive me up a fucking wall.

“We’ll be ready in a half hour,” I grumble.

“Make it twenty minutes—we’ve got some pedal boats to catch!”

The line goes dead and with it, my good attitude.

“Pedal boats, really?” I ask Elise, and the way her eyes gleam and that single dimple caves with her growing smile is all I needed to suddenly be equally excited for the stupid activity as her dad was.

The boat rocks gently beneath us, the water sparkling like something out of a postcard. It's a perfect day in France, the kind of day that feels like a love letter to life, or maybe I’ve just heardthat kind of corny shit in one of the romcoms Chelsea’s subjected Elise and me to.

This might even be peaceful, but naturally, Coach has turned our little adventure into a military operation. He has the energy of a man half his age and the patience of a caffeinated squirrel.

He’s standing at the bow like he's captaining a yacht instead of a wobbly plastic boat. His voice booms across the lake, startling a few ducks nearby. “Come on, Rafael, use those legs. Stop being so lazy!”

I groan, shaking my head. This is not what I imagined when they said it would be a relaxing day on the lake.

“Where the hell do you even think we’re going, Coach? It’s a tiny ass lake with no destination.”

He turns his upper body to face me, narrowing his eyes, though I think that's more from the sun and less as an intimidation tactic. The whole boat starts to wobble with the abrupt movement, and I’m starting to think I might be suffering from seasickness.

“Maybe I want to feel the wind in my hair today, Rafa. Have you ever thought about that?”

“Well, no. I haven’t. Considering you don’t have a whole lot of hair left anymore, the thought never crossed my mind.”

He flips me off and says, “I’ve got more hair on my head than you, asshole.”

He’s not wrong. The annoying fucker has an infuriatingly thick head of hair, but any chance I’ve got to bring up his age, I’m taking it.

I look over at Elise, who sits cross-legged, leaning back in her seat with her face tilted toward the sun, completely unbothered. She's always like this, effortlessly graceful, as though the chaos around her is just white noise. And believe me,there is a lot of chaos.

Like right now as her dad jostles the boat, nearly capsizing it while I do all the work.

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