Page 100 of Entirely Yours
I wrap my hand around the rose tattoo on his wrist. “Fickle from the start.” I sigh. “But you learned how to tame me.”
He shakes his head. “Not tame—I’d never want to tame you. But I have learned how to care for you, and I’ll happily continue learning how to do it even better, for as long as you’ll let me.”
“Hmm.” I pretend to ponder. “How does forever sound?”
“Sounds pretty damn perfect,” he replies.
Yeah, it really does.
A little over one year later
“Don’t worry, our party planning skills have only improved over the last year.” Ben’s voice comes through the line, his attempt at soothing me is not having the intended effect.
“Yes, but this party is really fucking important, Benoit,” I reply, scratching under the chin of a very needy Cat.
He laughs, nonchalant per usual. “I know, Julien. You just get your family there, we’ll take care of the rest. Got it?”
I mumble noncommittally and hang up the phone.
Thea saunters into the kitchen just then, a sleepy Emmett resting his head on her shoulder. He’s rolly in all the right places. Quiet and contemplative, like his dad. At a year old, you can already see the wheels spinning in his head as he observes the world around him. The polar opposite of hissister who never stops talking, keeping us updated on all of the grade school gossip every night at dinner.
“Come here, bud.” I reach out for my son, kissing his beautiful mother once he’s in my arms. “Good morning, Rosie girl.”
“Coffee,” she replies.
“Already ready for you.” I nod to the kitchen table where a steaming mug is waiting next to a full bouquet of burgundy roses.
“These for me, Julien?” she teases, picking up her coffee.
“Only ever for you, my love.” I wrap my free arm around her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
She leans against the counter and takes a sip, taking the two of us in.
“I can’t believe he’s one,” she murmurs, a small smile cresting her lips.
I can’t either. I wake up every morning, surprised to find this last year hasn’t been a dream. “You ready for the party today?”
“Slightly worried about giving Ben and Gabe the full reins on this, but Chloe’s party last year was absolutely perfect—I still don’t know how they pulled that off.”
“The exact thought I had this morning,” I reply.
Chloe then comes bounding into the kitchen. “Uncle Babes”—yes, she’s given them a combined nickname—“are great at parties!”
“Yes, they are, my chicken,” Thea says, pushing Chloe’s crazy bedhead off her forehead.
“Will Pop be there?” Chloe asks through a yawn.
Hank moved into Thea’s old apartment a few months after Emmett was born. He came home one day and announced it was “high time” he lived on his own, and he moved out the next week.
“Pop wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Thea answers. “I think he even said something about bringing cupcakes.”
Hank has also taken up baking in his free time.
Chloe’s squeal of delight scares Cat, who jumps from the open window sill and scurries into the backyard. “Oops! I’ll go get him,” she continues before running out of the garden door behind him.
Thea sighs, taking another long drink from her coffee mug. “I love our chaos.”
“Me too,” I reply, joining her against the counter. “We should add to it.”
