“Are you okay, baby?” he asks, taking a step towards me.
“Yeah.” I nod my head as he pulls me into his arms. “It’s over,” I whisper into his chest.
“Yeah,” he agrees.
Epilogue
“Again, again!” Emma screams as Asher picks her up again, tossing her through the air and into the pool. He’s been doing the same thing for the last ten minutes. I look around for someone to help me at eight and a half months pregnant. It’s hard to get my ass out of our lounge chairs unless I roll out, get on my hands and knees then stand. There are too many people around for me to do that today without really embarrassing myself.
“Need some help?” I look up to see Kenton standing over me.
“God, yes.” I moan. “I swear, this little girl is going to be a dancer,” I tell him and watch as he smiles.
“The pool turned out awesome,” he says once he pulls me up. I look around. He is not wrong. The pool is amazing. It has a hot tub that is connected to it, along with so many flowers and plants that you would think we were in the jungle.
“Yeah, Jack did an amazing job,” I say and look over at him. “So, where is Christen or Tina or Lisa or—”
“Very funny,” he says, cutting me off.
I start to giggle and feel my belly bouncing with my laughter then I feel a kick that’s so hard, I stop immediately and grab Kenton’s hand and pull it towards my belly.
“What?” he started. Then, his eyes get big and drop to my stomach. “Holy shit!”
“Yeah, now imagine that on your bladder.” I laugh.
“That’s so amazing,” he says and his hand starts to rub my belly.
“Now, I know that it’s obvious by the huge ring on her finger that she’s taken, but if you happened to miss that, you definitely can’t miss the fact that she’s obviously pregnant.”
I laugh and see Kenton looking at Asher with something that looks a lot like envy in his eyes. I know he doesn’t want me, but I think deep down he wants his own family.
“Yeah, both those are hard to miss,” he says, smiling.
“How’s it going, man?” Asher asks him while pulling me into him.
“Good. Busy. I'm seeing someone and things are good.”
“Just one someone?” I ask, knowing his history. Since I’ve been around, there has been someone different at each event.
“Yeah, just one.” He smiles and shakes his head.
“That’s great,” I whisper, laying my head on Asher’s chest. He doesn’t look like someone in love though, so I wonder if he’s just trying to settle down because he is lonely. “You should invite her next time we all get together.”
“Baby, leave the man alone. He just said he’s seeing someone, not that he is picking out a ring.”
I scrunch up my nose at my husband. “Fine,” I grumble. His eyes go soft and he puts his mouth to mine. The kiss is sweet and soft. “I'm going inside then I'm going to visit Ms. Alice,” I whisper, biting his lower lip.
Once, I'm done in the bathroom, I track down Ms. Alice. She’s sitting in the baby’s room. It was finished yesterday with the help of Nico, Cash and Trevor. They were over most of the night, laying carpet and touching up the walls. I look around and can see all the love that went into making this room special for our daughter. I know that she’s going to have more love than she will know what to do with.
“It’s so beautiful,” Ms. Alice says and I agree. It is beautiful. The walls are a very light blue with flowers that shoot up from the base with clouds and butterflies. Meg and Liz spent a week coming over every day when they got off work to paint every flower and butterfly on the walls. Asher and his brothers sanded down every piece of furniture that we picked up from Ms. Alice and stained the wood a dark brown. The bedding is a quilt with pink and white checkers. It looks like a fairytale baby room. I think, what really means the most is that everyone helped make it beautiful. “You know that I never had a girl and Asher’s mama didn’t have a girl either.”
“I know,” I say softly.
“I'm excited that this house is going to have a little girl in it. I think all those boys needed this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, sweet girl. They’ve never really been around little girls to know how precious they are. I think when this little one comes, she’s going to turn their lives upside down, and they all need it. Each one of them needs to see that all women were once precious little girls.”
“You’re right,” I agree quietly. “But I think they all know how precious women are from you and Susan. They’re just waiting for the right woman to come along and show them how precious they are.”
She smiles and pats my cheek. “Smart girl.” I laugh.
“Well,” I say, kissing her cheek, “I'm going to go find my husband.”
“Are you ever going to have a real wedding?”
“I don’t know.” I honesty haven’t thought about it. After I got out of the hospital, me and Asher went right to the court house and got a marriage license. I was wearing sweats and sneakers and so was Asher. We just wanted to be married. The wedding didn’t matter to me. “Maybe, after the baby gets here, we can have a small ceremony.”
“That would be nice. She can be the flower girl.”
“Yeah and Beast can be the ring bearer,” I say, laughing. “Maybe me and you can start planning something small. I'm sure Mama Susan would like to help.”