Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
He threw his head back and laughed, and while he was laughing, I whispered my words into his ear.
“I love you, too.”
Epilogue
So apparently I’m dramatic.
-Ares to Hayes
Ares
“Ohhh!” Maybell, our oldest, said. “Can we pleasssseeeee go to Target? I have report card money that I want to spend.”
I looked at my husband, who’d just spent the last six hours at three birthday parties, all with screaming little girls, and wondered if he could handle Target mid-day on a Saturday.
“Sure,” Hayes said, surprising me.
Instead of taking the road home that would’ve taken us out of the congested city of Longview, he turned right into Target and found a parking spot at the very back of the lot.
After adjusting his clothes so that it covered his concealed carry weapon—something he never went anywhere without after ‘the incident’ that we tried not to talk about because Daddy sometimes lost it—he reached into the back of the truck for our son, Mir.
Vladimir Hayes Romine was named after his late grandfather, and even resembled him, too.
Then again, according to Hayes’ grandmother, Maybell resembled her when she was a kid, as well.
Though, she had my red ringlet hair and attitude.
But Maybell definitely took after her crazy great-grandmother. She’d challenged the princess at the last party we went to to a push-up war. Winner gets the crown that the princess wore.
Needless to say, the princess didn’t find it nearly as cute when she had to give up her crown.
My Annabell, though? She was all Hayes. Down to the shiny, thick head of hair and the piercing beauty of her eyes.
“I can’t wait to find some heels.” Annabell clapped her hands.
I nearly groaned.
At eight months pregnant, the last thing I wanted to do was go into Target and walk through the toy aisle.
What I really wanted was to go to the Starbucks inside and get a hot chocolate and sip on it while reading a magazine.
Something which Hayes realized moments after I walked through the front doors.
I looked longingly at the Starbucks, and he chuckled. “Just go sit. I’ll try to get her done fast.”
I looked at Mir, who was busy sleeping, and gestured at him. “Do you want me to hold him while you’re doing that?”
He shook his head and winked. “I can handle it, baby. Go sit.”
After watching them walk away, I ordered my hot chocolate and nearly moaned in ecstasy at the taste.
Sitting in a back corner, I watched and waited for them to come back, reflecting back to a time before kids with Hayes and me.
After our marriage—which, might I add, wasn’t at the courthouse, but at a big freakin’ church that my father walked me down the aisle in—we found out that we were expecting.
Nine months after that, Maybell came and I quit my job for good.
I still stayed in touch with a few of my former students, though. Most of them now nearly about to graduate college.
In fact, just last week, I’d been to Briley, Slone’s daughter’s, birthday. Slone was actually about to enter the NFL draft.
And God, did little Briley look so much like Abilene that it hurt.
Sometimes, when I saw that little girl, I would thank God for Hayes and his slight overprotectiveness.
The day that it’d all gone down with Bailey could’ve been a whole lot different.
Over the years, I would ask Hayes to check in on Bailey’s ‘stay’ at the federal penitentiary in Huntsville. And when he’d get back to me, it was with the guarantee that Bailey’s life was far from elegant. Reading between the lines, I knew that Hayes often made sure that he’d get a bunch of shit from the other inmates, making prison life not very good for Bailey.
But if anyone deserved it, Bailey did. I hoped the rest of his life he got much the same treatment, and I didn’t sleep any differently at night knowing how hard he had it.
I was nearly to the end of my hot chocolate when Hayes and my babies reappeared.
Maybell was dragging a small Shetland pony-sized Sven the reindeer off of the movie Frozen.
Oh, and there was also a rather large tent and blow up mattress in the cart as well.
And Mir was now awake, smothering Hayes’ cheeks in wet, snotty kisses.
Hayes didn’t flinch once.
Grinning, I finished off the rest of my hot chocolate in one gulp and made my way to my family.
Hayes saw me and winked.
Mir lunged for me.
Annabell smiled sweetly at me.
Maybell announced that she had to take a shit.
It was just another day in my paradise.
The next morning, when everyone in the entire house was still asleep, I walked to the window where I could see my girls’ tent. From where I was sitting, I could see my husband’s large form taking up the majority of the tiny twin-sized air mattress. His head was supported on a pink princess pillow, and our two little girls were curled up tightly to his sides, each resting their heads on his belly.