Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“I’m happy we get to be good at it for the rest of our lives.” I grasp his face and kiss him deeply again, rocking my hips up into his as he succeeds in peeling most of my blouse away.
“Ahh, yes. The rest of our lives. How did I get so lucky, not once but twice?” Orion ponders in wonder.
“I don’t know if it was luck. We bonded over hacking, and then hacking literally brought us back together both times. Maybe it was just technology, not luck. Or maybe it was us being in the right place at the right time. Or maybe it was your granny and my mom and all the aspects of our lives combined.”
He sighs, but it’s a good sigh. We’ve both taken the long road to get here, where we can give good sighs. Atlas and Orion still haven’t found their birth mom yet, and I’m not sure they’re ready, but they trust their granny when she says she knows where their mom is and that she’s okay. I’m not sure if they’ll ever be ready individually or together, but when that time comes, if it comes, I know I’ll be by Orion’s side, helping him get through everything it’ll entail, and Victoria will be there for Atlas. I know Atlas has been thinking about it more now that he’s going to be a parent. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, this year, or the year after, both Atlas and Orion brought up the subject of finding their birth mom together and made it happen.
My mom knows I’m getting married. I sent her an invitation, and when she sent a postcard back saying she couldn’t attend because she was currently sailing the world with Herb, who I guess turned out not to be such a bad guy, I was more than a little bit disappointed. So disappointed, in fact, that I called her to tell her how much it stung, but she surprised me by asking me if I could video the wedding and send her a copy or if I could somehow get her in live using her phone and the poor reception she’ll probably have. I said yes, absolutely. My mom and I don’t have the relationship I wanted when I was younger, but as an adult who travels the world and uses fake names and identities and needs to basically hide who I really am half the time, it works out. My mom knows I’m traveling now, too, and we do the best we can to keep in touch. I’m still learning to love her the way she is, not the way I want her to be, as she requested. It’s a hard process, but I’ve also learned that not everyone is perfect, and that’s okay. Not everyone can fit into a specific mold. Myself included—big time.
I raise my hands, and Orion clasps both of them tightly, somehow without falling on top of me. “It wasn’t luck, and it wasn’t chance. It was every aspect, every choice, and every decision from the dawn of time that led us here, which is a crazy big picture to think about.”
“And super cool. You’re my dawn of time. You’re my stroke of good luck, my second chance, my destiny, my fluke Vegas marriage, my family, my fate, and my love. I can’t say I believed in all of them until I met you. Maybe I still don’t, but it’s fun to think of it like that.”
“However we met, and whatever brought us together, tomorrow I’m going to promise you that, for the rest of my life, it won’t be luck or a fluke or a Vegas marriage that makes us a couple. It will be us. Loving each other. Choosing each other.”
“That’s awesome.” I have to blink away the burn at the backs of my eyes. “That’s so, so awesome. I’m really happy. Can you kiss me again and take off all my clothes and make this treehouse something we’ll have to scrub down later before it’s safe for anyone else to enter again because sexing it up in a treehouse is kind of naughty and very dirty and excitingly taboo?”
“I’m totally down for that, but let’s save the scrubbing until after the wedding night. I think it would be quite pointless to do anything before then,” Orion says, grinning widely.
“Why’s that? You think you’re going to get lucky? I heard people who get married don’t have sex ever again.”
Orion throws his head back and laughs that deep, gut-busting laugh that can probably be heard throughout the neighborhood. He’s wonderful, he’s adorable, he’s amazing, and he’s totally all mine.
“Well, we’ve challenged all the norms so far. And that’s one I know for sure won’t be true for us.”
I cup his face in my hands and smile up at him. I’m pretty sure he was right about the luck. I’m the luckiest person alive to get to be the wife of the most wonderful man on earth. “Definitely. I’m ready to prove them all wrong.”