Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“Tash?” I called.
“In the kitchen!” she yelled back.
Curious, I walked into the kitchen and froze.
“What are you doing?” I asked carefully.
She looked at me over her shoulder, a wide smile on her face, and said, “I’m cooking your dinner. What does it look like I’m doing?”
I took in her attire.
She was wearing her wedding dress.
It looked just as good on her now as it had a year ago.
“You look…fancy,” I finally settled on, laughter tinging my voice.
She turned around and gave me the front view, and my breath caught.
So beautiful.
“You’ve got sauce on your dress,” I said, pointing.
She looked down and shrugged.
“I wanted to wear it because I didn’t want it to sit in the closet like everyone else’s. Do you care?” she teased.
I walked forward and wrapped my hands around her cheeks.
“No. I don’t care. I kind of like it. Weird, just like you,” I teased.
She hit me in the belly with a clenched fist.
“That was rude,” she quipped, turning back around to tend to her pasta sauce.
Guess we were having spaghetti.
I watched as her hips swayed to some silent music that only played in her head, and I grinned.
I loved the hell out of this woman.
Thoroughly and completely.
The one thing that was weighing on us, though, was my inability to give Tasha children.
She said she didn’t care.
She only wanted me.
But I cared.
I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to see her holding my children. I wanted to hold them in my hands. I wanted to give her the world.
But I couldn’t.
We’d been trying to have a baby for a year now, ever since we’d gotten married, and it still hadn’t happened.
We knew it’d be a long shot…but it was hard as a man to not see this as a failure on my part.
Not that it was technically considered ‘failing.’
But it felt like it to me.
“What are you thinking about, my Little Storm cloud?” Tasha provoked me.
I looked up from studying her dress and shrugged.
“Wondering if you’re ever going to step outside your comfort zone and cook something besides spaghetti on Monday,” I teased her.
She had a busy life.
She worked late most days…then again, so did I.
Sometimes, spaghetti was all she had time for. And I was thankful, no matter what.
I did like to give her a hard time, though. Mostly because I liked to see the flush that stole up her chest to her face as her temper rose.
“I think…” I hesitated. “I think we should adopt.”
Her eyes went huge.
“Really?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Really.”
She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.
“I think…” she smiled brilliantly. “I think I’d like that.”
***
Tasha
Year 2
I ran from the kitchen into the living room, then pulled open the front door.
“Thank God you’re home!” I cried, placing a baby…a naked baby…into Casten’s hands. “I’m having a meltdown.”
I picked up the train of my dress and hooked it around my arm as I ran back into the bedroom to pick up the second of our two children.
“Oh, this is soooo gross,” I cried as I picked up Davy from his crib. “Grrrrooooossss.”
“What’s going on?” Casten asked, taking in the pandemonium.
“Your kids decided to shit…at the same time…and blow out of their diapers…at the same time…in their crib…during nap. At the same time!” I screamed at him as I moved into the bathroom then dropped down to my knees beside the bathtub.
I pulled the spray nozzle down and slowly started to hose him off.
Davy and Ivy were twins.
When their birth mother had chosen us, we’d been beyond excited…and so happy.
Color us surprised, though, when we got to the first ultrasound and realized that she wasn’t pregnant with just one baby, but two.
We jumped at the chance, so thrilled that words couldn’t explain.
We’d been trying for a very long time, and it was wonderful to see the light at the end of our tunnel when it came to these two precious lives.
Water splashed on my dress, and I was thankful that that was all that got on it, seeing as it could’ve been worse.
Way worse.
“I can’t believe you’re wearing that again,” Casten laughed from the doorway, his large hands cupping the now-diapered bottom of Ivy.
I looked down at my wedding dress, seeing the old stain from last year when he’d told me he wanted to adopt a baby, and smiled.
“I’m making good memories in it,” I told him.
He grinned and walked away, leaving me to finish cleaning up Davy.
Yes, good memories indeed.
***
Casten
Year 3
“Casten!” Tasha called from the bedroom.
I stood up from where I’d collapsed an hour before, completely exhausted from having to wrangle two one year olds for a fucking party that was pointless when they wouldn’t even remember it.
“Yeah?” I asked, rounding the corner to our bedroom.
I smiled when I saw Tasha.
“Can you help me?” she asked, trying in vain to reach around to unzip her dress.