It wasn’t only Aidan that I’d been disconnected from. In getting our relationship back, I was returning to myself as well. I felt healthier in every part of my soul.
Now I just needed to figure out the daycare dilemma so I could stop stressing and enjoy the holiday. I was trying to make peace with a drive to Champaign every day. Ideal? No. Doable? I supposed. My phone chimed with another text.
Aidan:Leaving the park to head home for a quick nap for the babe, and Mom is hitting the road so that she and Declan can come back down here on the 26thto celebrate with us then. Want to hit the Holiday Glow tonight with Mia for a walk in the lights? Shouldn’t be too cold.
I loved this man to the depths of my soul. What I also realized was that I’dmissed himin the past few months. I’d been so stressed, so out of my element, that I’d turned inward and shut everyone out, including him, all because mothering wasn’t the easiest thing in the world and it rocked my confidence in myself. Enough of that bullshit, I was reclaiming what I wanted. That was Aidan and Mia. My friends. My job. Myself. I was done with staying home in case Mia cried and people thought I was a bad mom. Time to get my life back, one step at a time.
Me:Sounds great. Give your mom another kiss from me and tell her thanks again. I’ll be home in a little over an hour, and then we can hit the lights after we eat.
Several hours later, I walked with my little family, winding through the lit trails of the park. There were Christmas lights strung over trees and bushes, wound around structures. The festive atmosphere had many visitors out at the park, whether they were taking a stroll on the path, enjoying carriage rides from the mansion, or standing around the bonfire in the meadow where a booth from the café was selling drinks for adults or hot chocolate for all. Allyson was also open indoors for people who wanted to warm up or grab a bite to eat.
Mia was snuggled into the sling at my chest but facing away from me, Baxter on his leash by Aidan. We’d realized as we started walking that Mia was absolutely mesmerized with the lights, just as she was with our Christmas tree at home, so we positioned her so she could see.
Every so often she’d coo and drop her head back to see the lights, especially as we walked through the tunnel where you were surrounded with the warm white bulbs. As we reached the end, Aidan turned to wait for us, Baxter plopping to his butt and panting happily.
“You good, babe?” he asked, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to my temple.
I leaned in, inhaling the scent that I knew to be love. Mia was squeezed between us but seemingly very happy about that as she reached up and patted Aidan’s face.
“I’m good. Great even.” Looking up at the man I loved, I could see the boy he’d been. We’d been through so much in the past fifteen years. I couldn’t wait to experience the next fifty with them.
“Hold on a second,” he said, then tapped a teen who had just finished taking selfies with a friend. “Can I get you to take a pic of my family?”
“Sure!” She slid her own phone in her puffer vest and turned, assessing the lights and our stance. “Okay, get closer here and I can get the lights framing you all.”
She stood back as we moved into position. She and her friend looked at the screen, positioning the phone a few different ways as she tapped it.
Faster than I could have even opened the app, she handed it back to Aidan. “There you go. I took several.”
We called out thanks as she and her friend headed down the lit path to the Sunken Gardens, talking a mile a minute. Clearly the girl knew her stuff and was confident in her shot.
“Pretty good,” Aidan murmured, showing me one of the pictures.
It made my breath catch. It was an intimate picture, that’s the only way I could think to describe it. Aidan’s arms were around us, his face pressed up to mine. She’d stepped back enough that Baxter was captured as well. The lights bathed us in a warm glow, and I freaking loved it.
“Let me get one of the two of you,” Aidan said, stepping back.
I pressed a kiss to Mia’s head as I looked Aidan’s way. He took a picture, then lowered the phone, his warm brown eyes locked on mine. Without words, he stepped toward me, never breaking the gaze.
When he reached us, I whispered, “We can’t drop down and go for it here, you know.”
He shut his eyes then, shaking his head at me with a relaxed smile on his face. Looking at me once again, he dropped his mouth to my ear. “That’s for later. For now I just need you to know how sexy you are.”
I felt the heat warm my face. “Thanks?”
He stepped back, then wrapped an arm around me and started toward the café where we’d told Allyson and Logan we would swing by before heading home. “I just wanted you to know it. My mom pointed out that I had no pictures of you and Mia together, though you’ve taken several of me with her. I wasn’t sure if it was because you didn’t like the way you looked or something else, but my aim is to remedy that.”
I thought about that for a minute as we passed a group setting off on the trail. Surely I’d taken some photos of me with Mia even if I hadn’t asked Aidan to. Without speaking, I pulled my phone out, flipping through the pictures in my camera roll while I patted Mia on the butt, moving around a group of teens.
Coming to the day of her birth, I found one in the hospital. One. Interesting.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Aidan whispered as we passed the pond at the mansion. Once we reached the door, he held it to let us inside.
“Thinking,” I murmured. I headed immediately to some armchairs near the window. Allyson was fine with Baxter inside as long as we stayed away from the kitchen. Baxter was not a “let’s go on a hike” kind of pup, so our leisurely stroll had tuckered him out and he collapsed near the chair that I lowered into.
Aidan paused next to me. “Want a drink?”
I looked from him to Allyson. “Hot chocolate?”
