Stalking across the endless expanse of open green space that stretches the acres and acres of Grady property, comes the reason for so many of those new muscles.
Arms open wide, my husband grins at me from across the lawn, a baby carrier strapped to his thick chest. Our daughter Poppy, just one and a half, is probably a bit too grown for the front sling at this point, but those two are so obsessed with eachother, every time I try to suggest anything else, they both stare me down with matching pouts until I give up.
I’d say she is the biggest daddy’s girl I’ve ever met, but Ella might have her beat.
As two of the loves of my life stroll past the patio, Poppy points at her cousin and looks up at her daddy. He must know what she wants, because he unclips her from his chest and places her on the ground, where her little feet take her straight to the table to start coloring with Ella and her uncle Wyatt.
I grab a crispy Diet Coke from the icy bucket of drinks on the table as I watch them, holding the can to my cheeks to cool me down in the warm sun.
When Wilder finally makes it to the hand-crafted table the guys made for our family gathering space, he leans down, down, until his 6’5” frame is low enough his lips brush my ear as he whispers to me.
“You’re looking way too good over here to not be on my tongue right now, Mrs. Amante.”
Turning my head to meet the intensity of his black gaze, I blush under his stare, but lean in to kiss him quickly, then push him away with one hand so he doesn’t turn it into more. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s forgotten we’ve had an audience.
Unfazed, he smirks at me and lifts one leg over the bench seat to straddle it, so he can face me as he sits.
“I mean it,” he says. His right hand, the one that says FREE across the knuckles, comes down on my thigh and squeezes gently.
“Tomorrow night,” I tell him. “We can ask Grandpa Duke to babysit.”
He shakes his head just once, with enough meaning that my stomach dips down low.
“Not waiting that long.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do, Chef.”
“I want you to let me eat my wife.”
“I’m not complaining about that plan,” I tell him, lips lifting again.
“The second the kids are asleep,” Wilder threatens, eyes flicking to Blaise in the sandbox, who’s now using blocks of wood to build a fort with Axle that he’ll probably run down in the next thirty seconds.
I snort. “So, never?”
His intensity doesn’t flicker for a beat. “You let me handle it. As soon as we’re back home, I’m getting them to sleep. Then I’m getting you all to myself.”
“Let me think about that,” I tell him, tapping one finger to my chin.
Let my husband put the kids to bed on his own, then feast on me until my head spins? Yeah, I accept.
Wilder’s left hand pinches my chin in his fingers, where the word LOVE jumps out at me, somehow made bolder by the black band on his ring finger, and he leans forward to nip at my mouth, capturing my lower lip between his teeth. When he releases it, he pulls back and murmurs, “Say yes and I’ll make it worth losing sleep over.”
“I already said yes to you,” I remind him, trying to keep my face serious, but the playful tone in my voice betrays me. “You remember that day?”
“Damn right I do. And I’m going to keep you screamingyesevery night, wife.”
One hand comes down to my stomach, and I rub it, staring at Wilder. “Another seven months and I’m going to be screaming mostly curse words at you for knocking me up again as I try to push another watermelon-sized child of yours out of me.”
A mischievous smile spreads across his face for a flash, before he gets that intensity about him again as he asks, “Are you ready to tell them?”
I answer before I can think about it, nodding. “I can’t do this again without them.”
It’s true. Rory and Amelia are my lifelines on most days, but during both of my pregnancies? I don’t think I could’ve made it through if they weren’t so sure I could. Our group chat popped off at all hours with life-changing advice, and other times one or the other of them would show up at my door to help when a text wasn’t enough to keep me sane through it.
Especially my second pregnancy, when I had an infant in the house while Wilder was working overtime at the restaurant, me being too sick to show up much of the time. Rory would just appear at my house, hand me a bag of candied ginger, then take Blaise, entertaining him, changing him, whatever I needed, without ever asking.
Amelia would have Axle in tow when she came over, and she would play with the boys so I could take a shower, answer work emails, or pick up the disaster zone that seems to just appear wherever my son is.
