“After hockey you are,” Sam says. “Really smelly.”
“Okay. I’m more likely to get you a puppy instead of a baby.”
“Really?” Wide, hopeful eyes look back at us.
“I’ll talk to your dad about it,” I tell them.
“We’re getting a puppy!” they chant around the living room.
“You sure you’re ready for life with these two?” Marcus asks.
Cupping his cheeks, I kiss him. Soft and sweet. “Yeah, Marcus. I want this life with all three of you.”
“Then get ready for chaos.”
“I can’t wait.”
Epilogue
HARPER - TWO YEARS LATER
“Girls, no more snacks until lunch, okay?”
“Really, Mom?” Sam groans. “But I’m hungry.”
I shake my head at her. The minute she turned nine last year, the sass came. “Uncle Bode is finishing up the hot dogs soon, sweetheart, okay? Drink some water and go play with Jamie.”
“Fine.”
She stomps away, before spotting her friends and running into the melee.
“You know she’ll be back up here in a few minutes, right?” Marcus tells me, pulling me down onto his lap.
The backyard is filled to the brim with people to celebrate a successful season for the Knights. They made it all the way to the conference finals, and they were one win away from going to the Stanley Cup finals. And that’s reason enough to celebrate—how far this team has come.
“I can at least try to hold the girls off. They’ve been eating nothing but chips and candy all afternoon. I do not want to deal with sick kiddos tonight.”
“You know they’ll be monsters after they crash from all this sugar.” Marcus presses a kiss to my neck.
“Maybe that means they’ll go to bed early.” I waggle my eyebrows at my husband, pushing my sunglasses onto the top of my head.
“Don’t go giving me any ideas that you can’t make good on right now, Harper.”
“Oh, I plan to make good on every one of them.”
Marcus groans. “Now you’re just teasing.”
I press a warm kiss to his lips. “You make it easy, oh sexy husband of mine.”
“You’re so mean.”
I smile down at him. “You love it.”
“I don’t know why I do.”
“You can’t think of one reason?” I wiggle my hips on top of his lap.
“Right now? Not a one.” Marcus nips at my ear. “Not one single reason why I love you comes to mind.”
