He picks my clothes up from the floor and helps me get dressed, pausing a few times to stroke my body and sigh wistfully, making me laugh each time. “Don’t laugh. All I want is to stay here with you so I can worship you properly. A few minutes with my mouth on your body was not enough. Next time we’re making sure neither of us has anywhere to go.” He gets on his knees to slide my feet back into my socks.
“A girl could get used to this,” I say as he finishes with getting me dressed and moves on to find his own clothes. “I’ve never been treated like a queen before.”
I watch as he pulls his shirt back over his head, wishing we’d had a few more minutes to cuddle before having to get dressed again. I was right that first night. He is the best cuddler.
“Well, go ahead and get used to it,” Nick says while pulling up and fastening his jeans. “I knew from the moment I met you that you’d be someone special in my life. And you should know right now that I intend to marry you some day. Not right now, of course. But it’ll happen someday.”
My heart races at his mention of marriage.He wants to marry me?
The funny thing is, even though I’m not there yet, I could actually see myself marrying Nick one day.
Huh.
Who knew?
I Now Pronounce You...
Tina
Six Months Later
I reach up tostraighten the bow tie around Carson’s neck, then smooth the lapels of his navy three-piece suit and fix the boutonniere. Standing back, I take a long look at the young man before me. In the last six months, he’s grown so much, and I’m not just talking about his height. Though he’s grown taller too, I’m talking more about the emotional growth he’s worked so hard for. He’s put in the hours with a therapistlearning how to cope with his parents’ death. We had a rough couple of months when the reality of their passing hit him the hardest; when his anger at both his parents and the system that allowed them to neglect him for all those years sparked a rage that was frightening for me to witness, and even harder for him to experience. Watching him put in the work, though? That was a privilege.
I have never been more proud, and the tears welling in my eyes prove it.
“Aw, Tina. Not again. You promised you wouldn’t cry any more today, remember?” he says, placing a hand on my shoulder as he does his best to comfort me. “This is supposed to be a happy day. You don’t have to go through with it if it upsets you this much, you know. There’s still time to get out of it.” He hunches his shoulders and swivels his head, looking around with exaggerated sneakiness. He holds up a hand and whispers behind it. “We can run out those doors and forget about the whole thing.”
I slap him playfully on the arm. “I will do no such thing, young man. Do you know how upset Nick would be if we ran out of this courthouse right now?”
Carson nods once. “You’re right. He’d be devastated.” He snickers. “Actually, I think he’s cried more happy tears today than you have.”
Warmth floods my chest when I think about Nick. The last six months with him have been amazing. I never could have guessed how right it would feel to fall in love with a man who isn’t afraid of his own emotions. One who tells me how much he loves me every day. One who tells the boys how much he loves them.
One who does his fair share and more around the house.
After all those years of thinking I didn’t want a family, I’m thrilled to admit how wrong I was. Turns out I just needed to find the right family.
“Where is he? I know they got back a little late last night after the fight, but they were up before we left this morning.”
When Nick crawled into bed late last night, he was practically vibrating with excitement. Jared’s first time as part of the corner team during a fight couldn’t have gone better, with Demetrius knocking his opponent out in the second round. Nick said he could tell the exact moment when Jared lost his heart to fighting. It wasn’t when the ring girl came out after the first round like I thought. Instead, it was when he got to see Demetrius hugging his opponent, and hear the compliments he had to say about the man’s skills during his post fight interview. Nick was almost glowing when he told me how proud he was that Jared focused on the art and athleticism of the sport, instead of letting himself get caught up in the drama that sometimes follows fighters. My dad told me Nick always had the utmost respect for his opponents, and for Jared to follow in those footsteps? Well, let’s just say Nick is thrilled by it, and not because being sportsmanlike is the right thing to do. He won’t admit it, but I know it’s because it makes him feel like he’s making a difference as a father. It reinforces the decision he made to offer Jared a permanent home.
It makes him feel like a dad.
Carson puts his phone in selfie mode and starts fussing with his hair, trying to get that flipped up at the ends look that so many teenage boys are doing these days. If he’d let me flat iron it back at the house like I offered, he would have the look he wants, but he refuses to believe that’s the method the other boys are using to get it. Since my hair is usually up in a knot on top of my head, he thinks I don’t know what I’m talking about. “They said something about Jared’s suit,” he says as he attempts to curl thestrands up with his fingers. “I think it ripped or something. I’m not sure. I wasn’t really listening when Jared explained where they were going.”
I chuckle, shaking my head. Jared and Carson settled into life at Nick’s house faster than anyone could have expected. Now, a mere six months later, you’d never believe they aren’t biological brothers. Which means the teasing and fighting never stops. Almost, anyway.
When Carson was at his worst after his parents’ death, Jared would take him to Put Up Your Ducks and get in the ring with him. He’d suit up in full protective gear and let Carson take his frustrations out on him. And Carson returned the favor. When Jared’s old girlfriend popped back up and started messing with his emotions, Carson would take him to the basketball court and they’d run drills together until neither boy had the energy to talk, let alone worry about a girl who’d already proven she wasn’t worth Jared’s time. Okay, I may be a little biased because I know Jared is one of the best kids ever, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. And that little girl better stay away from my boy if she knows what’s good for her. (And yes, I’m aware I’m being overprotective, but I don’t care. These boys haven’t had anyone looking out for them for most of their lives, so I’ll be as overprotective as I want.) But other than having each other’s backs in times of emotional turmoil, the boys are at each other’s throats like actual siblings, and I couldn’t love it more. But even in those first couple of months, when they supported each other, Nick and I had a couple of exhausted and bruised boys on our hands.
“We had the last fitting for your suits two days ago. How on earth could he have ripped it already?”
Carson shrugs, shoving his phone back into his pocket, satisfied with his hair at last. “Who knows? It’s Jared. Heprobably decided to practice his high kicks after he put it on. I bet you ten bucks he comes in here wearing new pants.”
“You’re on,” I say with a laugh. “I seriously doubt Jared would put on a three-piece suit, then start throwing kicks.” He has impulse control issues on occasion, like any teenage boy, but I can’t see him doing something this silly on such a big day.
The doors at the end of the hall fly open with a bang, drawing my attention away from Carson’s too-confident smile.
“Sorry we’re late,” Nick says, rushing over to kiss my cheek. He’s wearing his own three-piece suit, the light gray plaid stretching over his muscles enticingly, his pink tie a perfect color match the heels I have strapped on my feet. I love his normal uniform of tiny shorts with no shirt, but this look is really doing it for me.I wonder if we have time to sneak away before the ceremony starts.“This knucklehead ripped his suit pants practicing high kicks, so we had to find a seamstress to do a rush repair,” he adds with an indulgent smile, interrupting my increasingly naughty thoughts.
