We each walked down the aisle after the best people went down together. Jae was with both his parents, me with my dad. I knew my mom was there in spirit.
Out of the perfect day, the only downside was some sadness that Jae’s grandparents were unable to attend due to his grandfather’s ill health. They watched the ceremony and speeches over a video call, taking part in the day they had insisted they pay for.
Despite Jae’s worries, they didn’t care about my ethnicity, too busy fussing over Leo to care who his alpha parent was. It helped that Leo was the mirror image of Jae, with his golden skin anddark hair. He had my nose and lips, maybe. Time would tell on that. If all our kids looked like Leo, then I’d have a football team’s worth of them!
Still, they were proud of him, not just for his novel, but for how he chose to live his life on his terms and the work he did changing the law to help other omegas. I really believed they were happy for us and I was looking forward to our trip to Korea to meet them for Leo’s first birthday. Dad was coming, along with Jae’s parents.
Jae breaking from familial expectations brought him and his sister closer. Not to be left out, the eldest, Jun, made more of an effort with his siblings, especially after accidentally telling his grandparents we were pregnant before we could. They were regulars at our home, having playdates with their kids and Leo. They welcomed me into their family easily and I felt like Jun could become a close friend.
“You better get going. You need to check in for your flight,” Haneul warned. Minjun was holding his grandson, completely unaware we were still there. Jae was hesitating over leaving our son.
“Are you sure—”
“Jae,” his dad chided, showing he had known we were lingering. “We can manage. We have Ricky coming over for dinner. Lara is on speed dial if anything happens.” He spoke faster to prevent Jae from interrupting. “Which it won’t. You forget we had three children. Leo is such an angel, aren’t you?” He grinned at our baby. “We’re going to have the best time, and you are going to relax for a change.”
“Come on,” I said, taking my husband’s hand. “Give him one last kiss and we’d better go. We don’t want to miss our flight.”
His grandparents had paid for first class flights to an exclusive wellness resort as a sort of mini-moon. Our Korea trip would be our true honeymoon, and we’d explore the country while Leo gotto know his great grandparents. But first, a fancy spa was going to pamper us for three days. With Leo’s first year almost behind us, we needed it.
I loved being a parent, and now, a husband. Wouldn’t change it for the world, but the first few months were exhausting. There were times I fell asleep sitting in the shower after work. Jae struggled with the guilt of working and raising our child, feeling that he was being selfish to have something for himself. His mom had talked him out of that, omega to omega.
All of it helped us get to where we were now. Married and still very in love, even thinking of another child after we visited Korea. We’d gotten through these last few months stronger.
We kissed Leo once more and got into the car. I’d just pulled away when I got a message.
“Check that for me, would you?”
Jae unlocked the device. “It’s an email from Mate Match.”
“What does it say?” I glanced over at him to see his jaw hanging open. “What’s wrong?”
“Uh, nothing bad. They want permission to add us to the testimonials for successful matches. They’d love to display one of our wedding photos on their website.” He thought for a moment. “What do you think? Do you want to? I feel like we should. We wouldn’t be together if it wasn’t for the app.”
“I’m on board. Mate Match gave me the life I’d only dreamed of before.”
I picked up his hand and kissed it. If I wasn’t driving, I would have kissed the mark on his scent gland. We’d done the marking in private after our wedding. Jae was everything to me. My husband and my mate. The mark just proved it to everyone.
Jae beamed at the simple show of affection. “A loving husband I adore and a cute baby. Mate Match really delivered that happily ever after.”
