Page 138 of You Saw the Best In Me

I will love Karina Grace with every piece of me until the end of time.

KARINA

SEVEN YEARS LATER

The sun is going down, but two little voices beg me for five more minutes, and I can never say no to them.

“Five minutes!” I say, and they run back to the swing set.

“Thank you, Mommy!” Penelope says, our four-year-old daughter.

She’s fearless, flying through the air with her belly flat on the swing. With curly blonde hair just like Maverick’s and an attitude that’s all mine.

Our youngest, Pippa, is two, and she’s much quieter. Taking after her daddy, she simply tolerates all of us and doesn’t like other people.

They’re wrapped around Daddy’s little finger and take off running when he walks into the yard.

He scoops them both up, kissing their cheeks.

“Daddy, is it time for teesball?” Nellie asks him, smiling like he hung the stars in the sky.

To her, he did.

Mav is her whole world.

“No, Nellie, not today. Tomorrow, we go to teesball,” he says, laughing.

As promised all those years ago, he coaches Penelope’s ‘teesball’ team, as she calls it.

It’s a mix of Rose Hills and Forest Falls kids. Hunter and Maverick’s company sponsors the team, so all the kids wear bright orange jerseys with ‘Avery Construction’ printed on the back.

It was our way of bringing everyone together and keeping our families close. Whenever Adam and Jules are in town, they watch the games, and Willow is the honorary snack mom, always ensuring our sideline has goodies for the players and the adults.

He loves every second, and the kids call him Coach Carter, which always makes me chuckle.

“How’s my wife?” he asks, kissing my forehead.

“Living’ the dream, Angel,” I smile, and he lets the girls go back to playing.

“Are we still on for tonight?” He asks, sitting beside me on the patio couch.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I say, leaning into him for a kiss.

Nights like this are what we’ve built our family dynamic on. We don’t shy away from showing affection to each other in front of the girls.

They know how much Mommy and Daddy love each other, and we show them what a family should be.

Maverick built the girls an entire playhouse out of wood, and they spend every moment they can on it.

Pips loves the sandbox, while Nellie is obsessed with the swings.

My phone rings, and it’s my business partner and best friend, Reilly.

I take her call while Mav races over to push Nellie on the swing, and Pippa is likely eating sand for dinner.

That child keeps us on our toes.

“What’s up, Reills?” I ask, assuming something is wrong at the salon.