Page 18 of Snowed in with my Best Friend

“Cullen. Please listen to me. Because now you’re the one freaking out.”

“I guess I am, aren’t I?” he asked, that grin on his face again.

“I’m thirty-five. I’ve been married before, and I know that according to society I’m too late or nearly too late to begin a family, but I want one. It wasn’t in the cards the first time, and frankly, I’m not sure if it’ll ever happen, but you as my friend? I want that to always be.”

“Damn straight.”

“And I want a chance to fall in love with you, Cullen,” I said, eyes widened. “I want a chance to figure out something that could be amazing. And take a leap that I was so afraid to do. I’ve lost too many years, and I don’t want to lose anymore.”

And then Cullen was in front of me, hands on my cheeks again. “Thirties aren’t the end you know, at least that’s what my friends tell me.”

“That is true, but maybe they can be a new beginning?”

“Look at you, sounding like one of those books you narrate.”

“I want a chance to fall in love with you Cullen,” I repeated.

“Good. Then you can catch up.”

And then his mouth was on mine, and I knew that being snowed in with my best friend might have been the best near accident ever.

* * *

Five years later.

“Tasha, please stop banging that spoon against that pan,” I said as sweetly as I could as my three-year-old daughter sat on the floor, grinning up at me.

“Yes, I know you love that pan, but Mommy has a headache.”

“Mom! Mom!” Jake said as he ran into the room, our eight-year-old son grinning at us with his backpack over his shoulder. Cullen walked in behind him, our infant daughter in his arms.

“Oh, did you get your paper back?” I asked, smiling as Jake wrapped his arms around my waist.

“I got an A. Can you believe that? Me.”

“I’m not surprised at all,” I said with a grin.

In the past five years, life wasn’t always easy, but I had learned to take a second chance when I never thought it was possible.

Because not only on that long stretch of road did I fall in love with my best friend, I also started a whole new life I was never prepared for.

Because we not only celebrated Christmas at my parents’ house, we celebrated the day after Christmas with all of Cullen’s family.

Because just like that, we were family.

After all, we had been accidentally dating for a good two years. Just nobody ever bothered to tell us we were already on that path.

We had adopted Tasha and Jake together, only a little over two years ago now, and they were two joys and lights in our lives. So having baby Natalie at the ripe age of forty, had been quite a shock. We hadn’t been trying, because neither one of us had wanted to worry ourselves like we had the first two years, and now, here we were, proud parents of three, and exhausted.

I spun Jake around the room, before picking up Tasha and watching as Cullen walked towards me, Natalie still in his arms, looking happily up at her father.

“I thought you were going to take a nap,” Cullen whispered before sliding his lips over mine. I sighed into him, that familiar feel of him still feeling new at the same time. The paradox of it unyielding.

“I was in the mood for a snack, and you had kidnapped my baby girl.”

“She needed Daddy time, and now Jake’s home from school, and I see Tasha is starting a band,” he said as he tickled our daughter.

I sat Tasha down, and she chased after Jake, before Cullen handed me Natalie and forced me to sit down on one of the kitchen chairs.