I sat on the chair and waited, watching as the players filtered in and headed straight for their families. People cheered and hugged, overjoyed. It didn’t take long for Aiden to lurch his way over, his face with that same blank, careful expression on it as he looked around the room. The big guy was finally going to the big game and he wasn’t even smiling. Why did that not surprise me?
Then he spotted us in the back corner.
Sammy saw him at the same time. His hands thrust forward. “Mommy! Look! Daddy!”
And the smile that came over the love of my life’s face made me grin like an idiot. The honesty, openness and genuine joy in Aiden’s expression still reached this part of me that hadn’t existed before him.
It was my smile. Our smile. The one he saved up for moments when it was only our little team together. And it didn’t hold a trace of anything football related in it, as he gazed from me to the two small ones at my sides, wearing matching jerseys in sizes much larger than someone their ages should wear. Little chubby asses. I’d honestly been relieved to have to go through C-sections to give birth to them. Those big heads just like their dad’s would have done some serious, serious damage.
I could remember Diana holding Sammy after he’d been born, shaking her head. “This head would have ripped your ass wide open, Vanny.”
When I’d started having contractions while pregnant with Gray, a little over a year later, that had been the mental picture I’d gone into the hospital with. It was just what I didn’t need to worry about. Fortunately, everything had worked out fine.
The big guy looking at us as he crossed the room in the wake of a tremendous win confirmed that. Aiden didn’t hesitate to drop to his knees in front of us, his gaze going from Sammy to me and then to Gray. He always did that, like he couldn’t choose what to focus on. Some days he looked at me longer, some days it was Sammy, other days it was the tiny guy. Every day was Leo, the last member of our group who was waiting patiently at home.
This would have been year five in our agreement, but Aiden had gotten his conditional green card, and then his residency years ago and had passed his citizenship exam already. We’d nailed the two interviews we had to sit through with an agent questioning us to make sure we were a legitimate couple, and I liked to think we passed with flying colors. I remembered complaining over how I couldn’t deport him if he got on my nerves anymore.
Aiden didn’t say anything as he wrapped those massive arms around all three of us, ducking his head to kiss one dark head of hair after another. Then he smiled at me and leaned forward to kiss me. To really kiss me, like we weren’t surrounded by people cheering and yelling over the second biggest possible win in the NFO.
I knew right then. I knew that he was fine, that everything was going to be more than okay regardless of whether he won the big championship or not. We would figure the future out. This guy who gave everything—his career, me, and now the boys—his all, didn’t half-ass anything. He never would; it just wasn’t in him.
“Are you happy?” I asked.
With his arms still around the three of us, he looked up at me through those incredibly long lashes, and nodded almost distractedly. “Yes.” Those massive hands went to the small spines of his mini-me’s before detouring to gently touch the pudgy cheeks, his smile growing even wider as his gaze landed on mine once more. “But I can’t remember anymore what it’s like to not be happy.”