Faster (Bad Boys of Texas 5)

“Well, you take a nap, baby. You’ll wake me up when you need me.” He kisses the top of my head. My eyes close in pure happiness. We’re living our life the best way possible.

Epilogue

Rhett

Two Years Later

“Peek-a-boo!” I walk into the house and hear Selena playing with our daughter, Camy, short for Camilla. She’s the apple of our eye. At just over a year old, she’s also the reason my ass is home by five o’clock every night and doesn’t leave until close to nine in the morning. It’s a good thing my office isn’t far away from our home at the farm. We ended up buying a small house in Ward. That way, when Selena is working, she has a home base and we’re not wasting money on a rental.

“Is that Daddy I hear trying to sneak through the house?” Selena says with glee in her voice. We’ve got a good system. On days when she has to work, I either take Camy or she stays with my mom. When we’re in Ward, Selena’s mom hijacks her, and then Raven attempts to steal her, but that usually doesn’t pan out really well when Camy decides to blow out a diaper.

“Da-da-da,” I hear on repeat. She says that and ma-ma, but for the most part, it’s my name on repeat, no matter how much we try to get Camy to say other words.

“Finally home to see my two ladies.” I kiss Selena before doing the same to Camy’s forehead.

“You’ve been gone three hours. You miss us that much?” So, I may have come home for lunch, then dipped out of work early today. It wasn’t like they really needed me. Dad hired a few more hands to help free up his time. Laney was done by noon, murmuring something about needing to get home. I really wasn’t paying attention to the reasoning, not wanting to hear it. My sister likes to share too damn much.

“Yep, I always miss my women. You girls want to get dinner out tonight, or am I cooking?” Selena can cook, just not a whole lot. Her attention span in the kitchen isn’t that great, and we both laugh saying that we want to keep our kitchen intact instead of it being lit up like fireworks.

“I don’t mind. It’s whatever you’d like. Though our girl here didn’t take her nap this afternoon, so that could be a recipe for disaster.” Camy hates naps, will literally fight them tooth and nail. I’m pretty sure she gets her lack of needing a whole lot of sleep from me.

“Cooking at home it is. No need to make other people miserable when she gets tired. Huh, pretty girl?” Camy smiles at me, all gummy except for her two front teeth. She looks exactly like Selena, and I know that when the time comes, I’ll be completely fucked. Thank God I have years before that happens, because thinking about that gives me gray hair.

“Oh, can you make those jalapeño burgers and fries?” she asks. That was one of her most requested meals during Selena’s pregnancy.

“Sure. Is there something you need to tell me?” I arch my eyebrow.

“Not yet, but I wouldn’t mind trying. It’d be nice to have our children close together in age. I want them to have a friendship like Raven and I do.”

“I’m ready whenever you are, but I hate to burst your bubble. Having two siblings be best friends while growing up in the same house is impossible. Ask Laney. Even with our age difference, we still argued to death. Of course, that could be because I put a bunch of frogs in her water boots.” I remember it like yesterday. Mom and Dad handed me my ass. I knew better, but as she got older, it wasn’t anything for her to get me back.

“Then you probably deserved it, however she got you back.” Selena smiles proudly.

“That she did. She put blue hair dye in my shampoo. I couldn’t get that shit out for almost a week. We were both grounded and got more chores than ever. We called a truce after that.” If our children are anything like I was, we’re screwed.

“Not Laney,” Selena mocks. Camy laughs over her theatrics.

“You’re a riot. I’m going to start dinner. Maybe Camy will go to sleep early tonight, and we can practice making baby number two,” I whisper into her ear.

“I can’t wait.” The two of them are in the breakfast nook, so I can watch them as I cook our dinner. The shitty part will be not touching them while I prep our food. Jalapeño juice is not a good combination with a baby who rubs her eyes or gums me to death, and I damn sure don’t want it on Selena either.

Selena finishes feeding Camy her mashed-up food, then our girl gets down and walking towards the kitchen cabinets, going to the cupboard that is solely hers. It’s full of plastic Tupperware, wooden spoons, and a few pots. She sits by my feet while beating on anything and everything.