"Hi," I greet, walking in, the girls looking over at me. I walk to Emma first and kiss her head like I always do and then to Mia. "How was your day?" I ask, talking to Cooper. He bends and kisses my lips, my eyes going to the girls to see that they don’t even care.
"Told you," Cooper says, grabbing the salmon out of the oven. "Now, do you want to change before dinner?"
"Yeah," I state. Walking upstairs to the bedroom, I grab a pair of shorts and a tank top to change. When I walk back downstairs, I hear Cooper.
"She went to change her clothes. Remember you saw all her clothes in Daddy’s closet?" I watch from afar to see if they will say anything.
"Did she bring all her clothes?" Emma asks, and he nods. "And her shoes?"
"Yes," he says, preparing the plates. "Just like I have all my stuff here, so does Erika.”
"But I have stuff at Mommy’s house," Emma says, and I put my hand to my stomach.
"That’s because you get two houses." He smiles at her. "You have clothes at Mommy’s and at my house. But when you live at one house, all your stuff stays at the one house."
She doesn’t ask any more questions, and when I walk back into the room, she looks over at me. "You have to share a bed with Daddy," she declares. "He takes all the covers."
I chuckle. "Maybe he’ll learn to share." I walk over to him and put my arm around his waist. "Will you share your covers with me?" I ask him with a smile.
"I’ll share everything with you," he confirms, and his eyes say so much more. That night, the routine changes a bit. Usually, he’s the one doing everything, but I ask the girls if I could read them a bedtime story, and just like that, another routine is created.
Epilogue One
Cooper
One year later.
I walk into the house and slam the door behind me. "Erika!" I yell her name, and I can hear her moving around upstairs.
"What?" she shouts back, and I run up the steps two at a time. "Where are you?"
"In the closet packing," she states, and I see her on the floor in front of her luggage. "How many days are we going to be at the beach?" she asks, and I put my hands on my hips.
"Is there something you need to tell me?" I take off my baseball hat and toss it on the custom-made island thing she said she just had to have.
She looks at me confused. "Not that I know of," she says, looking down at her bag. She’s dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with her hair piled on her head. "Why, what happened?" She places another shirt in her luggage. We leave tomorrow to go on a two-week family vacation. This time, we are going to Mexico and even more of us are going since Dylan just beat our grandfather’s rookie record.
"Oh, I can think of two point six million things you have to talk to me about.” I look at her, my cock unaffected by my anger toward her.
"Oh, that," she glosses over. "Glad it finally came through."
"One," I say to her, holding up my finger. "How did you get my account number?" I hold up another finger. "And two, what the fuck, Erika?”
She chuckles. "Well, one …" She holds up her finger, and she is so fucking gorgeous. I’m already over whatever it was that bothered me. "I have your account number from your checks that you have in that top drawer, but also, I was your agent. And two"—she holds up the other finger—"it’s half the house." She smiles at me. "Since my house sold and you put my name on this house, it was only fair I paid you for it." We have been living together for a year, and she finally put her house on the market. It sold in four days.
"You aren’t paying me for the house, Erika," I insist, walking out of the closet. "I’m going to tell them to send it back."
"Don’t be a dumbass," she says, and I see her walking out of the closet. "Now, can you please pack your stuff while I get the things for the girls ready?" Walking to me, she gets on her tippy-toes and kisses me under my chin.
She heads to the girls’ bedrooms. Ever since she moved in, things couldn’t be better. The girls are thriving as they have their girls’ nights out. Hockey games are so much different. She comes to most of the games with the girls, and the three of them wear my jersey. I walk down the hallway to Emma’s room, passing the pictures on the walls of us with the girls.
"Erika,” I say her name, and she looks up at me, unfazed by what I said. "I’m not kidding."