Closer

Epilogue

Ava

Another five years later…

I lean against the wall outside of our son’s room as I listen to Lucas read him a bedtime story. He said he’d tuck him in while I’d once again checked over everything to make sure we were ready for tomorrow. I’m sure Lucas knows I’m out here. I’ve been a little bit clingy with our son for the past few weeks. Tomorrow’s the big day. He starts kindergarten. He won’t be spending his days with us anymore. The three of us had become this perfect little triad and now he’s going off into the world without us.

I roll my watering eyes at myself, knowing I’m being ridiculous. It’s only half days, but still. Next will be middle school, then high school and girlfriends and college. How did these past five years fly by so quickly? Lucas let me get away with being a little clingy until I started talking about homeschooling and found faults in every school that Lucas brought to the table.

I bite my lip and try not to laugh when I remember I said one school’s gymnasium looked like its floors were over waxed and he could get hurt in PE. Lucas found it funny and laughed about it for days. I hadn’t at the time. It wasn’t until he told Ma and his sister the story that I’d actually laughed and could see I was being crazy. Even my son slipped into my lap tonight after dinner, laid his head on my shoulder and told me he’d miss me but he was ready for kindergarten. Then gave me a kiss on the cheek and promised to draw me something super cool at school tomorrow.

A few moments later Lucas steps from our son’s room, his hand sliding right into mine as he guides me down the hallway to our bedroom and closes the door behind us. “You okay, petal?” he asks, turning to look at me as he cups my face making me look up at him.

“Yeah, I don’t know why I’m such a mess about this.” Sigh. He kisses both my cheeks then my mouth. I close my eyes as he deepens the kiss for a moment. “It’s because you’re pregnant,” he says against my mouth, kissing me again. I still, but he keeps on kissing me. My mind starts whirling. Am I pregnant? Is that possible? He lifts me off my feet. I wrap my arms and legs around him as he carries me into our bathroom, sitting me on the counter in the bathroom between the two sinks.

“How do you know?” I finally sputter out. Shouldn’t I be the first one to figure that out? Though he did call it with our son. If anyone knows my body, it’s him. He pays attention to every breath I take. He knows it better than I do.

He smiles as he pulls his shirt off over his head and tosses it away. “Is it a girl?” I ask. He laughs at that, and I glare at him. Last time he told me I was pregnant and that it was a boy. He was right on both counts.

“You said you wanted our next to be a girl.” He shrugs as if he really controls this. Well, technically the man does, but not consciously or deliberately!

“Are you sure?” I hedge. Sometimes I really do think he’s super human. He always does get what he wants. Luckily, what he wants is what I want, too, for the most part.

“Yeah, petal, I’m sure.” Now he pulls my shirt off and tosses it away. “You haven’t drunk your morning coffee in two weeks, you cried over a toilet paper commercial the other night and you’ve been waking me with your pussy already wrapped around my dick in the mornings. You’re pregnant.”

I have been extra horny. My last pregnancy was like that, too. He’s usually the one who wakes me in the morning, with soft kisses that trail down my body until he makes me cum on his tongue before he’s inside me. I didn’t wake him with that sweetness and gentleness. I more attacked him, jumped him, really.

“That bear was so adorable,” I defend. It was the cutest commercial I’d ever seen. He raises an eyebrow at me.

“I’m pregnant,” I admit, smiling so big it hurts. “With a girl,” I confirm. He throws his head back and laughs.

“God help me and Sam. If she looks like you we’re going to have our hands full.” He shakes his head thinking about it as he goes over to run the bath. I place my hand over my belly, marked from when I carried our son Sam. I did some modeling while I was pregnant with him. They’re some of my favorites from over the years. Lucas framed some, putting them throughout the house. After Sam came along, though, I stopped modeling. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it anymore. I did. I even felt part of a women’s movement for women out there to accept their bodies, but Sam started a new chapter in our lives.