But before I could get halfway up the stairs, I saw Aly laughing her ass off on the top step, her hands on her belly as she watched me clutch my heart with one hand and the railing with the other.
“Is this real?” I asked breathlessly, wishing I could help the giant grin on my face considering how serious this was. “Aly, you know you can’t mess with me about something like this.”
“I wasn’t messing with you the first time, and I’m not messing with you now,” she giggled, that rosy pink flushing to her cheeks as she watched me come up the stairs. “You’re gonna be more than Fun Uncle in eight months, Emmett Hoult. You’re going to be a daddy.”
“Aly.” There were tears in my eyes as I knelt on the step below her, letting her put my hand on her stomach. And from that touch alone, I saw everything.
I saw the night I’d found her for the second time at that club. I saw the way she looked at me the night Sara gave birth – when she held baby Luna in her arms. I saw all five feet and two inches of her perfection the day of our shoeless beach wedding in the Hamptons.
And I saw the life we had ahead of us – me, Aly and the newest addition to the ever-expanding Hoult family.
It was joy greater than any I’d ever felt before, because in this home, with this woman, I had everything I’d ever wanted. I had the love of my life, the mother of my child and the exception to my every rule. Through thick and thin, we’d been together, and yes, it had definitely taken us awhile to get to this point.
But that wasn’t what mattered.
What mattered was the fact that we were finally here.
The End