Since we were meeting Carl and his son and we weren’t sure yet if they were dog people, we had to leave Scout home today. As soon as the door opens, he’s right there, pushing his nose at us, wagging his tail, and wanting attention.
I’m too drained, but Alyssa kneels down behind me and gives him the loving he needs after spending the whole day here by himself.
Alyssa knows spending that much time around that many people takes a lot out of me, so she’s quiet and calm, allowing me time to recharge.
I’m relaxing on our bed with my hands crossed over my abdomen, watching her as she takes out her earrings. Her dress comes off next, and I can’t help smiling at the beautiful silhouette of her pregnant body.
“Get in here,” I tell her.
She looks over at me, then she drops her dress into the laundry basket and comes back to the bedroom in just her bra and panties. “I haven’t put my pajamas on yet. What do you want?”
“You,” I tell her, grabbing her hand and tugging her closer.
Never one to turn down an opportunity for a snuggle, Alyssa crawls onto the bed and climbs on top of me.
We have a bigger bed, now—a bigger bedroom, for that matter. I got frustrated with my inability to get all of Theo’s blood out of the hardwood floor and even more frustrated every time I walked in here and envisioned what he did to her inside these walls. Figuring if it was that hard for me, it had to be a lot worse for her, I decided to just take all the walls down.
We rebuilt, making the bedroom and bathroom bigger and adding a walk-in closet. We have a king-sized bed now, even though we always sleep close to each other. When Mackenzie was born, she wanted to sleep curled up next to Alyssa a lot of the time, and that got me thinking that as she got older, we’d need a little more space in the bed in case she ever had a bad dream and got scared and came in wanting to sleep with us.
It’s nice for Sunday morning family cuddles sometimes, too.
Right now, my lovely wife straddles me and slides her arms around my neck. I look deeply into her eyes, reaching up and cupping her face in one of my hands.
“What did you think about Carl?” she asks.
“He seems like a good man,” I offer.
Nodding confidently, she says, “I think so, too.”
I cock an eyebrow at her, wordlessly reminding her about her terrible taste in men.
Spirited all of a sudden, she says, “Uh uh, no. I married the greatest man in the whole world. I may have had poor taste once upon a time, I’ll give you that, but I’ve graduated past that. I have excellent taste in men now.”
My lips curve up in amusement. “Uh huh.”
“I do,” she insists.
“Sure.”
“I am an aficionado of great men,” she announces.
“You’re an aficionado of crazy,” I tease.
Smiling, she leans forward until her forehead is resting against mine. “You’re one to talk.”
I catch her lips and draw her into a lingering kiss. “You like my crazy,” I tell her after our kiss ends.
“I love it,” she agrees.
I love hers, too. I’ve loved it since the moment I met her and, instead of running the other way, she soaked up all my loneliness, knocking down towering walls and scrubbing at all my dark surfaces until they shined like new.
Everything I have, every single thing that matters, I have because of the incredible woman snuggled up against me right now.
“I love you, Alyssa,” I tell her, curling my arm around her back and pulling her close so I can kiss the crown of her head.
“I love you, too, Brant.” She tips her head back to look up at me, a supply of genuine affection in her gaze that I know to be endless.
Just one more thing that makes Alyssa so perfect for me.
She loves so hard, so deeply, and with absolute loyalty. She loves with her whole heart, her whole soul.
Yeah, Alyssa loves hard, and there’s no one she loves more than me.
I don’t know what I did to get that lucky. I don’t know how this incredible woman came to be mine.
I do know that every single minute I spent alone before I met her was well worth it. It would have been a waste of my time, trying to love anybody else.
I was waiting for my wife, I just didn’t know it.
Now she’s here. Now I have her. Now she’s mine forever.
I am one lucky son of a bitch.