He accepted it…and so did Carl.
Who, might I add, had knuckles that matched Hoax’s.
I had a feeling that the two were going to be trouble.EpilogueWhy are contractions not called birthquakes?
-Pru’s secret thoughts
Pru
Three months and three weeks later
“Come on,” Carl said as he wiggled his new vest at Hoax. “Tell ‘em it looks good on me. Go on, admit it.”
Hoax rolled his eyes. “All right, Carl. You look good in the Bear Bottom Guardians cut. Now, you should probably start calling it what it is or your wife is going to gut you.”
“I’m beyond wanting to gut him,” his wife, Tinnsleigh, said. “But if I kill him, I’ll have to pay for my toes on my own, and I’m not willing to do that just yet.”
We all looked at her toes. “I really like the sparkly blue.”
“I do, too,” Conleigh said, wiggling her own toes that matched Tinnsleigh’s.
“I’m partial to the pink,” Izzy said, wiggling her feet for the men to see.
I looked at my bright orange with pink sparkles and grinned. “You’re trying to say that you don’t like mine?”
“Yours are…festive,” Carl said. “Are you celebrating Halloween ten months early?”
Hoax snorted. “Pru likes orange.”
That was true. I did.
But the red and green I’d wanted to get was spoken for by both of my sisters, and I didn’t want to get them exactly like theirs.
I liked being different.
“The toes thing was a good idea,” Piper yawned. “Though, I think we probably should’ve scheduled it better. You were almost late for your own induction.”
That was true, too.
But, that also had a lot to do with the fact that McDonald’s had jipped me a ten-piece nugget meal and we’d had to go back.
Hoax had offered to share his with me, but I’d refused.
The nuggets were my last meal for the next foreseeable future. I wouldn’t be eating again until our babies were born, and I wanted to make my last meal a good one.
Well, a tasty one. Good wasn’t really the correct word.
“I wasn’t late. I was on time,” I told her. “Nobody said I had to be fifteen minutes early to an induction.”
Honestly, I was scared.
I didn’t want to have to have a C-section, which was a higher possibility seeing as they were inducing me at thirty-eight weeks.
I’d wanted it to all be a natural process, but when both of our babies started to get big, the doctor had shown concern not for them, but for me.
Which was how we ended up going into the hospital for an induction when the last thing I wanted to do was to be induced.
In fact, I was just finishing up my last chicken nugget when the nurse came in with the meds that would start the process.
Hoax, seeing my panic, walked toward me.
“It’ll be okay, baby.”
He was right.
Eighteen hours later, two cleaned up and pissed off babies in his arms, he was smiling.
I was, too.
We’d done it.
“So what are their names?” my mom asked.
I looked at my two boys, both exact replicas of their father. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same nose and same cheeks. Hell, they even had his big feet.
“Well,” I hesitated, looking over at my now-husband. “The one in Hoax’s right arm is Samuel Jay, after Dad. And the one in his left arm is Dean Alias, after Hoax’s father.”
“You did not name your kids after Sam and Dean off of Supernatural,” Piper interjected, her cup halfway to her lips.
I blinked, then looked at Hoax.
He shrugged. “Already signed those birth certificates, baby.”
I closed my eyes and winced. “Shit.”
***
Six months later
I walked around the store, starting to get worried, when I finally spotted my tall, handsome man in the baby section of all places.
The one place that he’d never be caught dead in the middle of Target.
Yet, there he was.
I frowned and moved forward quickly, my buggy taking out a rack of half-priced clothes on my way.
“Shit,” I muttered, bending down to pick up what I’d just knocked off.
Throwing a cute little camo onesie in my cart along with the seven hundred other things I didn’t need, I finally maneuvered my way through the racks of clothes until I got to Hoax.
Hoax was on the phone, his head bowed, and he was gesturing wildly with his hands.
Definitely not holding our boys who were supposed to be with him.
“Listen to me,” Hoax growled quietly. “I can’t come meet right now. I’m watching my kids. But I can be there tomorrow afternoon. Usual place.”
Hoax and Carl had officially started with Free. They’d fallen into the assignments like they were always meant to be there, and honestly, I had a feeling that the rest of their team might one day follow.
Their skills were a valuable asset to the organization, and a lot of women had become a whole lot safer thanks to their dedication.
Hoax looked up at me just as I rounded the corner of the little display area that Target had set up as a ‘look what your nursery can look like’ kind of thing. That was when I saw Dean in the swing that Hoax was gently rocking with his hand, and Sam was on the ground, in the middle of a scruffy blue rug, with a toy in his hands that still had the packaging attached.