Sighing as he watched Tabby bend over – the big pervert – he nodded. “All the time. I keep picturing a little mix of me and fireball running around, and I want it more each time I think about it.” Putting his beer down on the table beside us, he smiled as Liv squealed and clapped her hands together at the toy she’d just opened. “I want that happiness and excitement that you’ve got right there, and there doesn’t seem to be a bigger way to express your love for each other than having a kid together, hey?” When he put it like that, the man had a point. “Why, you thinking of having another one?”
“Hell, yes. As soon as we’re married and Liv has my last name, too.”
“How’s the proposal going? Have you figured it out yet?” he asked, whispering it so that no one overheard and spoiled the romantic surprise I was planning.
Gesturing with my head for us to move to the side, I pulled out my phone and started flicking through the photos. “What I’m going to do is organize something where I can do a slideshow of normal photos of her, then I was thinking of getting Jarrod to sing something romantic and do a slideshow of these on a huge screen behind him. I need a big finale to it with a meaningful photo that I can propose with, though.”
He thought about it for all of five seconds – five seconds when I’d been thinking about it for weeks – and then a grinned at me. “I’ve got a plan that’s actually a good one,” he looked at me out of the corner of his eye, making it clear he thought my idea had been shit. “We’ll talk about it later.”
We both turned to look at the group of women as they began talking excitedly, and I saw them standing around Jarrod who was holding a massive pink unicorn under one arm. “Do you ever think our women are more excited to see him than they are to see us?”
The man was awesome and one of the coolest guys I knew, but seriously! “It’s only a problem if she calls his name out in bed,” DB mumbled, frowning at the thought.
We were interrupted by a tap on the shoulder from Tabby who’d snuck up behind us without me realizing. “Cake’s about to come out.”
I’d been in charge of that awesomeness, so I wasn’t missing this for the world. Quickly making my way over, I moved to where Jose was holding Liv. Seeing me, my little princess squealed and held her hands out for me, getting us a chorus of aww’s from the people gathering around us. This was her mom’s moment, though, and it was the first birthday cake and candles to be blown out she’d had, so I leaned in and gave her an Eskimo kiss instead. As I was pulling my head away from her, Liv grabbed onto my ears and tried to pull herself out of her mother’s arms using her tight grip on them.
“Stay with Mommy, princess,” I chuckled, trying again to get free, but the kid wasn’t having it at all. “Why don’t we both hold her?” Jose suggested, shifting Liv to the arm that was closest to me and holding her between us. It was a bit awkward because she still hadn’t let go of my ears, but we managed it, and when she realized I had a hold of her, too, she let go and smiled up at me. As people began singing happy birthday to her, Tabby brought out the huge pink castle cake with a glittery unicorn rearing up on its back legs on top of it. I’d ordered a four tier one because it was either go big or go home with a first birthday cake, in my mind – I would be using that reasoning for every birthday in the future – and each tier was different. There were candles on every level in different designs of the number one that I’d intermingled with unicorns, too. With Jose and I helping her, we got them all blown out together with no problems, but I was excitedly thinking about their reactions when they cut through the different layers of cake the whole time. Conversation in the crowd of people – yes, crowd seeing as how seventy-three people had been invited, and only two hadn’t been able to come – stopped as Jose cut into the top layer, exposing the bright colors inside that had been arranged in a checkerboard effect. Turning to me with her eyes wide in amazement, Jose whispered, “This is amazing, Ellis. It’s beautiful.”
“Keep going,” I nodded at the cake, waving her on with my hand. When she cut the through the next layer, and the bright rainbow that ran through the center of it became visible, all the women started whispering excitedly. A quick glance up showed the men all standing with their arms crossed, though, glaring at me like I’d committed the ultimate sin. You wait, assholes, you haven’t seen the best bit yet.