Depends On Who's Asking (SWAT Generation 2.0 12)

Michael swallowed hard, his eyes going from me to his daughter and back.

With one long look, he communicated two things.

One, I better take care of her or else. Two, she was mine now.

That thing that’d been building in my chest released when Michael said, “Her mother and I do.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were saying, “I do.”

Thirty minutes after that, we danced our first dance in the middle of Cop Row as husband and wife.

Two hours after that, Michael, drunk off his ass, sang “It Won’t Be Like This For Long” by Darius Rucker, and there wasn’t a damn dry eye on the entire block.

Not even mine.EPILOGUEIt’s all fun and games until Santa checks the naughty list.-Coffee CupSAINTTwo Years Later“Everybody look this way,” I heard called.

The photographer, Avery, got about half of the attention that she wanted.

“Look over here, babies!” Dillan called, snapping her fingers.

I snapped my fingers in front of my son’s face, who was too busy chewing on the cord my mic was connected to and not the woman that was taking her photos to pay attention.

For some stupid, fucked-up reason, we were all once again posing for a calendar.

This time, though, it wasn’t just the men of SWAT. It was the men of SWAT and their babies.

At least I only had the one kid.

Dax was wrangling his toddler in one hand, and his infant in the other, all the while trying to look like he wanted to be there.

Booth had his son, Asa, at his feet who was trying to appear badass. His other child in his arm was screaming at Bourne’s child who was in the closer arm to him.

It was like they were in a screaming contest.

Then again, it was utter and total chaos, which was about normal for us at this point.

Everyone now had children.

And every one of those children were bad.

Every one except for mine.

Mine was perfect.

Michael, who’d just rolled up in his cruiser, pressed the horn button, causing every single kid to stop screaming and look.

They weren’t scared, though. They were too used to one of us doing that to ever jump when they heard that particular sound.

But it did make them look.

Which was when Avery took the photo.

She looked down at the screen and shook her head, laughing. “That’ll have to do.”

Thankful to finally be free, I walked over to where my once-again pregnant wife was just getting out of her father’s police cruiser.

She had court today, and it’d been a big case.

One of the biggest of her career.

So big, in fact, that there’d been a police presence in the courtroom just in case things went wrong.

Luckily it didn’t, and Carolina was there, face smiling, as she walked our way.

She totally kissed the hell out of me, too, right in the middle of the entire SWAT team and their families.

“Ewwww!” Asa cried. “Gross!”

Booth put his entire hand on Asa’s face and pulled him in close.

“Now, now, Asa,” Booth said as he came up to his cousin’s side and threw his arm around her. “You’re gonna find a girl that you like, too, one day.”

“Gross, no I’m not.” Asa shook his head.

Michael finally caught up to Carolina and pulled my baby out of my arms.

“Hey!” I said.

“Shut up, Saint Nick. I haven’t seen him in days.”

“It’s been more like one,” Carolina snickered as she used the extra arm to her advantage and hugged me tight.

“How was your day?” I asked, pressing a kiss to her mouth.

When I pulled back, she said, “Just another day in paradise.”

• • •

I grinned when I saw the black ornament hanging from the wreath that Carolina had hung on our door the moment that it turned December first.

Pulling it off the wreath, I dropped it to the ground and crunched it with my boot, shattering it.

Bending down, I pulled the folded-up Post-it-note out and read it.

“Merry Christmas, kid.”

Grinning at the short and simple note from Brad, I picked up what I could of the ornament and walked inside.

The first thing to assail me was the piercing screams of my son, Nicholas.

Yes, you read that right.

My son was named Nicholas. Well, to be fair, he was actually a junior. He was Saint Nicholas Nicholson. Just like me. But he went by Nicholas, or Nicky, for short.

The second thing to assault me was the cat yowling.

The third was Smoke nearly taking me out at the knees as he bounded past me to get to my wife.

My wife who was looking quite frazzled as she hurriedly did ten things at a time as she was making whatever dinner she was making.

Today was the day I celebrated my birthday. This year, I’d picked December nineteenth to celebrate. And, just like last year, my girl went all out for it, knowing that I’d never had that growing up.

She looked over her shoulder at me and turned, her baby belly on display in the tight black tank top she was wearing over some skin-tight black yoga pants.