“Gimme two minute and I’ll make it worth your precious time.”
“I don’t know how you ever passed math. Your idea of two minutes is closer to twenty.”
“So you don’t want me to do this?” the sexy manipulator intones. I gasp and press harder into what his skilled hands are doing. “Or this?”
“Stop talking and hurry up, damn you.”
“Maaaa!”
Bang bang bang. The knob of our locked bedroom door rattles. Yeah, we read all those parenting books that tell you not to do that. Then we threw them all in the trash and came up with our own rulebook
“Nicholas put his boogers on me again!” a seven-year-old shouts.
“Fuuuuuuck,” my husband whisper-growls.
“No, I didn’t! He’s lying, Ma!! And…shut up. I’m tellin’. Mommy! Jacob spilled juice on the couch!” says the six-year-old.
“Fuuuuck,” I whisper growl back.
“Mommy, Nicholas hit me!”
“That’s enough!” comes booming from the man lying next to me.
“I’ll be out in a minute. I’m getting dressed.” It won’t be a minute, not even close.
We lie to the kids a lot. I know, you’re not supposed to do that either, but you try dealing with my boys. True to his word, Dane spawned a couple of hell raiser. Although in his defense they are terribly cute and sweet when they’re tired.
Dane rubs my swollen belly. Then he leans down and kisses it. “Lord, I know you and I don’t talk much but I beg you––show a man some mercy and let this one be a girl. I’ll do anything, God, anything.”
“Feels like a boy, babe.” Gold-flecked hazel eyes lift to meet mine. At the pained expression, I add, “I’m sorry.”
“Let’s think positive. And if my prayers aren’t answered we can always…” He sighs tiredly. “I dunno…quietly put him up for adoption? Maybe we can do a baby swap with a nice couple livin’ in China.”
“Mooommmy!” More rattling of the knob.
“Maybe not…it could be construed as an act of war,” my husband groans. And then I laugh, deep belly laughing, as I’m prone to do around him.
Time has only made him better, distilled all his wonderful qualities. He found balance in his new careers, splitting his time between running the foundation and as a football analyst for the networks. The desk didn’t work, but he’s television gold reporting from the sidelines.
As for me, I found everything I needed in the people I love, in the nonprofit I founded, in helping people that were once like me and my family––in desperate need.
I brush the hair out of his eyes. “Are you nervous?”
He smiles back at me, and shakes his head. The Gladiators are retiring his number today, the gold jacket calling from the near future.
“Is it like being knighted? Do I call you Sir, now?”
“Only in bed.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” I murmur, sinking my fingers into his thick hair and pulling his lips to mine.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I’d like to know who came up with the idiom “falling in love.” Falling implies losing your stride, stumbling, crashing. When in fact it you don’t fall at all, you grow in it. And I had grown. I’ve become a better person for it. A better mother, a better mate, a better me. Growing in love with Dane Wylder is the single most important thing I’ve done in my life.
We didn’t need marriage to keep us together––the love that thrives between us would’ve carried us well into old age––but that certificate is a testament to the choices we’ve made. I carry his name proudly. I choose him. And I’d do it again every day for the rest of our lives.