She doesn’t reply, simply snoring lightly as I tiptoe out and click the door shut.
Two years later
It’s Sunday dinner at our house.
Some nights, it's at Mr. and Mrs. Davidson’s.
Sometimes, it’s at my parents.
Sometimes, we all pile into Tony and Luna’s house.
This week it’s our turn.
Zee ran out with the boys for last-minute groceries while I stayed behind to clean up, getting the house ready and putting food together before everyone arrives.
Allie is sitting on her play mat in the kitchen, my little helper, and smiling her big, toothy grin.
Despite her dark hair and my blue eyes, I think she’s all her daddy.
I also know her daddy is going to lose his mind when he sees her.
Which will be any minute as I hear him in the garage, the boys yelling about ice cream and Grandma.
“You need me to put these in a vase?” Zee says, walking in with a bouquet of daisies, the boys behind him carrying bags with food and drinks.
God, I fucking love this man.
We have three kids—one more than I wanted in my manifesting box, but the same number I daydreamed of when I thought of my family as a kid.
The universe always knows.
Plus, the third was because Zee wanted his princess.
Our first two, born nearly back-to-back with 18 months between them, were my boys—the two sweetest, kindest, boys you could ever find. Protective and honest to a fault.
Their dad to a tee.
It took three years for Zee to convince me to give it one more go, to try for our girl, and then we got her.
“What the fuck is that?” he says, walking over to his princess.
“Don’t you dare, Alexander,” I say of the little pink bow in her hair. “It’s adorable and goes with her outfit.”
“Ooh, she used daddy’s big name,” Joey says under his breath to his brother, and they both giggle.
Mikey for Zee’s dad, Joey for mine.
Best friends and now, brothers.
“I do not care. My girls do not put their curls in hair ties, Zoe.”
“It’s not a hair tie; it’s a bow.”
“Zoe—”
“Zee, if it’s not up, it’s in her face and she gets food in it.” He takes a step closer to Allie, and I know it’s game over.
“Great, then she gets an extra bath. You love baths, don’t you, princess?” he says. Her eyes are locked on his face, her smile wide because her favorite person on the planet is talking to her.
“BATH!” she yells and claps.
Zee stares at me before carefully taking the bow out of her hair.
“Much better,” he says, moving her wild curls to the side and out of her eyes. Then he takes the little pink bow that went perfectly with her outfit and tosses it in the trash.
I look at the ceiling, shaking my head, but I can’t help but smile.
It’s been like this since that road trip.
My eyes scan the living room, stopping on the frame that holds two tickets to a concert from 2009 in it.
It doesn’t go with the design of our house, not even a little, but I wouldn’t change it.
I could create an award-worthy home decor design (and I have—some of my work has been in the fancy magazines Zee once bought me on a road trip to make me fall for him), an entire space, and would still hang that frame, even if it throws the whole thing off.
It means everything to me.
But as my eyes move around the living room, I stop on the tree in the corner.
My enemy at the moment.
“Can you take the tree down?” I ask for the fifth time in three days.
“Babe, Christmas was three days ago.
“And that tree’s been up for over a month.
“And?”
“And it doesn’t go,” I say through my teeth.
I had to rearrange the furniture to make the thing fit in our living room, and I can’t wait to shift everything back to the way I like it.
“I like it. Like seeing the ornaments,” he says, walking over to me.
The ornaments.
Dozens of them now.
One for every trip we’ve made, every stop along the way.
An entire Christmas tree of memories, starting with that that very first road trip.
“Yeah,” I murmur because I do too—I love pulling them out and I dread putting them way.
But it’s past Christmas.
“We can keep it up as long as we want,” he says, his face in my neck.
“It’s a Christmas tree, Zander.”
“And this is our house. We get to decide when we take down the Christmas decorations.”
“You’re just saying that because you don’t want to get on the roof and take the lights down.”
He laughs because I’m right before pressing his lips to mine.
“January. We’ll take it all down in January.”
And as much as I want to argue, I can’t.
He’s right.
We make the rules in our own place.
And what’s another week remembering just how he won me?
Twelve years later
“Please, I don’t need you guys to come with me!” Allie says in a whine.
There is no winning.
I wish she would just accept that once and for all.
“Allie, baby, no.”
“Daddy—”
“I was a fourteen-year-old boy once. No.”
“Dad!”
You know she means business when she goes from Daddy to Dad.
“Allison.”
And I know Zander means business when his baby girl moves from Allie to Allison.
So does our daughter, whose jaw goes tight.
“Why can’t you just . . . you know, drop me off around the corner?”
“One day you’ll be older and you’ll get it. Until then, you can just hate me. Endure it or don’t go. I don’t care either way.”
“How am I going to explain to Jaxton that my dad is going to go to the movies with us?!”
“What kind of name is Jaxton, anyway?” Zee asks.
“Your name is Zander, Dad.” I bite my lip, holding back a laugh.
“But it’s short for Alexander, which is a normal fuckin’ name.” Sometimes it’s like these two are siblings rather than father and daughter.
I love it.
I also really need to cut in before it escalates.
“Zee, honey. Let me handle this, okay?” He glares at me, but I push him to the side. “Allie, honey, you’ll get it when you’re older.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Get that, but promise you will.” She glares at me, but I see it in her eyes.
I see that she knows she’s not going to win.
The whining is about to commence.
“But how am I going to explain it?!”
“You don’t. You just go to the movies with me and your mom.”
I bite my lip.
Really, the girl should just be happy that he’s even letting her go out with a boy before she’s sixteen.
“You know, your grandfather didn’t let me date until I—”
“Yeah, I know, Pop-pop wouldn’t let you date until you were sixteen, but you’re ancient, Mom.” I blink.