“Love you, buddy,” I murmur, walking into the room to stand by the bed.
Maggie gets up and stands beside me, instantly curling into my side and wrapping her arms around my stomach. Pleasure shoots through me, but it’s not sexual. It’s the simple pleasure of having the woman you love in your arms, completely yours, after years of believing it would never happen.
“Are we really going to live here like a real family, now?” Terry says, surprising us both.
“We’ve always been a real family, Terry. I’ve always loved you and your mother, you know that,” I tell him, not liking that he ever saw us as anything but a family.
“I know, but River gets his mom and dad together all the time. They eat breakfast together, and his mom makes pancakes like and Luka makes bacon and things. You know, kind of like we’ve been doing. Well, except Mom cooking, but I get to help her set the table and that’s fun.”
“Hey, I can cook,” Maggie mutters.
“Mom, peanut butter sandwiches don’t count.”
I laugh, trying to do it silently, but Maggie can feel my body shaking as I struggle not to let it out.
“Okay, I see how it is. You two yahoos see when you’ll get one of my phenomenal, homemade peanut butter sandwiches again!”
We all three end up laughing then and Maggie lunges down on the bed tickling Terry, and my son squeals, but God…
You can hear the happiness in the sound. You can feel it in the air I’m breathing.
Somehow, we all end up hugging one another in a circle of three on Terry’s bed.
“We’re going to live together as a family from now on, buddy. I don’t know if it will be here, but wherever we go, it will be together,” I finally tell him, wanting to make that clear.
“Are you and Mom getting married?” he asks and my heart flutters strangely in my chest. I look at Maggie. I want my ring back on her finger more than anything, but if all I ever get is my Maggie under my roof and happy, then I have the world.
“That’s something your mother and I haven’t discussed, Terry. I think that’s something we may need to talk about between the two of us—”
“I would like to get married,” Maggie says, her voice quiet and tinged with nerves.
“You would?” I ask, hardly daring to believe she admitted to it.
“Yeah, I want to marry you again, Bryant.”
I want to scream yes. I can’t seem to make my voice work. I just stand there smiling at Maggie, stupidly. She’s going to marry me.
“Dad, you kind of got to marry her now,” Terry answers before I can find my voice to yell out in victory.
“I do?” I finally respond, my gaze never leaving Maggie’s. She’s smiling at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears. She’s smiling a smile that makes my chest hurt because I’m so happy.
“Yeah, she asked you. You can’t say no when a girl asks you to marry her, Dad. It would hurt her feelings and you always tell me I shouldn’t hurt a girl’s feelings on purpose.”
“I do say that, don’t I?” I laugh and Maggie and I share a smile.
“You really want to marry me, Maggie May?”
“I really do,” she whispers.
“There’s only one way I’m going to agree to marry you, Maggie Matthews,” I tease.
“What do you mean?” she asks, and I think I see some of her nerves returning.
“We do it this week before you overthink it and try to back out.”
“Yay!” Terry cheers.
“You realize that only gives us like….”
“Three days,” I agree.
“You want me to plan a wedding in three days?” she asks like she can’t quite believe it.
“What else do we need? We have the three of us and your family. Our wedding will be full of love, and that’s all that counts.”
“But there’s flowers, a cake, a dress….” she argues.
“You can show up naked, for all I care,” I respond.
“Can I be naked, too?” Terry asks.
“No,” I forbid.
“Absolutely not,” Maggie says at the same time, sounding scared.
“Aw, man,” Terry complains, making us both laugh.
“I guess I better call Mom,” Maggie says. “If anyone can pull a wedding off in three days, it’d be her.”
“Just make sure she doesn’t include any of the toys she tried to give us before in the ceremony, please?”
“For sure,” Maggie laughs.
“Wait! I love toys! I want them!” Terry says.
Maggie and I look at each other and start laughing. Terry doesn’t understand the hilarity in it, but that’s okay. With any luck, he won’t understand for many, many years.
36
Maggie
“My baby girl is getting married,” Mom says, dabbing her eyes like she’s crying—she’s not.
“Mom, it’s my second wedding,” I point out for like the millionth time.
“Lucas women always get married in white. Hell, even the ones that are knocked up wear white to their wedding,” she grumbles.
“Hey, I’ll have you know, I didn’t get knocked up until after the wedding. Well, I’m not sure, I was really drunk, so it’s all a little hazy. Hell, it could have been during,” Faith shrugs.
“Faith!”
“What? You’ve seen my man, Mags. If he’s offering, I ain’t turnin’ him down,” Faith says, practically salivating just talking about Titan. But then, she would. She and Titan are ridiculously happy.
I smile because, finally, I know that feeling with Bryant. Therapy has helped me a lot and I know it will get a little better each day. Finally releasing my guilt and sharing it with Bryant was huge. After we called my mother about throwing a wedding in three days, Bryant and I took Terry to meet his sister. We hadn’t before. It was a judgment call. He’s young, and we didn’t want to worry him about death and dying. We sat down as a family beside Brylee’s grave, and we told our son about his sister, skating over her death and just telling Terry that God needed more angels in heaven.
It felt good, though. We were including Brylee in the family we are now and that felt like a great beginning. Bryant and I have been in love with each other practically our whole lives and finally, it feels like we’ve got this right.
This is forever.
“Can’t say as I blame you. I’m just glad you learned from me.”
“Learned from you?” I ask Mom, almost afraid to ask, but needing to know.
“I taught Faith how to make sure that sexy Godiva chocolate bar was hers,” Mom brags.
“Mom, I don’t think that’s—”
“Ida Sue, I think you’re reaching a bit. Big Daddy was hooked from the word go. He said he liked my ass.”
“I always knew he’d be an ass man,” Mom says as if she takes pride about that fact.
“And my tits,” Faith says with a smirk.
“Nobody likes a bragger, Faith. Any-who, I gave Faith a little lesson in cooking, Maggie.”
“Oh,” I respond, realizing what she’s talking about. “You gave her the meatloaf talk.”