In order not to drop Jacky, I bent down and put him on the ground so he could run to Adam just like he always did.
And, just like always, Adam picked our boy up and kissed him. Smothering him with love just like he always did each night he came home from work.
Or, more accurately, any time that Adam left for more than thirty minutes.
Each time Jacky saw him again it was like that.
“Hey, buddy,” Adam said as he propped him up on one muscular, tattooed arm.
That tattooed arm had come while I was in the hospital.
On the outer side of his forearms, in cursive, the words ‘will you marry me’ had been tattooed onto his arm for forever.
And, on my forearm, the moment that I was healthy enough to walk into the tattoo shop, mine said ‘yes.’
“You been good for your momma?” Adam asked, his question for our son, but his eyes only on me.
I shook my head at the same time that Jacky said, “Of course, Daddy.”
I snorted loudly, causing Jacky to look at me with narrowed eyes.
So much like his uncles, that one was.
“Did you brush your teeth today?” Adam asked.
Jacky scrunched up his nose.
Adam put him down and said, “Better get that done. Uncle Sam and Uncle Sebastian are on their way over with Grandpa Silas. If your teeth aren’t brushed, they’re not gonna let you go.”
Jacky screeched and took off hauling ass out of the foyer.
I shook my head.
If there was someone on this earth that acquired more attention than Adam when it came to Jacky, it was his uncles and his grandpa.
Mack, who always waited patiently for his daddy to come to him, grinned a big, toothless grin at him, and held out his arms.
Adam came, taking our second-born boy from my arms and pulling him into his chest.
Mack, of course, latched onto the mic at Adam’s shoulder and gave it a good yank.
Adam laughed and disentangled the grabby fingers from the cord and then leaned down and gave me a kiss.
“And did momma get to brush her teeth?” he asked teasingly.
I shook my head. “I haven’t had a chance yet. Mack let me sleep in until right before you got home. I’d literally just gotten him out of his crib when I stopped to look at this picture.”
Adam’s face softened as he turned to look at it, too.
“That day,” he said, telling me, just like he always did, what that day meant to him. “I had no clue how much I needed you. I had no clue that, in a few short days, you would be the air I need to breathe.” He paused. “I owe my old friend Doucet. I would’ve never done it if it wasn’t for him.”
I moved until I could lean my head against his shoulder.
“Since then, you’ve changed my life four more times. The day you told me you loved me. The day that you finally became mine. Then the days that these two boys were born,” he murmured, circling his arm around my waist, his fingers brushing my distended belly. “I can’t wait for number five.”
‘Number five’ was our third ‘oops’ baby. Baby number three would be Irish twins with our Mack. Born within a year of each other.
Though, I wasn’t sure how it worked when Jacky and Mack were Irish twins as well.
What it all boiled down to was the fact that I had no control when it came to Adam.
No control and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What’s Next?
Say It Ain’t So
Book 9 of SWAT Generation 2.0 Series
Chapter 1
I was normal two arrests ago.
-Sammy’s secret thoughts
Sammy
“Hey there, Sammy Boy.”
I looked up at our team leader, Bennett.
Bennett was like a second father to me. He had been there when I lost my first tooth. Wrecked my first car. Fucked my first…
“Hey,” I said, viciously cutting off that original thought. “What’s up?”
He looked at me sharply. “You feeling okay?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been better.”
In fact, I had been better.
My throat was on fire, my eyes felt like they were about to pop out of my sockets thanks to the pressure headache behind them, and to top it all off, I was running a low-grade fever.
“You look like a pile of dog shit,” Bennett offered. “Where’s your uncle?”
My uncle Foster also was one of the team leaders.
“He’s not coming today,” I murmured, closing my eyes as the headache pounded harder. “He said he told you that.”
“I was hoping that he wasn’t serious,” Bennett admitted, sounding annoyed and amused all at once.
I snorted. “Apparently he doesn’t want to be on national television,” I said.
“He thinks that I do?” he asked, sounding miffed.
Neither did I. But I hadn’t gotten the choice.
Honestly, I thought both of those assholes should be here. I mean, we weren’t the ones that had asked to be on fucking calendars. They were the ones to tell us we were doing it. We hadn’t even gotten the choice to say yes or no.
“He also said that y’all played rock, paper, scissors,” I commented.
Bennett sighed. “Fuck.”
I would’ve rolled my eyes, but I knew if I did, that would make my headache worse.
So instead, I just made a pitiful sound of ‘meh’ before walking away in search of my locker.
There I knew I had ibuprofen. I also had Tylenol.
Sadly, that’s where everyone else knew I had the shit, too.
Getting to my locker finally, I opened it to find both damn bottles empty.
“Son of a bitch!” I growled, tossing the bottles to the trash can that was across the room.
I missed both, causing the men in the room to look at me with a frown.
Normally I made it.
I played basketball in high school and in college.
I wasn’t good enough to go pro or anything, but I should’ve made a bottle into a trash can from five feet away.
“You okay, man?” Saint, one of my fellow members of the SWAT team, looked at me with worry in his eyes.
I looked over at Saint then back at my drug-free locker.
“Someone used the last of my meds and I need some,” I grumbled.
“Yeah, that was me,” Louis said as he came up holding out a beer. “I apologize.”
I sighed and looked at Louis, my cousin and also fellow SWAT team member.
“Next time you empty it, just tell me. Then I wouldn’t be standing here, thinking I had meds in my locker to take for this fuckin’ headache, when I don’t,” I grumbled.
“I just took them like twenty minutes ago. I was waiting for you to get here to tell you. But I actually ran to the liquor store next door to see if they had any, because I honestly feel like that would be great to have there. I mean, buy the beer and vodka that you’re gonna drink, then grab the ibuprofen that you’re going to need to take the next morning for your hangover. One stop shop, you know?” He paused for a breath. “Long story short, they didn’t have any. But they did have beer.”