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Tears started falling rapidly down Rachel’s cheeks, but never once did her smile leave her face.
“She figured I was around eight weeks, and I picked up the journal Trent had bought me on my way to meet Candice and Maddie. It took a while, but I finally figured out the dates of when everything was, and after checking I’m guessing it happened the night of the Fourth of July. My doctor had been right, I was a little over eight weeks that day.”
I shook my head and laughed softly as I glanced down at her flat stomach. “I still can’t believe this. And you’re okay? You seem happy.”
“Being kidnapped and not knowing if I would ever see you again changed the way I thought about a lot of things. Including having children. It still would have been ideal if we could’ve had some time of just being us before all this happened, but I’m not scared of being a mom anymore. I’m not scared of going through all of this without my mom. We have so many people that are there for us, and I know they’ll help.” She kissed my lips softly and smiled against them. “And having you still look at me like you wanted to rip my clothes off in front of everyone when I was holding Shea the other night helped.”
“Well, what can I say? You look good with a baby.”
Rachel laughed loudly. “We’ll see if you still feel that way when I’m the size of a whale.”
“I will,” I assured her.
“What about you? Are you okay? You still want this, now that it’s going to be a reality?”
“More than anything,” I told her as I pressed my lips to hers again.
Leaning back until I was lying on the bed, I rolled us over and hovered over her body. She dragged her hands through my hair and giggled when I bent low and kissed her stomach over and over.
“What does it feel like?”
“Nothing,” she said on a laugh as her fingertips continued to trail across my head.
“You haven’t really been sick, have you? I remember that day last week, but I can’t think of anything else.” I felt shitty for not noticing, if she had been. I should have picked up on this, shouldn’t I?
“Not really. There’s been times here and there, but from the horror stories I’ve heard, I don’t have it bad at all.”
I nodded and kissed her stomach again before reaching over to the nightstand. Grabbing the ultrasound picture, I laid it down on the bottom of her stomach and hopped off the bed, looking for my pants. After I found them, and took my phone out of the pocket, I walked back over to Rachel and opened up the camera app.
“What are you doing?”
“Letting everyone know about my present.”
That soft smile was back, before her eyes went wide in horror. “No! I’m in my bra and underwear!”
“Calm down, Sour Patch. I’m not about to let anyone see the rest of you. You’re mine, not theirs.”
All that you could see in the picture was her torso and the ultrasound picture. As soon as she gave me the okay, I set up a text to go to Mason, Candice, Maddie, Eli, and all our parents. Above the picture I typed out: MY WEDDING PRESENT, and underneath, I did a twist on Rachel’s words from the envelope: BABY RYAN 1 AND BABY RYAN 2 WILL BE HERE IN MARCH.
Once the message went through, I turned both our phones on silent and put them in my bag.
“What are you doing? You know they’re all going to call us.”
“Exactly,” I said as I climbed on top of her again and moved the ultrasound picture to a safe place. “But right now it’s our wedding night, and I’m not done celebrating with just you.”
Epilogue
Two and a half years later . . .
Rachel
“BABE, DO YOU HAVE KENNEDY?” I called as I went from room to room with Kira.
There is no way to keep track of twins that are ru
“Kash! Do you know—”
“Where this beautiful monster is?” he asked as he rounded the corner with Ke
I stopped and blew out a thankful breath that at least she was only missing an article of clothing instead of being completely naked, or covered in baby powder again like last time.
“Where’s her shirt?”
He shrugged and held her up to blow a raspberry on her stomach. “I don’t know. I was hoping you knew.”
“I don’t.” I looked at Kira in my arms and shook my head as I smiled at her. “Your sister is crazy, absolutely crazy!”
Kira just smiled and set her head down on my shoulder as we began walking through the house, looking for Ke
“Your daddy better be happy at least one of you is calm.”
“What? Ke
I shot him a look. “She can’t keep her clothes on. Are you going to keep saying that when she’s sixteen and still doing the same thing?”
His face fell into a look of pure horror. “Oh no. No, no, no. That’s it. You’re going to homeschool them. Both of them! And they’re not allowed near boys until they’re thirty. And . . . and . . . and from now on, they only wear dresses. Ugly ones that are three sizes too big.”
I laughed and leaned in to kiss Ke
“I’m so serious, Rach. They’re never allowed out in public without me.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Don’t act like that! You’re the one that said she was going to be taking her clothes off when she was sixteen.”
I rolled my eyes and pointed at the discarded shirt on the ground so he could bend down to pick it up. “She’s not even two, calm down. I was just saying that so I could make a point. And I’m not homeschooling them, or making them wear ugly clothes, so you can work at getting over that right now.”
He set Ke
“You’ll have a lot of time to tell her that when she’s older . . . when she’ll understand it.”
Looking up, he made a face at me before leaning forward and grabbing my hips. “I’m so glad you’re going to be a boy,” he said to my large stomach, and placed a kiss on it. Standing up, he pulled me as close as my stomach would allow and kissed me thoroughly until the shrill laugh of Ke
“Naked baby.” I pointed as she ran through the living room and into the kitchen. “You catch her and I’ll finish getting Kira ready?”
“Oh, so you get the easy one tonight? Why?”
“Uh, yeah . . . because I’m Rachel.”
Kash smiled and kissed me hard once more. “The last time we had this conversation, it ended in you slapping me. So I’m just go
“Good choice.”
He winked and took off after our crazy daughter. “Ke
Once I had Kira ready, and we got Ke
We’d gone to California for Christmas, and while I wouldn’t suggest flying with two toddlers, it was so worth it to see my family again. Candice was still being Candice. I’d figured she’d start settling down after college, but she didn’t show any signs of stopping anytime soon. She was working at a physical therapy place, and loved her job . . . as well as half the men she worked with. But she was happy, she was enjoying her life the way she wanted to, and I was happy for her.
For the first time, I’d taken Kash and the girls to my parents’ graves. I still wrote to them daily whenever the girls went down for a nap, and writing to them was still something that made me feel closer to them. But I’d wanted my family to be able to talk to them too. Not that the girls really said much that made sense yet, but I was happy we’d all gone, and knew it was something we would do when we visited California again.