One Week Later
A year ago, if someone had asked me if I’d be up at seven on a Saturday morning making breakfast for my fiancée and son, I’d have said they were insane. A year ago, I couldn’t see myself being with anyone in a serious relationship for the rest of my life. A year ago, the thought of bringing a woman into Jamey’s life would have never crossed my mind. A year ago, I wouldn’t have been making chocolate chip pancakes. In reality, I still shouldn’t be making chocolate chip pancakes. They were turning out horribly.
The soft pad of footsteps coming down the stairs told me that Sophie had woken up.
“Hudson?” She called, the tail of my name ending in a yawn. “What’s burning?”
“Pancakes,” I laughed. I flipped the one in the pan, frowning as I was met with yet another nearly black bottom. “Didn’t think you’d be up yet.”
“Hard to sleep when the house smells like it’s on fire.” She saddled up to me, wearing one of my oversized shirts from my Harvard days that nearly reached down to her knees. “It didn’t help the morning sickness.”
I pulled her in under my arm, tucking her close to my chest. “I’m sorry, angel,” I mumbled. I planted a kiss on the top of her head as she buried her sleep-coated face in my side. “Were you sick?”
“Just twice.”
“Why didn’t you call for me?” I dragged my fingers through her hair as I flipped the pancake once more, happy to see only a dark brown side instead of charcoal.
“Didn’t want to distract you from the fire I thought you were putting out,” she said, her voice muffled from where she nuzzled into me. “And I didn’t want to wake Jamey.”
“I’m already awake.”
I looked over my shoulder, finding one very sleepy Jamey at the bottom of the stairs, one hand rubbing his eyes and the other clutching his teddy bear by the paw. “Aw, bud, you could’ve slept a little longer.”
“I thought there was a fire,” he grumbled.
I frowned as I looked back at the stack of cooked, mostly blackened pancakes. “Is it really that bad?”
“Yes,” Sophie groaned.
Jamey’s eyes blinked open, still out of sorts from sleep, and I watched as the realization settled into him. “Sophie’s here? This early? Hi, Sophie!”
Sophie lifted her head, her mop of brown hair flowing back over her shoulders. “Hi, squirt.”
“Did you and Daddy have a sleepover?” He asked, his little eyes going wide as he looked at us. “You get to have breakfast with us!”
“I don’t know if I’d call this breakfast…”
“Oh come on, Soph, it’s not that bad,” I said, turning back to the saddest stack of pancakes I’d ever seen in my life. “They’re just that color because of all the chocolate.”
Sophie snorted. “Nice try. Cereal, Jamey?”
“Yes please!”
I frowned as Sophie picked up the plate of pancakes and immediately dumped them into the trash. “It’s okay, Hudson. Not everyone was made to cook,” she teased, scraping off the scraps before plopping the dirty plate in the sink.
Jamey climbed his way up to the high-top seat, setting up his teddy bear on the counter so it was sitting facing us. “Daddy, I was thinking. A lot. Now that you and Sophie are engaged, like for real this time, I want to know when the wedding is.”
“What?” I laughed, leaning onto the counter to get closer to him. “What do you mean, bud?”
“You haven’t told me and I don’t know why.”
“That’s ‘cause we haven’t decided yet, squirt,” Sophie yawned. She pulled a bowl from the cupboard, sorting out Jamey’s breakfast cereal before I’d even had the chance. It made the warmth in my chest swell and spread to see her mothering him like that already. “You’ll be the first to know. Promise.”
“I don’t get it,” Jamey pouted, turning his little bear toward himself. “Do you get it, Mr. Ted?” He nodded as if he were listening intently to nonexistent words coming from a stuffed animal. “Mr. Ted says he thought that the government decided when the wedding would be.”
Laughter peeled from my chest at the same time as Sophie, the absolute ridiculousness of a four-year-old’s logic too much to handle. “No,” I chuckled, reaching over the counter to ruffle his messy mop of dark hair. I almost wished he looked a little like Sophie. “That’s not how it works. Sophie and I will pick a date, and then you’ll know. You can even be in the wedding if you want, bud. Ring bearer, maybe?”
“Oh, I love that idea,” Sophie cooed, plopping Jamey’s bowl of cereal in front of him before sliding one over to me as well. “Maybe we can do it next summer? That’ll give me time to fit into the dress of my dreams since the baby will be, like, four or five months old. Ooohhh, I could even make my own dress!”
“That sounds perfect, angel.” Sophie’s cheeks heated as I leaned toward her and pecked her on the cheek.
“Yeah! Ring bearer and summer wedding,” Jamey chirped, his mouth full of cereal and milk, little droplets leaking out the sides of his lips. “Daddy, what’s a ring bearer?”
“Only the most important job of the entire wedding.” I made my eyes widen, trying to look as serious as possible. “You’d be bringing me and Sophie our rings. They’re what makes the whole thing possible.”
Jamey looked up at me in shock, his spoon falling into his cereal bowl. “I get to do that?”
“You sure do, bud.”
“A summer wedding, a new mommy, and I get to do the best job ever?” His feet kicked against the marble breakfast island, his hands gripping the edge in excitement. “This is amazing.”
Just the idea that Jamey was genuinely thrilled to have Sophie stepping in as a parent was enough to make my eyes burn with tears. It was something I’d wanted to give him for far too long, something he deserved, but something I hadn’t given myself enough grace to find until now. The three of us—soon to be four—would be an actual family. My unit would be whole once again, and I had the most amazing woman I’d ever met by my side to bring that to fruition.
Heaven knows she’d already made my heart whole again, too.
