I sat back down, but Allie got up, came over, and sat on my lap. She wrapped her arms around my neck and looked at me, a smile on her face. “I just want you to know how happy you make me,” she said. “And how I love the fact that you are so willing to put other people’s needs and well-being ahead of your own.” She kissed me, but right as I started to kiss her back, she was sliding off my lap, kneeling between my legs. She unzipped my fly. “But now I want you to let me take care of you,” she said, her smile turning coy.
The fire crackled. I couldn’t remember ever feeling happier, more content, just at ease, knowing that this was the way life was supposed to be. I leaned back in the chair and let my eyes close as I felt her gorgeous mouth press against me.
Epilogue
Allie
“I think everything’s ready,” Cole said.
We stood on the deck and surveyed the backyard, which we’d set up for the cookout we were having that afternoon. We’d strung a colored cloth pennant that I’d haphazardly managed to sew together between two maple trees, and we had covered the picnic table and the table on the deck in embroidered tablecloths that Cole’s mother had given to us. It was actually Declan’s 6th birthday party/baby shower. Declan had had a party earlier that week with friends from school, so this party would be for our families. Both sets of our parents would be coming, as well as Amy and Ben.
“You feeling all right?” Cole asked. He reached out and touched my stomach, which, at seven months pregnant, was large and unwieldy. As he said it, I could feel the baby kick and squirm inside of me, a feeling that would never get old, even when it was happening at 2 in the morning and keeping me up.
“Yeah, I feel great,” I said, even though my lower back was a little sore from carrying all this extra weight around, and my feet were definitely tired. But aside from that, I really did feel great. I had never imagined when I moved up to Maine and into that little house that my next door neighbor would end up being the love of my life, the man I would marry. We’d gotten married last year on the coast of Maine, standing on a rocky ledge with a stunning view of the Atlantic Ocean. Four months later, I found out I was pregnant.
It wasn’t exactly how we had planned it, though we were both beyond excited. Declan was, too, and everyone else was dying to know if it was a boy or a girl, which we planned to announce at the party later today.
“Do you think we should make them wait?” Cole asked. “Not make the announcement until maybe the end of the party?”
I laughed. “Yeah right, good luck with that. You know that’s all they’re going to be able to talk about. They’re probably going to walk in the door, and that’s the first thing they’re going to want to know.”
“You’re probably right,” he said. “Maybe we should just tell everyone that we decided not to find out after all.”
We almost had decided to forego finding out the gender at the 20-week ultrasound. There were so few true surprises left in the world, it seemed (the good kind, anyway), but I wanted to know ahead of time; I wanted to paint the nursery and get some baby clothes, and not just the gender-neutral kind.
“I have been thinking about names,” I said.
“Oh, have you? I’m sure my mother will come with a list of ones she hopes we use.”
“My mom probably will, too. But... I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think I know what I’d like to name the baby. If it’s okay with you.”
“Okay,” he said. “What?”
I paused. “Marissa.”
I’d known from the beginning that if the baby turned out to be a girl, that I wanted to call her that. And after the big ultrasound and we found out the baby was indeed a girl, I’d taken to referring to her as Marissa when I’d talk to her in my head. Yet now as I stood there, having just told Cole, I felt a flare of uncertainty; was it wrong of me to suggest that? I had never met Marissa, after all, though by now I’d seen pictures of her, and Cole and his parents had told me stories about her, and she seemed like someone that I probably would have been friends with, if she were st
ill alive.
Cole’s expression was hard to read; his face didn’t immediately break out into a smile, though he wasn’t frowning, either. But just when I was about to say that we could think of something else if he wanted to, he pressed his lips together and nodded. His eyes had misted over.
“I think that would be perfect,” he said softly. “I really do.”
“Me too.”
He put his arms around me and pulled me toward him. “I love you, Allie,” he said. “And our daughter.”
“I love the both of you,” I said. He smiled, and I leaned in and kissed him. I felt baby Marissa kick inside me, as if she was saying I love you too.
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BOSS’S VIRGIN
By Claire Adams