Rolling me under him, he kisses me soft and sweet. "We still have many years to go. Don't call them the best yet. Now that there is hope one day the girls will grow up and move out, I'm thinking I can make it even better."
"Right, they will never move out, which is all on you. You give them everything they want. Why in the world would they leave home? At least that's what Carmen told me just last week. Which is why I can't believe we won’t be here for Eva's birthday. It's her birthday, we should be with her on her birthday. That's why she's acting out. Deep down, she wishes we were there for it. We go away for a week at least twice every year, since they were five which you talked me into even though I didn't want to. I agreed with you about making time for just us, and we've been doing that. Weekends at a hotel, date nights, this is her birthday, Dominic."
Dominic rolls his eyes. "She's nineteen, Regina. She doesn't want us there for her birthday because she wants girls her age there, which is probably what all of her sneaky behavior is about. If we just gave her a regular party with friends instead of family, she wouldn't be sneaking around the way she is and feeling the need to throw some raging party. It's on us just as much as it's on her."
Oh god, he's right. Aside from a few parties when they were younger and her sixteenth, the last few birthday parties were all with family and at home or the club where only her two best friends were allowed. "Oh god, I suffocated her. I'm a horrible mother."
He sighs, "You are not a horrible mother. It's fine. It will be fine. As long as she doesn't wind up in jail or anything while we're gone. I'm sure whatever she gets up to, we can get her out of it easily enough."
Now I roll my eyes. "Who knows with her? She is much too comfortable playing a mafia princess when it suits her."
The girls figured out their daddy wasn't like other daddies when they were almost in their teens. It caused a year or two of turmoil, anger, frustration, and tears on all sides. Then they gave in to the love they had for their father. We had raised them with the understanding things weren't always black and white, there was far more gray than either color and the world helped them understand too. Seeing the world around them, they grew to trust that what Dominic did he did because he thought it was the right thing.
It helped he was an amazing father and they never once doubted his love. Dominic didn't just give them everything they wanted, he w
as there every day changing diapers, bathing them, dressing them, doing their hair, reading to them at night, and helping them with their homework.
Our girls adored their daddy to the point that sometimes it was hard not to be jealous. They were far more likely to call out for him in the middle of the night than they called for me. It wasn't always fair I had to be the tough guy because Dominic just crumbled when they turned their big eyes on him. I would like to think we have gotten away from me being the bad guy, but it was Dominic they ran to if they needed more money or just one hour later on their curfew. Little did they know they were all under surveillance, by their daddy. From their phone to their computers, to their friends. Dominic might take the need to protect a little overboard as far as they were concerned, I appreciated it though, and would never dream of telling on him.
A growl comes out of him.
"What?" I don't like the look in his eyes.
"Vincent's son has been eying Eva lately. I need to make sure he keeps his boy away from her."
"Hm." Is all I say as I trace my finger along his chin. It's far too late on that end, Eva is in love and there's no talking to her.
"What's that, hm?" He knows me too damn well.
"It's that those are worries we can deal with when we get back to Chicago. Now is about us."
“So true, my dear wife. I stole you away for a reason.” His eyes are full of his love as he bends down to kiss me.
Yes, yes to this and twenty-five more years of all this.