He offers me a sad smile. “You still want me to?”
I nod. “You’ll always be my Daddy.”
I see his lip quiver, but he regains his composure with a smile. Then he turns to Landon and offers his hand to shake.
“I owe you an apology. I’m sorry for the way I treated you, the way I doubted you, you’re perfect for my daughter. Welcome to the family.”
Landon still seems a little unsure, but he takes the hand offered to him.
“Thank you. And I promise I’ll take good care of Elena.”
This is all I ever wanted. This peace and harmony between the two most important men in my life. A life where I can guarantee that my dad will be around for my marriage and my pregnancy. Yesterday that life seemed out of reach, but not today. Now everything is good again.
This is everything I could have wished for.
EPILOGUE
FIVE MONTHS LATER...
Landon
Today is my first chance at showing Elena how much she means to me at a family event. It’s her birthday today and I’ve gone all out for the party. I’ve invited all of her friends in the neighborhood to come and join us. The weather sucks since it’s mid-January and the house is going to be cramped with all of the guests, but I hope she’ll like it.
She’s still asleep right now, lying on her back. She’s five months pregnant and beginning to have trouble sleeping, but she looks serene right now, a smile playing on her lips as she sleeps soundly. She’s so damn beautiful that I still can’t believe she’s mine, even after all this time.
“Happy Birthday,” I whisper, kissing her forehead while she sleeps. Then I get up out of bed and head downstairs to make her a birthday breakfast.
Alone in the kitchen, I feel the absence of Elena. I hate being away from her at all. Every day when I head to work to train my clients, I wish she was by my side. Even being downstairs while she’s upstairs makes me feel the distance between us. If I had it my way, I’d spend every minute of every day with her and our unborn child. I know some people say they’d drive each other crazy if they spent all their time with their partner, but I could spend twenty-four-seven with Elena and never get bored. In the five months, we’ve been together, she’s made me laugh so much that my sides hurt, made me crave her so badly that I’m almost constantly hard, and even been good company to me when she’s asleep. After spending so much time alone in my life, I finally fulfilled now that I have her in my life.
I’m making coffee when Jenny appears and steals the first mug from me. She’s moving out in a few weeks after buying a house of her own, but for now, she’s still around to wind me up. She tsk’s at me playfully.
“You gave me another sleepless night last night, bro,” she says, pointing at the bags under her eyes. “You two were at it like animals.”
I roll my eyes with a smile. Yes, Elena, and I have a lot of sex. Yes, we’re loud. We tried to hold back at first when she moved in properly, but after a few weeks, we found ourselves unable to stop our loud cries when we pleasure one another. Jenny has just had to learn to deal with it, really, considering she lives in my home, but I know she’s not joking when she says we keep her awake at night.
“Well, all the more reason for you to move out quicker, hmm?”
She swats me. “Stop trying to get rid of me. I might be tempted to stay longer just to annoy you, you know.”
I laugh. I don’t mind my sister being around much, but I can’t wait for the day when it’s just me and Elena alone in our own home. We have a baby on the way, after all, and as much as I love my sister, she’s not really a part of this new thing I have in my life. Elena is mine and I don’t want to share her. I bet the two of them will miss one another, though. They get on like a house on fire, exchanging rude jokes and gossip until all hours of the morning. It’s good knowing that my family gets along so well with the love of my life. My parents love her, too, and they can’t wait for the wedding. The second Elena has the baby we’re going to start planning for it. I for one can’t wait to see her walk down the aisle in a beautiful white dress.
But I sometimes wonder about whether her father feels the same about the whole thing. I know that I’m probably never going to be his first choice for a husband for his daughter. He made that clear back when we met. Though he’s warming to me slowly, I do wonder if he still has some reservations about me and his daughter.
“What are you thinking about?” Jenny asks. I sigh.
“Just John. I don’t know how to get through to him. It’s been five months and I feel like he’s still distancing himself from me.”
“Which is kind of impossible when he’s here nearly every day,” Jenny adds. She’s not wrong. John takes every opportunity he can to come over and see Elena. He’s forever coming over for dinner and getting in the way of our date nights. He tries to monopolize her time. That is the curse of living next door to him, I guess. As much as I want us to get along, he needs to realize that Elena is mine. He’s had his time to be with her all her life. He watched her grow into a woman and now she needs a man to love her in a different way.
“I can’t
