My voice is thick as I wrap her in my arms. “Like this.” I kiss her with all the time we’ve lost, and all the time we shared. Her arms rush around my neck as our tongues touch for the first time, holding there before we lace them, the kiss deepening. We press our bodies closer together, feeling just as good as I always knew it would if she’d just give me the chance to show her how I really feel.
“Why is Lexi listening to us? Does she always have to be here? Is that how our lives are going to play out?”
“Get used to it!” The closet door opens and she walks out. “Okay Max, Caden, you can come out now.” My lips part and I take Samantha’s hand as her older brothers thump down the stairs.
Caden starts clapping, slow and dramatically.
Max just smiles, green eyes crinkling around the edges.
Lexi swears under her breath as Hunter appears, fashionable boots taking their time as he comes down a few stairs behind.
“When did you show up?”
He smirks, “You’ll never know.”
I look to Samantha. “You didn’t want to warn me your whole family was listening?”
“Not the whole family.” Caden jogs his thumb upstairs. “The ‘rents are still sleeping.”
Hunter raises his voice. “That’s right, so keep your voices down.” Lexi is smacking his arm, and he’s swatting her away. “We don’t want to wake Mom and Dad now that Logan’s here professing his love to their daughter!”
Max comes over and shakes my hand to say, “Hey Logan. Good to have you back.”
Caden smirks, “And here we thought you were going to drop the ball.”
I’m blown away, but at the same time this is my second family. They feel so familiar that I’m teetering between normal and surreal. Samantha’s fingers slide down the inside of my wrist, over my palm, and lace with mine as Hunter tells me, “Do you know how close you were to never seeing us again?”
Sam whispers, “Don’t say that.”
“I don’t like the sound of that either,” I agree, locking eyes with her. She’s shining up at me a smile she didn’t even give to Asher. I’ve never seen this smile before, but I plan to see a lot of it. She adores me. This is going so much better than I dreamed.
She loves me.
“What’s this?” Jason asks as he and Sarah come downstairs in their robes to find us all here. Their eyes widen upon sight of me. “Logan?”
“Hey Mr. Cocker, Mrs. Cocker.”
They see I’m holding Sam’s hand and grins spread on their faces as her mom whispers, “Oh, thank God.”
Lexi hurries to explain, “We should have woken you. But we weren’t exactly positive what he came here for.”
Sam’s dad walks up to me and I release his daughter’s hand to shake his heartily. “I flew back here to convince her to be with me. I want to marry your daughter, sir.”
Samantha squeals and Lexi starts laughing as Caden corrects me, “You’re supposed to ask her first.”
Max smacks him in the chest. “Traditionally, you’re supposed to get the father’s blessing.”
“I didn’t get anyone’s blessing.”
“That’s because you’re rude.”
“Didn’t want to ask for permission,” Caden shrugs with utter confidence. “I’m my own man.”
“So am I.”
“You’re a daddy’s-boy.”
Max rolls his eyes. “Because I make one film!”
“Because you made it about—”
“Boys,” their mother cries out, shaking her head. “Stop distracting us from what is really going on here, please? This isn’t about you. You both already had your turns.”
Lexi mutters, “I don’t know why Samantha got hers before me.”
Hunter agrees, “Or me.”
Everyone stares at him, then returns to us.
“I would like your blessing, sir.”
Jason’s pale green eyes lose their amusement. “You have it, without reservation.”
Sarah sighs with relief, “I’ve always thought of you as one of the family anyway. Now it’s official!”
She opens her arms for a big hug. It inspires everyone to do the same. Samantha is wiping tears, grinning while her family accepts me into their lives in a whole new way.
There’s a lump in my throat as Hunter is the last to hug me. “Hey Logan, welcome to the family.”
Chapter Forty-One
SAMANTHA
L ogan walks into our dance studio, his legs graceful, body sculpted to perfection from being a professional with a grueling schedule for so long.
There are eleven girls between the ages of three and five, in staggered formation wiggling and bouncing to a pop song that will stay in their heads for the next twenty-four hours at least, the hook is that catchy.
I wave to Logan as I instruct them to, “Tap your right toe. Now the heel. Tap your left toe. Now that heel. One more time for each. Jump to your right. Swirl your hips like this. Clap your neighbor’s hand. And throw your arms up high.” The girls are so cute as the dimpled elbows straighten and reach as far as they can go, which isn’t very. Only one has the natural ability to make hers straight. All the others are wonky. But they’re having fun, which is all that matters. “Now freestyle! Run around!”
They go nuts, taking up the whole space, squealing as they zoom past our visitor, then me.
I turn off the stereo. “It’s 2:30 girls. I’ll see you next Tuesday.”
Their mothers have begun to file in, some of them from our reading room where they were engaged in friendly conversations with others from the community we’ve created.
Curious glances are thrown to Logan
