Page 13 of Ever After Between the Lines (Montgomery Ink Legacy)

ALEX

“I seriously cannot stand this. I’m so happy,” my mother said as she bounced a bright-eyed and healthy Sebastian on her hip.

Sebastian just grinned and leaned into his grandmother.

My son had felt better the next morning and had been discharged from the hospital soon after.

We had all been surprised that he had bounced back as quickly as he had, but then again, he was a kid.

That’s what they tended to do. They scared you to death, then showed you how amazing they were.

I was just glad that Sebastian was okay, and Aria seemed to have skipped being sick at all. Maya’s kids had also ended up being okay, and the bug had only hit Sebastian.

“I’m excited too, Mom,” I said, as Sebastian reached for me. My mom pouted ever so slightly, even though I knew it was in jest, and I took my son from her arms.

“So many babies,” she whispered. I shook my head and looked around at my large and ever-growing family.

I had seven siblings, countless cousins, and even more friends of the family that were constantly in and out of my parents’ home and ours to celebrate different occasions.

Tonight, however, was just the main eight, our spouses, and our children.

That was still well over twenty people, with lots of babies crawling around, some in slings, other children just old enough to start creating their own little baby gangs of their own.

Leif, an adult now, even though he still felt like my little baby nephew in my head, was holding Aria as my daughter gazed adoringly up at him. Leif could do that. He just made everybody happy.

Austin and Sierra were beside him, their other children either in their arms or walking around them.

Everybody just looked happy, as if everything we had gone through together made it worth it.

And that was right. Over time, we had lost part of ourselves, had been hurt, but had ended up stronger for it.

But I would have rather not gone through any of that.

I would have rather found peace and happiness without the pain, but we couldn’t go back and change that.

We could only look towards the future. That was something that had taken me far too long and even more mistakes for me to realize.

“What has you all melancholy?” my mother asked, and I looked down at her. “Nothing. I was just thinking about how far we’ve all come.”

She shook her head. “We’ve done okay for ourselves. We keep growing, to the point that I don’t know if we’re going to fit in this home much longer.”

I smiled at that. “We’ll find a way. I’m sure Dad and Storm will start building on, just a wing for the grandkids.”

My mom rolled her eyes. “Don’t suggest that to him, or he’ll start doing that.”

“First, they have to work on my home, so that should give you a reprieve.”

My mother’s eyes brightened. “You guys are moving into a bigger home, one built by our family. It’s about time,” she chided, though jokingly.

“I’m so sorry it took us forever to find a home to find the time to move, what with the twins, and the jobs, and life.”

“You’re not going to be doing it alone. You always have the Montgomerys.”

“Yeah, I do.”

I kissed the top of her head, and Sebastian wiggled down from my arms. He ran over to his sister, who Leif had put down, and the two hugged before going with their cousins.

I couldn’t help but smile, knowing that soon there would be more Montgomerys and more children added to the mix. We were loud, probably a little annoying to anyone outside our family, but happy.

Tabby walked over, a platter of cheese in her hands, and I laughed. “You’re officially one of us,” I said, as I stole a piece of brie and popped it into my mouth.

“Miranda sent me over with this for this side of the room. Apparently, we’re running out of cheese.”

The entire room quieted, and all stared at her.

“It’s okay. Luc and Decker are out getting more. It’s fine. This is not an emergency. I know we joke that this family is addicted to cheese, but please do not start a riot because you only have a single extra-large cheese platter left.”

“Did they bring the big car?” Border asked, his voice low, sardonic. “Maybe they should’ve brought a couple of trucks just to bring over the wheels of cheese.”

Everyone laughed at that, considering Border wasn’t one to joke often.

“I have no idea where this fascination came from. You were not this addicted to Irish Cheddar and Gouda when I first met your family.”

“We were, just in a quieter sense. And then one of our cousins made a joke about how cheese is life, and we sort of rolled with it. Like the proverbial wheel of cheese.”

My wife rolled her eyes as I took the cheese platter from her. The hoard descended on it, and I laughed, keeping my mother and pregnant wife away from any flying elbows.

“All this cheese probably isn’t good for the digestion. Do you eat fruits and vegetables?” Tabby asked, and my mother gestured towards the half-eaten vegetable tray. “We eat those too. And meats, and fresh chicken, and even carbs. We like to joke about cheese.”

“One day, I’m going to add a little block of cheese to the Montgomery iris and see who notices,” Maya said, and Austin shuddered beside her. “Please don’t. For the love of God, please don’t.”

“It’s just a farce at this point,” Tabby said. “But I love it. I just miss soft cheeses.”

“Tell me about it,” Jillian said, her hand on her slightly larger belly. “For a family that loves dairy as much as we do, we sure do tend to procreate enough that half of us aren’t allowed to eat the cheese that we so love for long periods of time.”

“It is true. Maybe we could start a family tradition of loving something that isn’t on the no-no list for pregnancy?” she asked sweetly.

I leaned down, brushed a kiss on Tabby’s lips. “We’ll find you something. Maybe something that’s just for our little part of the family.”

“Well, then we’re going to need to know what it is,” Maya added. “So we can claim it as the whole family’s.”

“She’s right, you know,” Tabby said. “Once you go Montgomery, you’re one of them. Forever.”

She said it as if she were talking about a cult, and people laughed, but I just held her close, and Sebastian and Aria came towards us.

I leaned down, lifted them both into my arms, and handed Aria over to Tabby.

She laughed, and the four of us held one another and watched as my family devoured cheese and vegetables and spoke of what they were planning for the new year and what they thought would happen next.

I didn’t know what was coming next for the Montgomerys or where we would end up, but I knew where we had been and where we were now.

And that was just fine with me.

It was time for someone else to find their happy ever afters, to fight and crawl, and maybe not find pain at all when it came to a future.

We were settled here, finally, and after a long few years of memories that some of us would rather forget, I was happy with that.

I had kissed my wife at midnight under the moonlight on New Year’s, and that’s how I wanted to spend the rest of the year, with my family, my friends, and with a future I knew that’d be ours to hold, forever.

I hope you loved this holiday special from the Montgomerys!

The next set of Montgomerys begin in Fort Collins in Inked Persuasion !