Page 62 of Meet Me In The Dark (Skeptically In Love #3)

Ten years later

Celeste

I can always tell where Julian is in the house by sound.

If I hear the low hum of his voice, he’s in the kitchen, probably on the phone with a board member. If it’s silent, he’s either working in his office or plotting something I’ll have to stop him from doing.

But right now, it’s the unmistakable rhythmic thunk of a basketball bouncing outside.

I lean against the kitchen counter, mug of tea warming my hands, and watch from the window as Julian squares off against the boys.

“Boys” is a loose term. Kai is almost thirteen now and the same height as me.

Toby is nine and has the kind of stubborn streak that only makes sense if you’ve met Julian.

Julian’s in shorts and a Blackwood & Calloway T-shirt. His hair’s a little longer these days, streaks of silver thread through it. I’d call them distinguished, but the last time I did, he gave me a look that promised I’d be punished for it.

Kai dribbles, fakes left, and takes a shot that bounces clean off the rim.

“Nice try,” Julian says, catching the rebound one-handed.

“Wasn’t trying,” Kai mutters, grinning anyway.

From my spot at the window, I can see it before it happens. Julian lets him think he’s got a chance, draws him in close, then pivots and sinks the shot. Toby groans from the sidelines.

“You’re getting slow, Dad,” Kai calls out, brushing sweat off his forehead.

I smile into my tea. It still catches me sometimes, hearing him call Julian that. Kai was ten when we adopted him. Old enough to remember the years before, and old enough to decide what to call us.

He started with “Julian” and “Celeste,” then one night, out of nowhere, “Dad” slipped out during a backyard barbecue. Julian didn’t even flinch. He handed him a plate and asked if he wanted another burger.

Now it’s second nature.

Toby still uses our first names, which is fine. He’s only been with us for a year, and he’s not one for rushing anything. But when he laughs, and he’s laughing now as Julian pretends to trip over an invisible crack in the driveway, there’s no mistaking he feels safe here.

I top up my tea and rest my hip against the counter, the boys’ laughter drifting in through the open window.

It used to sting, the idea of motherhood. Not because I wanted it and couldn’t have it, but because I never had the pull to carry a child. I took that as proof that I wasn’t meant to be a mother at all.

Turns out I was wrong.

There are a thousand ways to be a mother. Some have nothing to do with a positive test or a swollen belly. Some of them look like peanut butter on toast at midnight, school forms signed on the hood of a car, and an old rabbit with one ear sitting guard at the foot of a bed.

Adopting Kai wasn’t part of any tidy plan.

It wasn’t even a conscious choice at first. Julian and I were happy as we were, two people with a house that echoed on rainy nights and a calendar full of work and long runs.

Then Kai showed up at Mateo’s one afternoon, skinny and quiet, eyes darting like he was waiting for a door to slam.

He’d been placed with a local foster family.

Julian watched him the way you watch a memory that’s walking back to you. I think my husband saw his own reflection in that boy’s eyes and never looked away again.

Every week, I went back to the gym to train, and every week, Kai had fresh bruises that didn’t come from a heavy bag.

The marks told on a life he didn’t know how to speak about yet.

I’d wrap my hands and look at Julian, and he’d look at me, and neither of us would say anything because the truth was too big for casual conversation .

I still remember the car ride home the night we understood it. We were both quiet, not our usual comfortable kind. The air felt tight, like we were holding something between us that might break if we breathed the wrong way. I reached across the console and took his hand.

“Could we do it?” I asked.

I didn’t have to explain. He already knew. He kept his eyes on the road and scrubbed a hand over his jaw.

“I don’t know, but I can’t get him out of my head,” he said.

“Me neither.”

We didn’t make a grand decision in that moment.

We sat at the kitchen table that night, then again the next, and the nights after that.

We talked about what it would mean to invite a child into a life we’d built for two.

We called Julian’s parents, and they told us the truth.

That it would be the hardest thing we’d ever do, and the most beautiful.

Fostering didn’t mean getting a child and making them ours.

Sometimes the story ended with goodbye. Sometimes a child only needed a safe place to land and a pair of adults who wouldn’t flinch when the storm hit.

We started the process. Grueling is the polite word.

Forms, classes, and interviews that walked us through our own histories as if we were the case study.

We did it because he mattered, and we realized we didn’t need to share blood with a child to love them.

God knows, we had the space, and more love than we knew what to do with.

When Kai finally came to us, it wasn’t a storybook arrival.

He brought a backpack and a tight mouth and a stare that made me want to wrap him in bubble wrap and also show him every warm thing in the house at once.

We’d already built trust at the gym, small steps that looked like a bottle of water handed over without comment, a nod across the mats, a place beside Julian on the bench while he tied his shoes.

But the deeper injuries didn’t disappear because we hung curtains and stocked the cupboards with his favorite cereal.

Months of therapy followed. He learned he could say what happened, and we’d still be there the next morning.

He learned where we kept the spoons. He learned that if he called, we answered, even if he was only calling to say he couldn’t sleep.

When love wasn’t enough, Julian brought understanding that made it through doors I couldn’t open.

Watching him become a father was its own kind of miracle.

He was patient when patience cost him. He never raised his voice just to win an argument.

He learned to sit on the floor with math homework he didn’t remember how to do and say, “Show me.” He ran drills in the driveway, not to make Kai better at basketball but to show him what it feels like to be cheered for.

He guarded bedtime like a secret. He checked the locks twice and then once more for the boy who needed to hear the click.

The day we were approved to adopt Kai, the world sharpened. I cried into a stack of legal documents, which is not how I imagined motherhood would look, and it was perfect anyway. It was the greatest day of my life, with our wedding close behind.

Our wedding is still a sensitive subject in our friend group. Running off to elope sounded romantic until Sienna and Madison tallied the people we didn’t invite and sent me a five-point PowerPoint titled ‘Betrayal.’

They’ve forgiven us. Mostly.

Toby arrived over a year ago, a temporary placement that tipped our house back into the sweet kind of noise.

He won me over the second he looked at me, all skeptical and soft at once.

He was supposed to stay for a few weeks.

A year later, he still follows me room to room like a determined shadow, tests every boundary to make sure it’s real, and then curls up in the corner of the couch under a blanket he swears isn’t his, even though he’s the only one allowed to use it.

His adoption next month will make what we already know official.

Sometimes I forget I didn’t carry those two boys in a womb I don’t have. My body never held them, but my days do.

The shape of our life is made of their voices, their abandoned socks, the trail of pencil shavings from the kitchen table to the backpack by the door.

Motherhood, for me, is trains lined up on the coffee table and a jacket thrown over my shoulders because someone else forgot theirs.

It’s permission slips, and the quiet talk after a nightmare, and the way Julian looks at me across a messy kitchen like we got away with something holy.

The three men in my life press every button I have.

I’d rearrange the sky for them if they asked nicely.

I drink the last of my tea, set the mug in the sink, and head for the back door. The ocean breeze hits me first before Max—our big, lazy golden retriever—lumbers over for a pat.

I give him a scratch behind the ears and step forward onto the driveway.

“Right,” I call, hands on my hips. “Come on, pass the ball. Let me show you boys how it’s done. ”

Toby immediately grins. “You? Please.”

Kai’s smirk matches Julian’s. “You can’t even dribble without looking at the ground.”

I jog forward, catching Julian’s eye. “Don’t underestimate me.”

The game shifts. It’s the kids versus us, which turns out to be mostly me trying to run around without tripping while Julian plays the heavy artillery.

We’re laughing, jostling, faking each other out.

At one point, Julian lifts me straight off the ground so I can make the shot, both of us grinning as the ball swishes through the net.

The boys groan. “Cheating!”

“Teamwork,” Julian corrects, setting me down.

I stumble a little, but Julian’s right there, arm sliding around my waist to steady me. His palm is warm against my side.

“You all stink,” I tell them, fanning my face.

Julian dips his head and kisses me anyway. It’s quick but deep enough that the boys make a gagging noise.

“Aren’t you too old for that?” Kai asks.

“Yeah, Mom,” Toby chimes in. “Don’t kiss him, he reeks.”

Julian and I both freeze. His eyes find mine.

“Did he just call you—”

“Yeah,” I cut in quickly, my voice low. “Don’t mention it. You’ll scare him. He won’t do it again.”

Even with tears blurring my vision, I smile.

I take a deep breath and swallow down the lump in my throat. “Why don’t you boys get changed? Dinner’s almost ready.”

They disappear inside and their voices trail up the stairs. Julian is back before they are, and I feel him at my back, the warmth of him sinking into me before his lips do.

“Hi,” I murmur, leaning into him.

“Hi, baby.”

I spin in his arms, tilting my head up at him. “You still stink.”

His eyes narrow. “I do not.”

I shrug, a small smile tugging at my mouth. “I still think you need another shower later. You know… let your wife make sure you’re really clean.”

One corner of his mouth kicks up, heat sparking in his eyes. “If you’re volunteering, I’ll book the time now.”

I laugh, tugging him down for another kiss, but we’re interrupted by the thud of feet and the sound of Kai and Toby shoving each other through the doorway, arguing about who gets the biggest piece of garlic bread.

Julian pulls back and brushes his thumb along my jaw as the boys crowd the table.

And I know, with absolute certainty, this is the life I never even knew I wanted, and it’s mine.

The End.