Page 35 of Sex, Lies, and Margarita Mixes

THREE YEARS AND NEW DREAMS

ROXY

If someone had told me four years ago that my life would look like this—a pink tricycle tipped over next to a food truck with my face on it, a booming business that is one of the top event planning companies in both Austin and Dallas, a glitter slime experiment gone wrong coating half the patio, and a French bulldog wearing a tutu while dragging a half-eaten quesadilla across the yard—I would’ve laughed so hard I cried.

And yet, here we are.

It’s perfect.

I lean against the truck, looking through the window, sipping my margarita, watching Chase fry tortillas and assemble tacos while wearing a tiny human, we created together, strapped to his chest in a carrier that says “ Daddy’s Sous Chef.

” Our daughter, Stella, babbles happily, gumming a piece of dough between her perfect little lips.

“Babe,” I call. “She’s got a tortilla in her mouth again.”

He glances down at her with a lazy grin. “She’s fine.”

“Chase, it’s raw dough.”

He shrugs. “Organic. Builds immunity.”

I groan, but I’m smiling. “You’re impossible.”

He shoots me a grin—the one that still melts me. “You love it.”

“Damn right I do.” I mutter and glance around the yard.

Mari Lynn’s voice carries from the kitchen. “Alright, hellions! Five minutes to find every glitter egg or I’m adding your juice boxes to mommy’s sippy cup!”

A swarm of tiny feet stampede past. Mari Lynn’s two-year-old twin boys, Leo and Lucas, are already shoving each other toward the nearest flower bed, trailing glitter, dirt, and sticky fingerprints in their wake.

Knox trails behind them. He’s wearing a pink feather boa, and a tiara is perched precariously on his head.

“Why are you wearing that?” I ask, barely holding in a laugh.

He lifts the boa and flips it over his shoulder. “Apparently, I lost a bet to a certain one-and-a-half-year-old.”

Mari Lynn cackles. “Correction… you underestimated a certain one-and-a-half-year-old.” She shoots a pointed look at me and grins.

“Where is my princess? Marnie, where are you, baby?” I call out.

She comes running out from behind Knox with red lipstick smeared all over her face, shorts, a swimsuit top, a tutu, and a baseball bat. “I wite here mommeeee. Unca Knox is a pwincess. I saving him from da dwagon.”

I cheer her on. “Good job, baby girl! You save weak Unca Knox from that dragon!”

Chase laughs as he leans out of the food truck window, handing me a plate. “Are we officially a dynasty now?”

I bite into a taco and raise my margarita glass. “A sexy, chaotic, tequila-fueled dynasty. But yeah.”

He grins. “Best damn dynasty ever.”

Chaos reigns supreme. Kids zoom through the kitchen.

Leo is running in circles and dragging a string of Christmas lights behind him like a cape.

Lucas is trying to climb into the dishwasher.

Stella giggles from her highchair, covered in frosting while Marnie stands on the couch and waves a wooden spoon around like it’s a magic wand.

The dog is licking spilled queso off the tile.

Mari Lynn plops beside me at the kitchen table, sipping a margarita. We both look around at the mess that is my kitchen and living room. “How do three toddlers and a baby make such a mess? Did you ever think this would be our lives?”

I shake my head. “Not even close.”

Knox walks in holding two juice boxes and a Nerf gun. “I’m officially outnumbered by smart little people who are weirdly accurate with foam darts.”

“Right? Like how are they freaking Nerf sharp-shooters?” Mari Lynn quips.

Chase enters with a tray of tacos and a fresh pitcher of margaritas. He sets them down like an offering. “Temporary peace offering. Their favorite. The tacos, not the margaritas. Do you think they’ll eat and crash?” He sounds wistful.

I refill my glass. “You’re a saint, baby. And no… probably not. Unless they pass out right in their plates from exhaustion. You know they will fight it until they can’t anymore.”

“Well, Daddy needs some Mommy time.” His brows waggle and my stomach clenches. “And they should, they’ve been slaying dragons for five hours now,” he adds, leaning down to kiss me. “Mommy looks too damn good in those cutoffs.” He growls it in my ear.

I drag my finger over his abs, “Mommy approves of this plan.”

Mari Lynn fake gags, “Y’all are so gross… You have two kids. Control yourselves.” She laughs.

Knox leans down to whisper something in her ear and she groans before yelling, “Kids, come eat! It’s food, and then, bath time.” Then she looks at Knox and bites her lips, “Mommy and Daddy are going to practice making them a sibling later.”

Chase throws a tortilla at her. Knox catches it, takes a savage bite, and winks before saying, “The couple that makes another baby fastest wins.”

After the party winds down, after the last glitter egg is found and busted, after the toddlers crash in a massive blanket fort in the middle of the living room and Stella is tucked safely into her crib, Mari Lynn and Knox head to the guest room with the baby monitor for the living room.

Chase and I climb onto the food truck roof again with the baby monitor for Stella’s room.

Same spot. Same stars. A little more tired. A lot more grateful.

He reaches for my hand, linking our fingers. “You ever think about Vegas?”

I snort softly and lean my chin on his chest, looking up at him. “Only every time Marnie crawls into bed between us, or Stella throws food down to the dog, or the house looks like a bomb went off three point two minutes after I straighten it.”

He grins. “Still the best bad decision we ever made.”

I snuggle into him. “The best.”

He pulls me close, kisses me slow, deliberate—the kind of kiss that tastes like the vows we finally said on the beach, almost four years after Elvis married us.

“Would you do it all again?” he asks.

Smiling against his lips, I nod. “Every crazy, messy, glitter-bombed second of every damn day.”

He leans back, looking out over the backyard, the string lights still glowing. Mari Lynn and Knox are now on the patio, her feet are in his lap, they’re both sipping drinks, and watching their boys and our daughter snore in the fort through the glass.

“I used to think forever had to be big,” I whisper. “But this? This quiet chaos? This is it.”

He rests his chin on my shoulder. “Forever’s whatever we make it. I still choose you, Rox.”

“I choose you, too, Chase.”

And as quiet laughter drifts up from Mari Lynn and Knox keeping watch over our motley crew, our daughter lets out a tiny snore in her sleep from her crib, visible on the monitor, and I look at our beautiful chaos, I realize something.

We didn’t just build a life. We built a family.

Not perfect. Not polished but absolutely, wonderfully, unapologetically ours.

And I wouldn’t trade a second.

Not the glitter. Not the frosting in the curtains. Not even the tricycle that trips us every time we walk past, even though we know it’s there.

Every bit of that crazy brought us closer to here.

And here is exactly where we’re meant to be.