Page 10 of Stormi & Sebastian (Shorts #1)

Sebastian’s POV

One year later…

A whole year had gone by.

Our first anniversary was coming up next month, the same month our little girl turned six months old, and I had a surprise planned for my little family.

We were going to be going to Alaska on a whale watching trip.

I knew Stevie wouldn’t remember it, but we would have lots of pictures and lots of memories to share with her as she grew older.

Plus, we could always go again.

It was something Stormi had kept on her bucket list.

For our tenth anniversary, I have a trip to Europe planned for the family, her mom, Emily, and sister, and soon-to-be brother-in-law included if they wanted to come.

Family was family.

Stormi had started her list of countries she wanted to visit and things she wanted to do and see in each of the countries on that list.

Life had been amazing.

We got married the month after I proposed because Stormi didn’t want to be too pregnant in our wedding photos, but if you looked really closely, you could see a tiny little bump on her lower abdomen.

It was the perfect day, surrounded by our friends and family.

The reception was at the little Italian restaurant I proposed to her at.

Everyone had come back out the month after the proposal for the wedding, which I think Stormi really appreciated.

I don’t think she would have married me had Emily, Ryder, and Raven not been able to make it.

Though I think Emily was talking about either making the move permanent or somehow splitting her time between her girls.

She had said she was missing too much of her grandkids growing up and wanted us all to be closer.

The idea was nice, but we weren’t sure what we’d do because our lives were here, and hers was there.

Zoom, Skype, FaceTime calls, and visits when we could afford them were essential in making sure we could keep our bond growing.

Especially for Stevie.

She lived for those Nan calls.

Her biological mom, biological sister, and sister’s husband, her ex, have all tried reaching out to us.

We haven’t answered, nor have we returned any calls.

The lawsuit was dropped after almost a year of them trying to fight for it to be heard in a court of law.

It was just sad, and they’d used practically all of the money that was left from the divorce and savings to keep paying lawyers to get it pushed through.

After the third or fourth lawyer, the lawyers just stopped taking the case, as quite a few judges had it thrown out of their courtrooms.

And thank the lord it happened when it did because Stormi gave birth to our girl, who is a carbon copy of her mother, minus the nose, two days after it was dismissed. Again.

Motherhood and the journey to become one had inspired Stormi, and she took photographs of her bump at every stage.

She also started interviewing other mothers and asking if she could write their stories in a book.

She promised an equal portion of the proceeds to all twenty-five mothers she interviewed.

All of them were from all walks of life, with partners of all walks of life, though some had no partner.

Husbands.

Wives.

Boyfriends.

Girlfriends.

It was beautiful.

The stories of the struggles, triumphs, failures, and successes in situations they didn’t think they could get out of.

It made me see motherhood, fatherhood, parenthood in a different light.

I respected what my wife’s body could do and learned ways to help during those times when everything was falling apart for the pregnant woman because she didn’t have pickles, or because her shoes didn’t fit right.

I couldn’t wait to see Stormi pregnant with more of my babies.

I moved in with her, and we decided we were going to be doing an addition onto the side of the house to accommodate more children.

We were breaking ground today.

We were making the current ‘mud room’ or foyer where we came in, into a short hallway, where we would still be able to enter from the outside, that added four more bedrooms off of a large room that would act as a playroom for the children when they get bigger.

We would still be keeping the nursery as a nursery until the kids were big enough to be on their own in a big kid bed.

We planned to use this other room, with more rooms off of it, as a guest wing until it got filled, and the nursery could go back to being a guest room.

I couldn’t wait for the future.

Every day was a new adventure with my girls.