Page 65 of Unscripted Love
At the stroke of midnight, choreographed fireworks boomed in the sky over the hotels on the strip. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life and reminded me of our first kiss beneath the much smaller firework display in our hometown just six months prior. Kyle kissed me, but there was no running from the things he made me feel.
The colorful explosions were still blasting in the sky all around us when I pulled back from our kiss and pulled Kyle’s gift from my pocket. He threw his head back and laughed when I handed the stuffed lobster to him. I knew he’d get theFriendsreference immediately and waited not-so-patiently for him to notice the shiny, circular item tied to its neck. Kyle’s eyes widened when he saw it.
“I know it might seem a little soon, but I’ve decided to go off script here,” I told him. “I don’t see a reason to wait another minute to tell you that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have children, grandchildren, and matching rocking chairs on our front porch. I want us to fight over who is the worst at playingWorld of Warcraftthen I want to kiss and make up. I want to spend the rest of my days being your lobster.”
I saw the answer in Kyle’s eyes before he spoke the words. “Okay then.” He pulled me to him for another long kiss before he broke it off just as quickly. “You know what they have a lot of in Vegas?” The answers to that question were endless. “Wedding chapels,” Kyle answered excitedly.
My mouth gaped open in surprise. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? You said it yourself a few minutes ago. Why wait another minute when we know we want to spend the rest of our lives together? We can plan a ceremony for our friends and family when we get back home, but tonight is just for us. What do you say? Will you marry me tonight with Elvis as our witness?”
How could a guy pass up an offer like that? “Okay then.”
The End!
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“We’re home, Dylan and Destiny,” Gabe softly said when he pushed the button to shut off the engine. “There’s a lot of people waiting inside our house to meet you.”
I turned and looked into the back seat of my snazzy, dark red Land Rover I affectionately called Duchess. Our sleeping newborns weren’t paying a bit of attention to what their daddy said. I traded in my convertible Mini Cooper once we found out the babies were going to be a reality. I couldn’t fit two car seats in the back of Princess, so changes were required. I loved the luxuriousness and sleekness of my new ride, so I was hardly complaining. “You didn’t just get two dads; you got an entire village of people who will love you,” I told my babies.
“Can we go inside now? I can’t wait to show my babies off,” my mom asked.
My new snazzy ride came with third-row seating, which happened to be filled with two proud grandmothers who came home with us from Florida.
“Got that straight, Bertie,” Martina said. “I can’t wait to sleep in a real bed.”
We’d spent two days on the road driving home from Florida, and everyone was ready to feel a sense of normalcy. Well, the babies were too busy sleeping to notice much of anything. We had spent the previous night at a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Gabe’s birth mother, Bonita, and his three sisters, Selena, Marisol, and Arianna, joined us for dinner and hung out back in our room so they could fuss over Dylan and Destiny.
“Our hotel room had a real bed in it,” Gabe remarked. “Yours didn’t?”
“Stop being a wise ass, Gabriel,” Martina said. “You know damn well those hotels don’t provide beds and sheets as nice as the onesJoshdoes.” Martina knew who was responsible for making the in-law suites so comfy.
“I hope you know they’re never going to leave now,” Gabe whispered in mock-horror to me. Then he looked at his doting mother and said, “You should watch your mouth around the babies.”
“You need to be more worried about your birds,” my mother countered. She wasn’t wrong either.
The garage door to the house flew open, and the excited faces of our friends filled the frame. It wasn’t that long ago that I lived above the salon, had no love to speak of, and didn’t know half of the people who waited eagerly to welcome our children home.
“The ladies are looking a little impatient,” I said when I saw Meredith, Sally Ann, and Deanna’s faces.
“Not as impatient as the ones cramped in the third row of this SUV,” Martina said.
I knew we needed to get out and show off our babies, but this felt like the last minutes that the babies would be just ours. Gabe and I had stayed in a suite with them for a few days at the hospital since they were born a little early. Neither of us wanted to close our eyes and sleep because we didn’t want to miss a second. They were our little miracles and the precious little pieces that made our family complete. We knew we needed to share, but for that brief time, we wanted to be selfish and hold them against our chests and just breathe them in. Sitting in the garage felt like that too. Our babies would never lack love and affection with the amazing group of friends that we shared our lives with every day.
Suddenly, there was a stir in the middle of the group, and the bodies started shifting. I smiled when I saw Mama Richmond elbow her way to the front of the gathering. She still wore her Sunday finest complete with an ornate hat. “Boy, are you going to come out on your own or do I need to snatch you out by your hair?”
Gabe and I pointed at one another. “She’s talking to you,” we said simultaneously.
Neither of us was willing to take a chance and unbuckled our seatbelts. Gabe and I each grabbed a car seat and assisted our mothers out. As soon as they were free, they grabbed the car seats from us and headed inside.
“Grab our suitcases, Gabe,” Martina said.
“Don’t forget the diaper bags,” my mother added.
Gabe and I stood in the garage looking at one another as everyone followed our mothers into the house. “Hey, you want to?” Gabe asked. “First minute we’ve had alone since the babies were born.”
“Get used to it,” John said from the doorway. I hadn’t seen or heard him come back. “I haven’t had sex in three years.”