A Beautiful Forever(50)
“Thank you Kathy, that means a lot.”
“What are you two ladies gas bagging about?” Steven booms as he enters the room.
“I was just telling Paige how lovely Grace was last night, and that we’re happy to have her whenever they want to go out.”
“Yeah we’re really going to miss the little one, bring her over whenever you like,” Steven says as he watches her bounce.
Elliot comes to stand by me, and after we finish showing Kathy and Steven through the flat, I offer everybody coffee. I’m dying for one now after skipping the one I made earlier.
We all settle around the dining room table, drinking coffee, chatting and eating biscuits, while we pass Grace between us as she makes a game of reaching out to us all.
By the time Grace gets grouchy, signalling that she’s ready for a nap, Kathy and Steven are preparing to leave, congratulating us on our new home as they do. We thank them for everything they have done for us. Supportive parents mean the world to me. I can only hope that I’ll be half as good to my family as they are to theirs.
Once Grace is sleeping and Elliot and I are alone again, we spend some time sitting together on the couch, enjoying the peace while we watch some television.
“Elliot,” I say to get his attention.
“What is it?” he asks, kissing the side of my head affectionately.
“I’ve never really thanked you – for coming into my life, for understanding me…and especially - for forgiving me,” I say turning to face him.
“Paige, you don’t have to thank me.”
“But I do Elliot, eighteen months ago I never, never would have even let myself dream that my life could be like this. I didn’t think I could ever be this happy. But you,” I pause as I climb on his lap and face him, “have given me everything, Elliot, everything.” I hold his face in my hands and bring my mouth to his, putting everything I am feeling for him into my movements as I kiss him.
He holds me to him kissing me back with equal intensity before carrying me off to the bedroom to have his way with me again.
Elliot
As we lay together afterwards, I trace my finger over the name tattoo on her wrist, the vine artfully wrapping around and the letters of my name entangled with it. One of the leaves coming off the vine has Grace’s name on it, mine is the same except it wraps around the widest part of my forearm and has Paige’s name replacing my own. We’ve had some mixed reactions to these tattoos. So many people think we’re crazy putting our spouse's names in permanent ink within our skin. But as far as we’re concerned, our life together is permanent. Nothing going to change the way we feel about each other.
“So how many of these leaves do you think we’ll need?” I ask.
“Well, that depends. How many were you thinking of?” she asks in reply.
I roll up on my elbow and pull her close to me. “I could make babies with you forever Mrs Roberts,” I murmur softly as I dip my head to kiss her neck.
“Well then Mr Roberts, I think in a couple of years, we might need dip into my trust fund and get a bigger house,” she replies, pressing herself against me.
I reach my hand up and brush it through her beautiful hair, marvelling at the woman before me. Truth be told, I’m the one that should be thanking her, before meeting her, I was totally lost. I had no direction in my life and spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself for all the time I wasted on things that didn’t make me happy.
Now I know that if my life hadn’t felt like a total waste, I never would have gone to the UK, and I never would have met Paige, who let’s face it, gave me a life worth living, she gave me purpose and she gave me a family of my own.
As I roll back with her on top of me, I vow that I will spend every moment of the rest of my life loving her. Seeing her happy means everything to me, because when she smiles, when she genuinely smiles, I feel like the luckiest man on earth.
THE END