Ready for You (Ready #3)(87)

My hands searched the warm flannel sheets and came up empty. I looked to the right and found nothing.

Where was she?

Rising quickly, I tugged on a pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, and then I headed down the stairs where I could already hear the sweet humming sounds of her voice as she sang “Happy Birthday.” Turning into the kitchen, I found her dancing around in one of my old T-shirts, making a goofball of herself, as Asher giggled and cooed. Sneaking up behind her, I slipped my hands around her waist. She yelped in surprise and laughed, relaxing into my chest.

“You weren’t in bed.” I pouted.

“Someone needed to be fed,” she said.

She pointed to Asher whose face still made me melt every single time I saw it.

“Someone is an attention hog. Where’s my breakfast?” I asked, looking around at the mess she’d created.

Mia had learned a few things in the three years we’d been married. She could make a couple of dishes now without lighting the kitchen on fire, but she’d never learned the art of tidiness. The kitchen looked as if it had blown up flour.

“It’s not your birthday, grumpy,” she pointed out, flipping the slightly burned pancake on the griddle.

“Hmm…maybe I’ll have cereal.”

She turned to give me the evil eye and slapped my ass as I made my way to the other side of the kitchen.

Asher yelled, “Da!” He made his grabby hands, which resembled tiny pinchers on a crab.

I smiled, loving the sound of my child calling out to me. It was a sound I’d thought I would never hear, yet here we were, celebrating his first birthday. I picked Asher up from his highchair and rocked him on my hip while Mia made subpar pancakes, and I realized how lucky I was, how fortunate I’d been.

I’d learned that our lives could be plotted out by pivotal moments in time. My life with Mia had been a journey, an endless string of moments and memories that kept moving us forward, propelling us to a future neither of us could imagine.

As I’d sat in that homeroom class so many years ago, staring at the girl who would one day be my wife, I’d had no idea how important that moment would become. She was the first girl I’d ever noticed and the only woman I’d wanted since. I’d thought she’d broken me on that deserted, rain-soaked street and that I’d never recover. When I’d found her on that crowded street at the farmers’ market, I’d known I would never be able to let her go again.

Every moment of our lives had brought us to this one and the countless others that would follow.

“So, little dude,” I said as he grabbed on to my nose and giggled, “are you ready to celebrate?”

~Mia~

Seeing Garrett hold our son never failed to make my heart stutter and swell with pride. He took Asher upstairs, and I set my sights on the kitchen, hoping I could get the breakfast mess cleaned by the time everyone arrived for Asher’s birthday party.

Our little boy was turning one today.

I was a mother.

I’d known this fact for a year now, longer actually, but it still amazed me. It was something I’d never thought was possible, but I’d quickly learned that nothing in life was impossible. I’d known adoption was an avenue we could explore, but I’d also known it was difficult, expensive, and full of challenges.

After Garrett had proposed to me by the river on that cold winter evening in the exact spot he’d dropped to one knee so many years earlier, my heart was complete. I wouldn’t need anything else in the world as long as I had him.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

He stopped the car at our favorite spot by the river. The trees were now bare and statuesque in their grayish wintery state. Garrett grabbed his trusty blanket out of the back of the car, and we started down the path toward the water.

“I thought a little bit of alone time with our favorite spot might be nice,” he said.

“In thirty-degree weather?” I asked, rubbing my hands together. I shoved them in my pockets.

I saw him smirk as he unfolded the blanket and spread it across the cold ground. He sat down and motioned for me to do the same.

“You want me to sit down on the frozen ground?” I added.

“Mmhmm,” he said, smoothing out the blanket suggestively.

I rolled my eyes and planted my butt down on the cold earth next to him, yelping as my jean-clad ass hit the icy blanket.

“See? Not that bad, right?”

I just glared my answer back at him, but then I gasped as soon as he bent forward on his knees and propped one forward.

Holy shit. He was on one knee…and he just pulled out a ring box.

I suddenly didn’t care about my ass anymore. Just like the first time, I went to my knees and mimicked his position so that our noses were touching.

He laughed. “Some things don’t change.”

I stared down at the ring box, and then my eyes drifted up to his. “No, they don’t.”

“I’ve been agonizing for weeks, trying to find the perfect place to ask you. That sham of a housewarming party was all for show. I was supposed to propose that night, but all my meticulous plans got botched. I’ve been scrambling all week, attempting to come up with something. Then, you made that comment about our past and present colliding, and I realized I already had the perfect spot.”

“Here,” I said.