Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 75107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
I mean, that’s not to say that life didn’t have its ups and downs. That said, though, there’d never been a moment when I didn’t want to go through the hard times with than Stephanie.
“What’s that look for?” Gavin, Zeno’s brother, asked.
“What look?” Zeno asked, feigning ignorance. Poorly.
“You look like a man contemplating forever,” Miko piled on.
“Me? No.”
“Him?” Gavin asked at the same time. “He’d have to look up from his computer for long enough to notice a woman for that to be the case.”
“The only way you’d even see a woman at this point is if she broke into your sad-ass apartment,” Zeno shot back.
“We really arguing on someone else’s wedding day?” Cesare, one of their older brothers, asked as he came into the room.
“How’s it looking out there?” I asked.
“Like Christmas,” he said, giving me a knowing smile.
“Good.”
“I was told by a redhead holding a French Bulldog in a suit that you need to get your ass out there.”
It was time.
To sign up for a lifetime of Christmases. And Central Park walks. And late-night pizza. And, fuck, everything else life had to offer us.
We’d ended up renting out the same ballroom where we’d attended the lawyer holiday party two years back.
Hell, we even rented the same band.
Though we went ahead and chose a different caterer. No fancy-ass, too-small portions of weird, barely edible foods for us.
We’d opted to go full Italian for our reception.
It just seemed fitting.
Cesare hadn’t been kidding.
If possible, the ballroom looked even more Christmasy than it had the last time we’d been here.
The walls were lined in Christmas trees.
The tables were draped in red and gold.
Everything had twinkle lights.
It looked warm and bright and so much like Steph, my damn heart hurt.
The whole event was unconventional. With flower girls walking with Noel between them and ring bearers taking Meatball and Potroast down the aisle.
Then there was Stephanie.
In a dress that shimmered like snow.
Walking toward me to give me her forever.
We’d just sealed the whole thing with a kiss when she leaned into my ear to whisper. “Meet me in the bathroom.”
I guess it made perfect sense to consummate our marriage in the same place we’d first gotten together.
Luckily this time, no one chased us through the city afterward.
Though we both became pretty sure in the weeks that followed that it was there that we’d expanded our little family.
Stephanie - 4 Years
“Listen, little man, we gotta let Mom get some sleep, you know? She’s tired as fuck.”
I winced at that.
We were steadily passing the point of ‘he’s too little for it to matter’ and approaching ‘he’s going to repeat that eventually’ territory.
“I get it. You don’t like sleeping. But Mom? Mom does. So you gotta stop screaming your head off at three in the morning, or she’s gonna wake up and come running.”
We hadn’t been as lucky as some of our friends and family in getting a baby who slept through the night after the first three months.
Our son was restless.
And to be fair, those first few months, as tired as I was at times, I soaked up all those late nights with our little baby in my arms, touching his tiny fingers, stroking his chubby cheek, listening to his coos, seeing so much of his father in him already.
But, yeah, at some point, the lack of solid sleep had started to weigh on me.
That said, I always woke up in a panic if it was in the middle of the night and our baby hadn’t woken me up.
There was no reason to worry, though.
He was always with his father.
Did Venezio have a habit of speaking to his baby like an adult? Sure. But, God, he was a great father.
The same care that he’d always shown to me, he offered the baby.
I knew he’d been worried that because he had such a bad upbringing, because his own father hadn’t had a paternal bone in his body, he would fail at the task.
I’d never had a moment of doubt that he would be the best father possible.
Every day just proved me more and more right.
I made my way over to the couch, sliding in at his other side.
“Kinda defeats the purpose of taking care of him so you can sleep if you get up too.”
“I just want to sit and watch the lights twinkle with my boys,” I said, stroking my son’s cheek as I rested my face on Venezio’s chest and stared at the tree.
“He’s too young to really care,” I said, “but I’m so excited for his first Christmas.”
“Gonna be fun to play Santa,” Venezio agreed.
More traditions to create.
I couldn’t wait.
Venezio - 16 Years
“Go ahead. Ask your father,” Steph invited as soon as I walked through the door.
Uh oh.
What was I being roped into now?
“Ask me what?” I asked, glancing around the apartment.
Over the years, Christmas had only spread across our home. More stockings. Years’ worth of new decor.