One Night with Calvin (One Night Series Book 2) (20 page)

He grinned. “Whatevs? Really? In a grownup conversation?”

“Totes.”

Shaking his head, he laughed. “I love you so friggin’ much.”

I didn’t say it back because I didn’t need to. I took him into my shower and showed him how much I loved him instead.

EPILOGUE

- HUNTER -

SIX MONTHS LATER

“It hurts,” Sara complained.

“I know. You just have to push through the pain.” I had no sympathy. I’d already endured my share.

“Did you seriously just say that to me? I don’t remember it hurting this much last time.”

“Hey, at least
Ryan
is shorter than
divlji.
”

We were adding to our tattoos. She was getting my name curved around the D of divlji. I got Sara wrapped in the curve of the S of
selvaġġi
.

Sara said the night we met that it was five years too soon to tattoo our names on each other, so I told her to put her money where her mouth was. I didn’t think she’d go through with it, but there we were, branding each other. And I couldn’t have been happier.

Some people thought our relationship was intense for the short amount of time we’d been together. This mainly came from Paige in the form of a joke, but considering she practically broke out in hives if Cole mentioned any form of commitment, I wasn’t too worried about her opinion. I knew Sara’s parents were a bit cautious too, though. Especially after Sara’s escape to England for twelve days—which I later found out they paid for. I couldn’t be mad at them for having reservations. It only made sense they wanted to protect their daughter from getting hurt. Of course, her dad still claimed he was waiting for his moment where he got to punch me back. If Sara hadn’t stopped him, I was sure he would’ve done it after the England incident. Just as I had to explain to my parents about what happened when Sara and I first met, Sara had to fess up to hers about her little freak out and why she really ran away to London.

I couldn’t deny Sara and I had a patchy start, but instead of running away from our problems, we now faced them together. It was working so far, and I fell harder for her every damn day.

My ringtone started up and I had to let go of Sara’s hand to answer.

“Hey, Spence, what’s up?”

“I-I’m a freaking dad.”

“Holy crap, dude. Congrats.”

“Elliot was born this morning. They’re allowing visitors if you want to come by.”

“Of course.”

I heard  “
Stop telling people to come see me, dickhead. I look horrible
” in the background.

“Was that—”

“My baby mumma? Yup.”

“
And stop calling me that!
”

“How’s Reece doing, anyway?”

There were some shuffling noises as if he was moving around, and then he whispered, “Who the fuck knows. Don’t tell her I told you this, but she was awesome in there. Seriously, women need so much damn respect for giving birth.”

I laughed. “So I’ve heard.”

“But now she’s all hormonal again. Does it ever end?”

I laughed harder. “I’ve heard it doesn’t.”

“Damn. So can we expect you and Sara?”

“Yup. We’ll finish up here and come by straight after.”

He rattled off the hospital wing and bed number and ended the phone call with “See you soon. I’m a freaking dad.”

Ending the phone call with a smile, I was hit with a surprise wave of envy. I forced myself to push it aside. It was way too soon to be talking babies. I hadn’t even proposed yet. Although, I did have the ring.

I didn’t care it’d been less than a year together. I’d never been more sure of anything in my life.

We were already talking about moving in together. I hadn’t been home in months anyway other than to grab more clothes.

The plan was to search for a bigger place as soon as we could, but three-quarters of my savings had gone to buying my share of the agency, and Sara had only just graduated uni and started working for me. With the two incomes, we figured we could afford to buy a place in a few months.

It was all still new, but working and practically living together was running smoothly. We didn’t actually see each other that often at work because we were in different departments, so it was a good balance. We got all our office sex over with in the first week so we could get it out of our system and focus on being professional. Although, I still sometimes sneaked into her office and climbed under her desk for a taste. I couldn’t help myself.

“All done,” the tattooist said.

“Great. We have a baby to go meet.”

“Spence had the baby?” Sara asked. She’d gotten to know Spence pretty well over the last few months from going to our Friday pub night—something he was probably going to have to stop coming to now he had a kid.

“Well, technically, Reece did, but yeah.”

***

At the hospital, we were arriving as our friends Pip and Gage were leaving. I talked to them for a few minutes while Sara went on ahead, and when I reached the room, Sara was talking to Reece. Surprisingly, it looked like they were getting along. Even more surprising, Sara was holding baby Elliot in her arms.

“He looks good on you,” I said. And he really did. The pang of envy came back.

She tore her eyes away from the baby and met my gaze. “I want one.”

“Whoa,” Spence said. “Bit soon, don’t ya think?”

I scoffed. “Says the guy who had a baby with a one-night stand.”

“Ryan Hunter Erikson, you are so lucky I don’t have a spare pillow to throw at you right now,” Reece said.

I shrugged. “It’s true though. Unless you two are suddenly in a relationship I’m unaware of?”

Reece and Spence looked at each other with weird expressions before averting their gaze. Instead of calling them out on it, I inwardly laughed at the thought of them together.

“Besides, you’re forgetting the fact that six hours after Ryan and I met, we were getting matching tattoos. We don’t know the meaning of too soon,” Sara said to Spence.

I turned to Sara. “You really want one?”

She looked at the baby and then back at me. “We could just take this one,” she whispered. “It comes premade and it won’t wreck my hoo-ha.”

“Spence, take the baby back,” Reece said with a laugh. I was surprised to find her joking with Sara.

“Am I missing something here?” I asked. “When did you two become friends?”

Sara and Reece looked at each other with a smile and then back at me. “I’ll tell you another time,” Sara said. “Do you want to hold him?”

“Am I going to break him?” I asked, only half-joking.

Sara came over and placed baby Elliot in my arms and showed me how to hold him and support his head properly.

“I think you’d make an excellent dad,” she said quietly.

“I’m serious,” I said, “If you want one, I’ll take you home right now and get started on making you a whole soccer team of them.”

Her eyes bugged out of her head. “Soccer team? How about two or three?”

“Two or three works for me.”

“You should probably hurry up and put that ring you bought to good use, too.”

The only thing that kept me standing was the fact I was holding a very fragile baby who would break if I fell over. “You know about the ring?”

“Please, I found it like a month ago. I thought you had more balls than to wait that long to propose. Your mother warned me you Erikson boys don’t know how to do slow.” She shook her head and tsked me. “You disappoint me, Ryan.”

I laughed. “Well, I must be a bigger disappointment than you realise because I bought the ring two months ago, so ha … wait …”

She smiled. “I don’t care when or where or how you do it. My answer will always be yes.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too.” She leaned in and kissed me. “Always.”

“Okay, you two, break it up. You’re squishing my baby,” Spence said, coming over to take Elliot off me. “Go make your own baby to squish.”

“Yeah, let’s.”

***

- SARA -

TEN MONTHS LATER

I only made it halfway down the aisle before I knew I couldn’t go through with the ceremony. The distraught look on Ryan’s face as he stood at the altar almost killed me, but there was just no way.

“Paige!” I called out as I turned and ran. She scrambled to get to me, ditching her bridesmaid’s bouquet as she chased after me.

Shocked faces of the last few rows of guests greeted me, along with gasps from those behind me.

“I’m here for you, hon,” Paige said, catching up to me.

“Good, because I swear to God these twins are using my bladder as a squeeze toy. Can you message Ryan or Cole and tell them I had to pee?”

We were getting married at a function centre at the marina. Tall windows overlooked the water Ryan and I swam in almost six years ago on the night we met. The whole place was beautifully decked out in white wedding decorations, and the ceiling was covered in twinkling fairy lights, but clearly, my boys didn’t want their parents to enjoy the moment.

Paige and I had only made it out of the ceremony room when Ryan came through the doors with us.

“Babe, what’s up?”

“Baby Garrett just kicked me in the bladder. I really have to pee.” I was officially doing the toddler dance, hopping from one foot to the other while trying to hold it.

He laughed and visibly relaxed. “Thank God.”

I smirked. “What, you think you were going to get out of this marriage thing? Think again, buddy.”

“You go tell everyone what’s going on, I’ll help Sara to the bathroom,” Paige said.

“I still can’t believe it’s bloody twins,” I said as Paige helped me out of my extremely tight wedding dress and I emptied my bladder for what felt like the millionth time today.

“I still can’t believe Cole thought the pregnancy test was mine,” she said with a laugh.

I giggled at the memory. It was just before she moved in with Cole, but she was always over there anyway, so I knew exactly where to find her. I didn’t want to get Ryan’s hopes up, so I didn’t tell him I was three days late. I wanted to take the test to be sure first, and I needed Paige with me for moral support. Even though Ryan and I were technically trying for a baby, that didn’t mean I wasn’t freaking out that it was actually possibly happening.

Cole came home from work after we’d just read the positive result. When he came into his room and looked into the bathroom and saw us staring at the pregnancy test all wide-eyed and silent, he assumed it was Paige’s test because she was the one holding it after she’d snatched it off me.

“The only thing surprising about that was his reaction. He was so happy, I swear he was about to drop to his knee and propose to you, right next to the toilet.” I laughed.

“I was surprised at how well he took it too. Especially because he was so firm on birth control in the beginning. He’s been super lax about it lately though and keeps saying things like ‘When we have our own kids…’ I’m starting to think that little scare made him realise he actually
wants
it.”

I knew he wanted it. He told me he was hoping Paige would get clucky once I got pregnant.

Paige started helping me back into my dress. “Words of advice, young Paige, don’t order a wedding dress way ahead of time if you’re also trying to get pregnant.” I thought it was going to take longer than a few months to fall pregnant, but nope, fate had other ideas, and clearly, still liked a laugh at my expense.
Twins?

“I’m only a year younger than you, you know, what’s with all the ‘young’ business?”

“After today, I’m going to be someone’s wife, and in four months’ time I’m going to be a mother. Of
two
children. Two
boys
.” It weirded me out when put out there like that. “Do you know what Viv said when we told her it was boys?”

Paige shook her head.

“Nothing. She
laughed
. She said Ryan was going to get his payback for everything Garrett and he put her through. Then she looked me in the eye and said ‘sorry dear,’ but her face told me she didn’t mean it. She lied!”

Paige laughed at my mini freak out.

“I’m serious. These boys will make me go grey. I can already tell.”

After she helped me back into my dress, Paige put her hands on my shoulders. “You’re going to rock this mother gig, and Hunter will be there to help. Let’s focus on the imminent thing you should be freaking out about:  you’re about to marry Calvin.
Calvin.
”

The thought of it still made me giddy inside. I had absolutely no doubts about Ryan. Paige was still scared of commitment, but since she’d been living with Cole, her resolve was weakening. She moved in when Ryan officially moved out. And I wasn’t allowed to tell her, but I knew Cole was planning to propose soon. A real proposal, not a spur of the moment, “oh my God you’re pregnant with my child” proposal like the one that almost happened in his bathroom.

“It won’t be long until you’ll be having a ceremony of your own, you know.” Just because I wasn’t allowed to tell her didn’t mean I wasn’t allowed to drop hints.