The John Hughes Club

Chapter Sixty Nine - Five Years Later

"And I love you." Brushing his mouth against mine, Chas breaks into an appealing smirk. "Declan wants mummy to now make a sandcastle with him. He said his sister will help you to build a bigger and better one because she's going to be a builder."

Laughing, I look down at my stomach. "Anastasia Summers...a great name for a builder!" I joke, stroking my hand upon the firm curves of my heavily pregnant stomach.

Dropping to his knees, Chas cradles both his hands around our daughter who is only weeks away from coming into our happy little world. "You hear that, princess? You and mummy are about to build a sandy empire."

"That's only if daddy agrees to have an emergency digger on standby, should I beach myself in the sand," I reply, chuckling down at him.

Laughing, Chas stands to bestow me with an amused yet tender kiss to my forehead. "You'll not get beached. Me and little man won't let that happen," he assuringly says, still chuckling as he starts pulling me towards Declan and his waiting buckets and spades.

"Once I'm down, I'm down. No amount of Pilates makes it any easier to get back up," I remind him with a wry little smirk.

Kissing the inside of my wrist, Chas throws a grin over his shoulder at me. "I've got you...I always have."

In every way, he always has. Knowing that, I carefully lower myself onto the sand, watching my husband with our beautiful boy. In awe, I watch them together. Declan is a mini Chas, he really is. Dark haired like his daddy, with brown eyes that shine with charm and intellect, our five year old boy really is an incredible force to be reckoned with.

As I start filling a bucket with our beach of beautiful memories, I stare at the man who was once the boy who made my heart crazily flutter. Staring at him, staring at the wonderful father he has become, instantly brings a smile to my lips. That man, still makes my heart crazily flutter. He still takes my breath away. Filling more of the bucket, the fuller my heart feels. Chas is just as attractive to the woman I now am, as he was to the teenage girl I used to be. His cool quiff is now an edgy and tousled crop, and he's acquired some sexy facial hair over the years, but he's still the breathtaking Chas I fell in love with...he's still the human being that my soul is so very in tune with.

Patting the overfilled bucket, Declan begins to get cutely excited. "Pat it, Mummy! Pat it again!"

To make my adorable boy happy, I tap it over and over to a repetitive little beat. Which of course, makes him happier. Enjoying the purity of his smiling face, I repeat more of the fun tappety-taps, encouraging him to join in, causing him to heart-meltingly giggle.

To think there was once a time when I couldn't bear the thought of him being here, those are the times I don't ever let settle into the crevices of my thoughts. I just can't. No, what matters now, is that our boy is here, enriching our lives in ways we never thought possible. We are here, as a family, on this beach, expecting and excited for the arrival of our second child. Five years have passed, and everything is just as it should be—childhood sweethearts who have hearts so lovingly full of each other, of being married, and of being parents.

Our teenage togetherness, is still the foundations for our togetherness as a family now. It's still very much at the core of who we are today.

Helping me to turn the bucket over, Declan can't contain his effervescent anticipation. "Lift it up then, darling?" I softly coax him, smiling his way.