SEVEN YEARS LATER
"DADDY!"
Our teething five-year-old jumps out of her nanny's arms and rushes towards me. And I grab her, in classic Daddy style.
Madeline.
That's what we called her the moment we laid eyes on her. When we decided to try for a baby, Kim was in tears, telling me she wanted to try but also telling me she was fucking terrified. I quickly assured her that I wasn't in a hurry to have babies and that I understood her and everything. But she insisted that she wanted to try. So she got off the pill and we gave it a try, and in a couple of months, we were in the bathroom with a peeing stick. Two lines and she gasped, rushing into my arms and clutching at my clothes and crying. And as months went by, she adjusted, and her stress visibly reduced. She moved from being fucking terrified to being excited to meet out baby. And we did, I was with her every step of the way until we met the beautiful girl I'm holding in my arms right now. My second chance, our second chance.
"Daddy, you need to get dressed for mommy's exbet!" She grabs my face and I nod. She's been struggling to pronounce exhibit and I don't correct her, learning is a slow process and she's just five, she'll be fine.
Kimmie is having an exhibit tonight. And I'm excited, she's been drawing for years now and she's finally ready to show the world all her art. And she's been away all day to make sure everything goes great.
"Yes sweetheart, Daddy's going to get dressed now," I grin at her and I kiss her cheek and I carry her to my room.
"Nanny and I went strolling today and some girls were saying you were hot," She says, her eyes observing me. She's a curious kid and she asks a ton of questions. "What does it mean for you to be hot, daddy?" She whispers. "Is it a bad thing?"
Oh boy.
"No honey it's just something grown-ups say," I tell her and she arches her brows in confusion. Yep, I'm screwing this up, Kimmie is definitely better than this. Maddie however, senses my confusion and asks me something else, "When are we going to see grandma again?" She refers to my mom of course. Kim's parents made it perfectly clear that they didn't want anything to do with us, and while Kim put on a brave face, she cried the entire night but then she woke up grateful to have my Mom. Mom and Maddie get along in a pretty great way and it doesn't surprise me whenever Maddie asks about her grandma, she's got the best grandma in the world.
"Grandma is going to spend Christmas here so you'll see her," I say and she grins up at me, playing with my hair.
I set her on the bed and I search my drawers for something casual and I turn to face my partner in crime. "Do you think Daddy will look good in this?" I show her my choice of clothes and she grins at me.
"Yes, Go Daddy!" She yells out, pointing to her slogan t-shirt that says, "IT'S MY MOMMY'S EXHIBIT" while mine says, "IT'S MY WIFE'S EXHIBIT."
Maddie is distracted with my phone so I change my clothes and I lift her in my arms and we head downstairs to our driveway. I place her in the passenger seat and she makes a cartoon voice, "Seatbelts on," she winks at me too. God, my baby girl is definitely going to leave a trail of broken hearts when she's older.
I get into the driver's seat and we drive three blocks to Kimmie's first opening. I'm just so excited for her. I was there when she painted some of them so not all of them would look strange to me but still, I'm knocked out of my breath when I walk in. Holy goodness, it's like I can feel her everywhere, the room surrounded by her art and people looking around and asking questions.
"Maddie!" I hear Junior call and next thing I know Maddie leaves my arms and runs away.
"Maddie!!!" I hear again and those are Sapphire and Jasmine, Nick's twins and of course, Junior's little brother, Holden. The Kids run off, and Brittany winks at me, following behind them with her swollen belly.
"This is fucking incredible," Nick curses, staring at the entire room in awe. I raise a brow at him and he gives me an incredulous stare. "What? The kids are not here so I can swear,"
I laugh at his words and I focus on the paintings again. Every one of them is a part of her that she pours onto a blank canvas. And fuck, people are buying this shit. And so I buy one of them, the one of me sleeping in the late hours of the morning, clutching her pillow to my chest like my life fucking depends on it.
"I knew you'd buy that," I hear her and I turn to see her happy, so fucking happy, with a sheepish grin on her face.
"Look how fucking stunning," I twirl her and she leans into my touch, irrespective of the crowd covering each of the paintings. "I'm keeping this in our bedroom," I tell her and she nods in total agreement.
"I haven't sold it because I wanted you to buy it," more sheepish grins."Where's Maddie?" She asks.
"Playing with her cousins and friends, you know how much she adores Junior and Holden, it's too cute it makes me cry sometimes," I admit and she kisses my cheek Her Personal Assistant arrives, getting the painting and taking it to her office. He winks at us and we both groan, dude will never let us forget the day he walked in on us christening the new office.
"I'm glad I get to achieve all this with you by my side," she whispers, "I'm so damn lucky,"
"No babe, I'm the lucky one, I get to watch you figure everything out, I get to watch you create something fucking beautiful from paintbrushes and blank canvases, I'm the lucky motherfucker," I tell her and her lips curl into a bright smile.
"Mommy!" Maddie yells for us when she comes back to the huge art room and she runs into her mother's grasp. "I'm so proud of you, mommy!" She yells and a few visitors gush at our little girl.
"Awwww honey," Kim kisses our little girl's cheeks and then she notices our matching t-shirts. "You guys are cute, you know that right?" She looks at me and then back to Maddie.
"Go Mommy! Go Mommy!" Maddie yells again and Nick shoots me a knowing smile from across the room.
I carry my little Madeline, kissing her forehead and then I kiss my wife's forehead, grateful for how blessed I am to have them both in my life.
And everything more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N
It's finally over and I'm tearing up!
If you're a new reader my name is Mira Brendan, an eighteen year old student by day and writer by midnight. So Hiiiiiiiii!
*Also I've had people ask questions about where I'm from. I am from Nigeria, somewhere in West Africa. And yes we do not have hockey in my country, just watching ESPN and following the NHL's Instagram and writing about a sport I know absolutely nothing about LMFAO
We've made it this far and I'm so so grateful for everything. from the endless supports to the fan accounts, to the messages I get from some of you guys after a chapter, I feel so so honored and overwhelmed, so thank you, thank you for sticking with me until book three of The Mature Jocks. I'm so so grateful.
If you've been here since I joined this app then you know that ALLT isn't my first book. My first book was actually Her Man, and like I woke up one day to a ton of judgement from a reader and I just took in down in panic. And by took it down, I mean deleted it from my Google drive, and literally anywhere. The book I wrote after that was a dark romance, Delilah. Now while Delilah was meant to be a series, the same thing repeated and I just took it down. But then I'm in my third year on this app and I've learnt that there will always be negative comments, no matter what I do so I've decided to live with it. Now I'm well aware that ALLT was almost cringey and Aaron and Liz were the horniest, but I will never take it down. Like never. Yes I will edit it in the future but like never. I think I'm at the point where I'm learning from the mistakes I made with Laron and channeling all that energy into writing better books. When ALLT got it's first 10K reads, I admit I was spooked. It grew to that in less than a month and I freaked out. Yeah I was super grateful but freaked out nonetheless. Like I honestly didn't see that coming. And then it kept growing and growing and never stopping. Like there is always this new milestone to celebrate. And when we hit 1M, I remember screaming and screaming and I remember the Instagram congratulations, and it felt super good. But then with many reads came "sad" comments. Some that made me bury my head under my pillow and just cry because I wasn't taking the book down, I wasn't going to let anyone use their words to bring me down. So I let it go. I got sick when I started writing AHLT. Like I honestly thought I was going to die haha. But I still pushed myself to write and I regretted it a bit because, while I know you guys loved it, I don't think I did, like I don't go back to reading it haha, like ever.
Writing is a mental process, honestly. So when my relationship ended and my best friend backstabbed me, it was kinda a difficult you know. I felt so worthless? I think. I cried a lot too. So I found it difficult to write about relationships and friendships when I felt like I was missing those in my life. So I learnt to enjoy my own company. I started journaling, like not daily, but just writing out how I feel. I'm happy I had friends on this platform that helped me get through that, and I am so grateful to have all of them in my life.
Also SHOUT OUT TO THE FAN ACCOUNTS ON INSTAGRAM. You girls motivate me, honestly. When it all started it felt surreal, it started with Liz's account and I don't even remember telling her what to do or anything, I just remember feeling like I wasn't noticing her and then I felt nad about and messaged her a couple of times to apologize. And she just told me not to worry, and that she understood and I was like, okay, like wow, like "she's sounds cool?!" And then Brittany's account and then Kim's, and now Jodie(like I'm currently writing and y'all would love this latina!) And now we even have a GC where we like rant and talk and just awesome awesome, I love them Soo much.
And shout out to these guys on Instagram(didn't want to mention your usernames without your permission and all but if you know, you know). Thank you so so much for always messaging me on Instagram after a chapter, and thank you for always keeping me super pumped and motivated.
That being said, I love you guys, my readers, your comments and votes keep me going, reminding me that even though life sucks ass at this point, I have something to do, I have books to write and I'm going to write them until I finish them even if it takes time. It's been an honor to have y'all reading my stuff, like I don't know if you guys noticed that my writing has really really improved and I'm so happy, the smut is now more real and less cringy and my grammar is getting better, a work in progress actually haha.
A Burn Like This is the fourth book in this series and as usual it would be hockey romance with a dash of the Italian Mafia(I will throw more light on this at the intro of the book). So this is me trying out a hockey with a little bit of dark spice and I'm ready for it. I hope you guys are. And Alex isn't being an asshole for no reason, he just has his head in his ass and he is going to figure himself out.
If there's one thing I've learnt this year is that anyone that wouldn't hesitate to make you look bad in front of others or do something that would hurt is not worth it, like ever. Ditch them before they ditch you LMFAO. But yeah, do that, honestly it helps. And hey, if a guy that you like or you're dating treats you like shit and all, try not to feel bad about yourself(a daily struggle) or start questioning who you are as a person(a daily struggle too), because that would only makes things worse for you, your mental health and can also affect those around you, like your family. One of the first things you should do(I mean this with all due respect to whoever), is to take out a pen and book/paper and write down your pet peeves. Trust me the list goes on and on, and that's all I'm saying LOL. But then again sometimes moving on this tough, but do well to remind yourself that if it didn't work out, he/she wasn't for you. And (coming from a stress maniac) try not to stress. I'm the worst at giving advice, but my Instagram (I don't chat on here) account is a safe space for everyone, and don't you forget it!
Little reminder that my characters are not perfect, but flawed, so they are going to make mistakes, but what's important is that they'll learn from them. *winks*
Keep your eyes peeled, A Burn Like This will be coming to you tomorrow!
see you guys soon. love you.