SIX YEARS LATER
I brushed a spider web out of my hair before shining my flashlight around the dark elevated storage space in front of me. The old creaky ladder I was precariously standing on groaned in protest as I leaned forward to push one of the many cardboard boxes aside.
Twenty eight years old and dark musty areas still gave me the chills. Granted ten o' clock at night probably wasn't the best time for this, but free daylight hours were short and rare.
I was in the third year out of my surgical residency and the permanent bags under my eyes were a clear sign of how it was going. I loved my work, I did, and I loved the people I worked with, but it was all so draining. Even if I wasn't working the night shift I still rarely got home before seven or eight. That was when the rest of my life began.
I had finally spotted the box I was looking for when I heard my name being called from upstairs.
"I'm coming Marcus, just give me one second. I'll be right up" I called up as I carefully stepped down from the old ladder.
We'd been living in this house for almost two years and still had yet to unpack all of our things. The essentials were obviously unpacked and carefully organized, this was partially my house we were talking about after all.
It was all the nonessentials that had yet to emerge from the copious number of cardboard boxes shoved haphazardly into the basement crawlspace. Photo albums, scrapbooks, souvenirs from our rare vacations when I was lucky enough to steal myself away from the hospital. The things that would finally make this feel like home, those were what I was looking for.
We both knew that my job forced me to spend as much time at the hospital as I did at home, but I was lucky to have found a guy that understood and helped me balance my career and home life.
"Marcus what's wrong?" I asked when I climbed up the steps, walked down the hallway, and through a doorway and saw him standing there just staring at me. It was one of those moments that hit me and had me wondering how it was possible to love someone so much.
A part of me ached seeing the unhappiness on his face. Loving someone that much meant that their happiness and pain were linked to yours.
The worry lines returned to my forehead again, as they did with more and more frequency lately.
I began to spin my wedding ring around my finger, a nervous habit I'd had since the wedding three years ago.
I pulled Marcus into a hug and waited for him to tell me what had him in such a state.
"I miss Daddy" Marcus cried as he wrapped his arms around my neck, being sure not to drop his blanket in the process. The railing that lined his crib stood in between us.
"Buddy it's way past your bedtime. I told you, Daddy won't be back from his business trip until very late. He'll be here to see you in the morning I promise" I unwrapped my little one year old son's hands from around my neck and laid him back down in his crib. I grabbed the baby monitor I had forgotten earlier, thankful that I had heard his cry from all the way down in the basement.
"Night Momma" he mumbled around his pacifier as his eyes drifted shut.
"Night buddy" I carefully closed his door and returned to the musty crawl space in the basement.
When I finally found the box I was looking for, I took it up to our small family room. I sat on the floor with my legs tucked under me and a glass of wine on the table next to me before opening the box.
I felt a hand shaking my shoulder a few hours later. Startled, I jolted to a sitting position, hand clutching my chest.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you" he chuckled at my appearance. Hair everywhere, I must have fallen asleep in the middle of sorting through the box because there was a picture stuck to my face.
He brushed back my hair and pulled the picture off my face before looking at it.
"This was a good day" he handed the picture to me before wrapping me in a hug. I held on for a while, just savoring the moment. He placed a light kiss on my forehead before pulling back and looking down at me.
"You're right this was a good day, one of my favorites actually" I smiled down at the picture. It wasn't our wedding picture, a honeymoon picture, or even a moment when we were a couple. In fact that picture was taken about five minutes before we became a couple.
That little square of a memory was worn around the edges and had clearly been held and passed around often. It was a well-loved picture, well-loved by the two of us.
I looked down at the two teenagers with smiles splitting their faces, his arm around her as they each used one hand to support the trophy.
Ten years ago a boy and a girl won the championship game of a Coed Summer Volleyball League and the rest is history.
A misunderstanding drove them apart, a friend's wedding brought them back together, permanently.
"Jake I think we should frame this one"
"And these two" Jake pulled two more pictures out of the box.
The first one was a picture Paige's mom took at her daughter's wedding. Jake and I were in the middle of a slow dance when I must have looked off toward something on the other side of the room. Jake on the other hand was watching me with the biggest smile on his face.
The second photo was of a four month old Marcus sitting in his high chair with peas all over his face and his bald little head. Jake and I were standing behind him, two clearly exhausted parents, laughing at the situation despite the mess. The three of us were happy in that picture, and were still happy despite our crazy busy lives.
"I'll dig up some frames tomorrow night and we can hang them in the hallway between our room and the nursery" I suggested as I yawned.
"I told you not to wait up. It's almost two am and your shift starts early tomorrow" Jake pulled me over onto the couch next to him.
"You were gone for four days, I wanted to see you. Tell me all about your trip" I rested my head on his shoulder.
"It was way too long. We're hiring someone to do all the traveling and marketing for the company now, so I can just focus on the engineering side of it all, and more importantly I can do it all at the office. Less traveling means more time with my girl and our little boy" Jake laid his head on top of mine, our feet resting on the coffee table where the three pictures now sat.
"If someone had told you that day that ten years later we'd be sitting right here, married with a son, would you have believed them?" I looked up at him as my eyelids threatened to close from exhaustion.
"Absolutely. I knew you were the one the day you told off those two idiots we played at the beginning of that summer. I remember thinking to myself 'this girl is a force to be reckoned with, and if the apocalypse ever comes I want her on my side,'" I stuck my tongue out at him as his chest shook with laughter, "I'm kidding, but seriously you had me hooked from the beginning, I just had to give you time to come around to the idea on your own" he placed another kiss on the top of my head.
"It's crazy to think it's been ten years since we met. I hate to think how much time we wasted hating each other during college" I groaned at the thought of how dumb and stubborn we were back then.
"Our stupidity back then doesn't matter. The three of us have the rest of our lives together" Jake pulled me closer to him.
"The four of us" I rested my hand on my stomach before looking up at the shocked look on his face.
"You're... we're..." he gaped.
"Yes we're pregnant again. I'm only a few weeks along, but Marcus is going to have a little brother or sister" I kissed him as he still looked shocked.
He scooped me up off the coach and spun me around in a circle, the biggest smile on his face.
People may say we were crazy. Having another child when our first was only one and a half, when I was working crazy hours as a new doctor, and when Jake was trying to grow a new company. People may say we were biting off more than we could chew, but then again people also said we were an unlikely duo. We proved them wrong once, and we would prove them wrong again.
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Sorry this took so long, but I wanted it to be perfect and I wanted enough of my next book written before I posted!
Thank you so much for all your support throughout Unlikely Duo and Pushing Forward!
I can't believe it's actually over, but I am very excited about my next book, The Consequences of Hell Week (Blue Ridge), and I hope you all read it! If you liked reading about strong minded Kayla Ryans and the guys that tilt her world on its axis then you'll love this! Thanks guys!
The Consequences of Hell Week (Blue Ridge)
"Let's be clear. This isn't a fairytale, I am no princess, and I am definitely not your princess" and with that I retrieved my heels and walked away without even a glance back at the boy standing there watching me leave. -- Chapter 8
***
Sienna Clarkson has a very unconventional life for your average eighteen year old. A strong willed, independent girl juggling family feuds, injuries, and her imminent future, the last thing she needs is some guy she just met messing with her head and her emotions.
Can she sort through the mess that's become her life without hurting the people around her?
To top it all off, Hell Week has just begun.
https://www.wattpad.com/story/55312105-blue-ridge