I stared at the waves crashing against the sand and looked up to see Michael towering above me.
"Come on," he said holding out his hand to help me up, "we'll be late for family night."
I nodded and placed my free hand on my back to support my large belly.
"Cat!" I called out, "Let's go!"
While I brushed the sand off of my butt, Michael shook out and folded the blanket we had just been sitting on.
"Can you believe she's going to be ten tomorrow?" I asked with nostalgia, "She's growing up too fast."
He smiled and glanced over at Cat who was walking up to us with her hands full of shells.
"Time flys doesn't it," he commented, "Just wait till our daughter is born."
"God, don't remind me. I'm nervous as it is," I groaned, looking down at my bump.
"You're going to do great," he said confidently.
"What do you think the bigs news Ale and Luke want to share is?" I asked as we climbed the sand up to the parking lot.
"I dunno, maybe they're gonna have a kid? They're already married, so it's not that."
"Yeah, I guess we will have to wait and see...Ugh, I'm starving. I hope my mom made lasagna."
He chuckled and slipped his hand into mine, pulling me along.
"I think I'm going to have to stop wearing my rings," I said, glancing down at my wedding rings on my puffy finger, "My fingers are getting too chubby."
He chuckled and nodded, "We'll have to get you a temporary one. I don't want my pregnant wife walking around without a ring on her finger."
"Okay, but it doesn't have to be diamond," I said, looking up at his face.
It was still strange not to see a piece of metal above his eye. He had removed the eyebrow piercing a few weeks back because he said he wanted it to close up before the baby was born. He was afraid she would rip it out and felt like he was getting too old to have a facial piercing. I reminded him that he wasn't thirty yet, but he smirked and said "Don't worry, I'm still keeping the ones in my ears. I know you think it's sexy."
***
It'd only been four years, but they really were the best years of my life so far.
I remember talking to my mom about how she knew that my dad was the one, and she said 'when you know you'll know'. I thought that was infuriating because I wanted a concrete way of determining, but as Michael and I's relationship progressed that first winter together the feeling suddenly arose. I just knew. I couldn't explain it. Of course, there was a long list of reasons why I wanted to marry him, but the feeling that I got in my gut that he was the man I wanted to and was meant to spend the rest of my life with became stronger and stronger every day. Michael had proposed on Thanksgiving the year after we got back together. We got married six months later in late spring. I didn't care that it was a short engagement, I wanted the whole nine yards I would get to experience by living together: morning routines, bickering over stupid shit like when he accidentally shrunk all my bras by putting them in the dryer, and making dinner together every night. It was the most beautiful day of my life walking up to him at the alter and hearing his vows he wrote to me. Luke, Ash, and Cal were Michael's groomsmen. While Lucia, Siena, and Cat were my bridesmaids.
I don't think I'll ever forgive his parents for how they treated him, especially after he made so many attempts to make amends. It was disappointing that his mom refused to come to the wedding. After that day I met his parents, they stopped answering his calls or even communicating at all. It wasn't for Michael's lack of trying, which I honestly didn't understand why he was so adamant about building a relationship with both of them. It was definitely a heated topic that we avoided after our first big fight about it. Instead, Mr. Hood came with his wife, which honestly felt more like his parents than anyone else.
We spent our honeymoon in Australia, ticking one of my bucket list items off, despite Mikey insisting that it would be much nicer to visit during a different time of year. Michael was determined to learn Italian so that he could communicate with my family and with our future children. Despite his awkward pronunciation, he was actually pretty good at stringing cohesive sentences together when we finally visited Italy together that summer.
We purchased our first home last winter before I got pregnant. His coffee shop was thriving and he was still enjoying offering music lessons in the basement. I was still working at Oscuro Ink managing the marketing and social media. Ashton had finally moved down to SD when the right job opportunity came up and he and Cal would join our family nights at my parents' house often. I could tell how happy it made Michael to have his best friends living so closely again. When we decided to start trying for a baby we didn't think that I would get pregnant so quickly. It was nervewracking waiting for the three minutes for the results to load on the test, but as soon as it read 'pregnant' Mikey starting jumping with joy. Once the shock wore off, and I made it out of the first trimester, the reality sunk in that we were bringing a human being into this world. I was excited, I mean it was on my bucket list to have kids, but I was petrified of actually giving birth. I kept joking with him that he was going to birth the next one or else we were going to adopt.
Our marriage hadn't been perfect, we had our days where we annoyed each other or argued over stupid shit, but we always made up quickly. It made me melt every time I caught him observing me. He looked at me in the same way he had when we first started dating. I felt it in my bones that this was going to last, just like my parents' marriage. I was just as excited about being his and getting to call him mine as I was when he first asked me to be his girlfriend and I never, ever wanted to leave him again.