Spotlight: BONUS EPILOGUE

“Fucking finally. Where have you been?” Brogan asks, enveloping me in a big hug. He moves to Olivia next, careful not to squash the baby in her arms as he embraces her. He then drops a kiss to baby Sloane’s head. Archer is right behind him, and we go through the hugs and baby kisses a second time.

“I wanted to show the girls around the town a bit,” I say as we all step back.

“We went to the high school,” Hazel pipes in, leaning up on her toes to get closer to her uncles. She’s three and a half with strawberry blonde hair and her momma’s big blue eyes. Tall for her age, hates peas, but loves everything else. Seriously, everything. She’s the chillest kid. Happy to be doing whatever anyone else is doing. She’s so full of life and wonder that it’s hard not to smile around her.

Greer holds Hazel’s hand. She’s the best big sister. Protective, patient, and sometimes full of mischief.

“Did you know that when you’re in high school you don’t get recess?” Greer asks her.

Hazel gasps even though she doesn’t really know what recess is yet. She’s a good, captive audience for Greer. She thinks her big sister is the smartest, funniest person in the world.

“It is a real travesty.” Brogan leans down and swoops Hazel into his arms while he winks at Greer and asks her, “When did you get so smart?”

“I’m eleven and a half now, Uncle Brogan,” she says with all the seriousness of a girl who thinks she’s mature far beyond her years.

Brogan chuckles softly, then looks to me and Olivia. “I’m stealing H-bomb here. I need a partner in the nerf war.”

“Have fun,” Olivia calls after them.

I smile, watching him carry her away. When I glance at Greer, she and Archer are signing back and forth. She’s gotten so good at signing with him that I can barely keep up. She still wants to be a baseball player and a princess, but now she’s added interpreter to the list as well.

Archer asks her, tipping his head in the direction that Brogan and Hazel went.

“Definitely.”

They’ve barely made it across the yard when Sabrina appears.

“Give me.” She motions with both hands to baby Sloane. My newest girl. She’s six weeks old today.

Once I decided I was staying in Lake City, everything else became crystal clear. Marriage and babies, all of it. I didn’t want to wait. Neither did Olivia. My girls are my whole world.

“So bossy,” Olivia carefully holds out our little girl to her best friend.

Sabrina cradles Sloane in one arm with the biggest smile on her face. “Her hair is even redder than the last time I saw her.”

It’s true. Where Hazel is a mixture of me and Olivia, Sloane takes more after me. Her hair is redder than mine, eyes just as dark. Hendrick says she looks a lot like our mom.

“You are just the cutest thing,” Sabrina coos and talks to Sloane, ignoring us. I’ve noticed people do that a lot, but it’s hard to blame them. My girls are dang cute.

London rushes to her side. She offers Olivia and me the briefest smile before focusing her attention on Sloane.

“It’s like we aren’t even here,” I say to my wife, but it’s impossible to sound anything other than happy. In fact, I’ve never been happier. Every day, every milestone gets better and better.

Looking up from the pitcher’s mound and seeing my girls cheering me on, walking through the door after a long road trip, lazy Sunday mornings, and everything in between.

I lace my fingers through Olivia’s as I scan the backyard. The whole family is at Knox’s house to celebrate his son’s birthday. Chase is this cute and fun combination of his parents. He has Avery’s blonde hair and blue eyes, but everything else is Knox. His smile, his mannerisms, his love of dirt bikes. Although lately he’s been showing a lot of interest in football, which has Archer and Brogan ecstatic and both me and Knox slightly offended. I’m sure I’ll convince my nephew to take up baseball at some point.

Hendrick and Jane are in the pool with their daughter, Rosie. She turned four last week and is the spitting image of Jane. She’s softspoken and timid, but she has the sweetest smile and loves to swim. She started swimming lessons as a baby, and ever since, it’s all she wants to do. The stuff she can do in a pool is incredible. I think we have a future Olympic swimmer on our hands.

A pregnant Avery is corralling Chase and his friends to one side of the yard as they shoot each other with nerf guns. Brogan and Hazel run to join in with Archer and Greer right behind them. Brogan uses Hazel as a shield while he grabs his gun. I hear her squeal from across the yard until he hands her a nerf gun too.

It’s been a wild few years with more exciting things to come. Archer and Sabrina are in the process of adopting twin three-month-old boys. One is deaf just like Archer. Greer cannot wait to teach them sign language.

Brogan and London’s son, Cooper, is two. He’s shy and has bright blond hair, but when he laughs, he sounds just like his dad. I look for him now, not surprised at all to see him running next to Chase. Those two have a special bond, despite their age difference.

And perhaps the biggest change…

Knox is at the grill with our dad. They’re talking and smiling. It’s still a strange sight to see them together, but a welcome one.

It wasn’t quick or easy, but once Dad started making an effort to show up for my brothers, they slowly opened themselves up to having a relationship with him. Archer first, then Hendrick. It was when Chase was born that Knox finally came around. Don’t tell Knox, but the whole parent thing has made him a big, ole softie. He’s always had the biggest heart, but now he wears it more openly.

And to his credit, our dad has been a good grandpa. All the grandkids love him, and he makes them a priority—showing up for every softball game, dirt bike race, swim meet, birthday, or whatever else they have going on. They keep him busy.

I know my brothers wonder what it would have been like if he’d been around like that for us. I do sometimes too, the same way I wonder what it’d be like if our mom was still here. I like to think she’d be happy with how we all turned out.

Hendrick has followed in her footsteps, revitalizing the bar she loved so much and naming his daughter after her.

Knox has her big heart and natural caretaking side. Her fiery side too.

Archer has that same quiet but perceptive way about him that Mom had. And he’s carried on her love of 80s rock music.

Brogan may not have been her son by blood, but no one made her smile like he did. He loved making her laugh, and when he cracks a joke or does something silly, I think about how she’d love that he still does that for all of us.

As for me, I don’t remember her as well as I wish I did, but I see her every day in my brothers. I know she was a great mom because she’s a part of all of them. So in some ways, it’s like she’s still here.

“Hey, Hotshot.” Olivia wraps her arms around my neck.

“Yeah, gorgeous?”

Her blonde hair is shorter now (less for Sloane to grab a hold of), but she still has those big, blue eyes that cut right through me. “It’s the first time we’ve been kid-free in six weeks.”

“Well, shit, maybe we should ditch the party.” I lean down and press my lips to hers. Warmth and happiness spread through me. Kissing her never gets old.

“Dad!” Hazel yells from across the yard. That never gets old either.

I look over in time to see Hazel sprinting with a nerf gun raised over head and firing bullets every which direction.

“I think your daughter needs back up,” Olivia comments.

“Raincheck on…” I give her body a very thorough once-over.

She laughs. “Definitely.”

I take a step back. Olivia grabs my hand and pulls me back to her. She pushes onto her toes and presses her body against mine. She kisses me like the yard isn’t filled with our family.

My arms circle her waist, and I draw her closer. Someone cat calls and Chase and his friends yell, “Grooooss!”

Olivia drops from her toes and smiles up at me.

“What was that for?” I ask.

“No reason. I’m just…” She gets a dreamy look on her face like she can’t quite put the feeling to words. “I feel so…”

“Yeah, me too,” I say with a small laugh. I kiss her one more time before Hazel yells for me again.

As I’m running across the yard, the word finally comes to me. Lucky.

How lucky are we?