Dirty Deeds by Stella Rhys
Epilogue
EMMETT
Two Years Later
I haddinner in the oven, Netflix cued up and my wife running late for our Thursday movie night.
“Six-thirty, yes, promise – I gotta go!” Aly exhaled all in one breath when I’d called her to check her ETA. Then without the usual “love you,” she hung up.
Which meant something was up.
That much I knew.
But I wasn’t going to badger her to tell me what it was. As mellow as we were in our married life at home, our lives outside our downtown apartment were hectic –Aly’s in particular. She was in the middle of finalizing her Manhattan location for the restaurant, which was set to be open year-round. She and Evie had been running around all month reliving the madness that was opening a brand new place, so I excused the fact that Aly was an hour-and-a-half late.
Though she did finally pique my concern when she rushed home, a blur of blonde hair and pink cheeks as she kissed me, said hi to Ozzy, then rushed upstairs for a shower.
“Baby. Everything okay?” I asked suspiciously, following her halfway up the stairs.
“No! Just start the movie without me. I’ll be downstairs soon and everything’s fine!” she said, making sure to flash me a bright smile that made me snort in her face.
“You realize you’re giving me no reason to believe you, right?” I called after her as she ran up to the bedroom. But once I heard the sound of her shutting the door, I turned around, exchanged a look with Ozzy and went to play some random show while I waited for her to come downstairs.
But just as I hit play, the screen flickered to black and suddenly, I was staring at YouTube video.
No fucking way.
My heart slammed when my eyes moved across the title of the video emblazoned across the bottom of the screen.
BEST WAYS TO SURPRISE YOUR HUSBAND THAT YOU’RE PREGNANT!
I took half a second to read the words before chucking the remote on the couch and storming for the bedroom.
But before I could get halfway up the stairs, I saw Aly laughing her ass off on the top step, her hands on her belly as she watched me clutch my heart with one hand and the railing with the other.
“Is this real?” I asked breathlessly, wishing I could help the giant grin on my face considering how serious this was. “Aly, you know you can’t mess with me about something like this.”
“I wasn’t messing with you the first time, and I’m not messing with you now,” she giggled, that rosy pink flushing to her cheeks as she watched me come up the stairs. “You’re gonna be more than Fun Uncle in eight months, Emmett Hoult. You’re going to be a daddy.”
“Aly.” There were tears in my eyes as I knelt on the step below her, letting her put my hand on her stomach. And from that touch alone, I saw everything.
I saw the night I’d found her for the second time at that club. I saw the way she looked at me the night Sara gave birth – when she held baby Luna in her arms. I saw all five feet and two inches of her perfection the day of our shoeless beach wedding in the Hamptons.
And I saw the life we had ahead of us – me, Aly and the newest addition to the ever-expanding Hoult family.
It was joy greater than any I’d ever felt before, because in this home, with this woman, I had everything I’d ever wanted. I had the love of my life, the mother of my child and the exception to my every rule. Through thick and thin, we’d been together, and yes, it had definitely taken us awhile to get to this point.
But that wasn’t what mattered.
What mattered was the fact that we were finally here.
The End
