𝙖𝙙𝙤𝙧𝙚 || 𝙡𝙚𝙤𝙣 𝙙𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙡

epilogue

six years later...

LEON

I wandered over to my five-year-old twins, Maude and William and whistled, catching their attention. They came running to me and started yelling 'daddy'.

I hushed them as I kneeled and placed my hand on their arms. "Ok, wanna make a deal?" I whispered and they quickly nodded their heads.

"Let's go wake up mommy for Valentine's Day, ok?" They squealed in response and I widened the smile on my face. Then, they ran upstairs and I followed them into our bedroom.

I glanced at my wife sleeping on our bed peacefully and she looked so beautiful. Without hesitation, they began hopping on the bed and Claudia loudly hummed, widening her eyes.

"Happy Valentine's Day, mommy!" They both said and stopped as they gave her a kiss on the cheek. Claudia sat up and smiled, thanking them.

A successful plan, Maude and William then left the room after giving them a fist bump. I walked over to Claudia and sat beside her, rubbing her baby bump gently, feeling the kicks.

"Hey, baby, happy Valentine's Day," I whispered and kissed her. Claudia smiled and thanked me, placing her warm hand on top of mine. "How's our baby boy?"

"Exciting now that you're here." She laughed tiredly. "How long did I sleep for?" She asked, yawning loudly.

"Twelve hours. You were pretty tired." I responded with a chuckle as she yawned again, stretching around carefully. The baby was kicking a lot and Claudia was in pain.

She hated it when our baby was too excited to see me. She thought she was carrying rocks in her stomach. Claudia stood up and reached in, giving me a kiss before heading off to the washroom.

Claudia is around nine months pregnant with our third child, the doctors said that she might be due in early or mid-March. We've already had our gender reveal at six months pregnant as Claudia and I were impatient to find out the sex of our baby.

Though a lot has happened over the years. After we were engaged in April, six years ago, we got married three months later in Germany, the country I was born and raised in.

The next year, Claudia had found out that she was pregnant, almost a month along. We also purchased our two homes together in Edmonton and Toronto. Then, we had our first babies in October, just seven days before my twenty-eighth birthday.

About two months from now, Claudia and I are about to celebrate our sixth anniversary. It's very exciting and weird at the same time because we were both young when we got married and the fact that we're all growing is just weird to me, for some reason.

Connor and Phoebe got engaged three years ago in Toronto. About two months later, they had their first kid in August and six months after that, they got married.

Every once in a while, we've been so busy lately and we all haven't seen each other in a while. So Connor and Phoebe planned an event for all of us to hang out with our kids together.

The plan happened almost a week ago and we never got to hang out due to Claudia's morning sickness. We had to cancel the event and it sucked.

One more month and we're having our third child. It's almost nearly the end of February and I've been hopping on my feet ever since.

From what Claudia had told me, Connor and Phoebe were on their way coming to our home. They were only thirty-six minutes away and it's been over twenty minutes since they were about to come here.

Maude and William were hyped up as always, as it was nearly three PM. They were excited to find out that Jacob—Connor and Phoebe's son—their best friend as they call it, was coming over today.

They were only two years apart and the fact that Jacob and William got excited when they were going to be another boy member. Maude didn't really care, she told me that as long as she was happy to have another new sibling.

I heard a faint screech from outside and figured that it was them. I left the bedroom and headed downstairs as fast as I could.

"Baby, they're here!" I yelled.

As they parked their car in our driveway, I opened the front door and Jacob came, running to me with a huge smile on his face. I quickly kneeled and hugged him, shuffling his hair.

"Hi, uncle!" He was out of breath.

I chuckled. "Hey, buddy." As I tightened my hold around his small upper body, I stood, picking him up in my arms. Then, Phoebe appeared, smiling. "Hey, Pheebs."

"Hi, Leon." We kissed our cheeks as Connor stood behind her, carrying tons of bags. Phoebe moved out of the way as Connor placed down the bags on the ground.

Then, we hugged and Phoebe took her son in her arms, giving Jacob a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey, man. What's up?" As he patted my back and smiled. I returned the kind gesture. "Hey, where's my sister?" He asked.

Just as soon as I was about to respond, I was interrupted by my wife walking down the stairs, aggressively taking loud steps. Connor and Phoebe didn't look amused and Jacob was startled, bursting into laughter.

"I'm here, I'm here!" She said, her arms wide open for her best friend and her brother to fill out. They each hugged each other and then Phoebe caressed Claudia's huge belly, throwing some tears.

Connor didn't even want to hug his sister because he was afraid he was going to squish the baby. And every day I'm thinking how in this world Connor became a father.

Claudia begged to hug Connor but refused to until he did. He pulled away mid-hugging and gently caressed her belly. I laughed at the two and glanced over to my kids and Jacob playing on the ground with toys.

Claudia and I stood beside each other with my arm around her waist, facing the other couple in front of us. They also stood together and we walked inside our kitchen.

"I can't believe you're nine months already! You're getting big!" Phoebe squealed, clapping her hands in excitement and Claudia grinned.

"I really am getting big. Hope we're not getting another set of twins," Claudia joked, playfully rolling her eyes. We all laughed and agreed.

"Have you guys decided on the name yet?" Connor asked and I quickly looked over at my wife for approval.

"Um, not right now. But we're thinking of a few actually. I guess we wanna make sure that we have the best name." I answered.

"Oh my god," Claudia exclaimed. I looked back at her and saw that she was in shock. I quickly panicked and reached over to her, hearing a loud spill on the floor. "My water broke." She said under her breath.

My eyes quickly widened and Connor suddenly freaked out. Phoebe came running over to Claudia, helping her out from behind.

"Claudia, are you ok?" I asked and she nodded, taking deep breaths and exhaling repeatedly. "Oh my god, I can't believe this is happening." I exhaled loudly.

Over the past thirty-five minutes, we all drove to the nearest hospital we found and then found a room. Maude and William stayed with Connor and Phoebe in the seating area.

About two hours and a half, through ups and downs, the tough contractions and squeezing my hand tightly, Claudia gave birth to our baby boy at six-thirty four PM on Valentine's Day.

We were blessed to have another human with us today. Claudia was able to sleep for a few minutes after, having a good one after nine long months.

Then, Maude and William met their new brother. Connor, Phoebe and Jacob came along. They were so gentle and sweet. They were afraid that they were going to wake up the baby.

This whole tough journey was so hard to go through and seeing my wife in pain all the time sucks. But at least, till this day, our baby boy was our best Valentine's Day gift ever.