Keeping You

Epilogue

Juliet

Six Years Later

"Evie, can you say da-da? Da-da." Toby repeated slower as if the babbling three-month-old understood what he said. "Da-da." He enunciated it and Evie just stared at him with a toothless grin her drool dripping down her chin.

"Babe, she's three months," I reminded him patting his back as I tried not to laugh. I went outside to the backyard where our two sons were playing basketball. "Matthew, Colin, come eat!" I shouted.

I kept the door open and walked up the stairs to the study where Caleb was working. I knocked on the door and walked inside. He was on the phone, his reading glasses on, as he talked business on the other line.

Even after all these years, my men were just as handsome if not more. Toby and Caleb have not aged either while I swear I looked like a grandma.

Something they tease me about whenever I complain that I was a hot grandma since I bagged both of them. These past years have tested our relationship, our love, and our strength.

There were hard days, up and down days, and days that forced us to remember why we were in a relationship in the first place. It was life, something normal, and thankfully it wasn't hard to remember why I fell in love with them.

Their kindness, the sweet way they hold me, and how they make me feel safe, loved and desired. He finished up the phone call and I waited patiently at the door.

"Dinner's ready," I said, and he took off his glasses, shut his laptop off, and got up. He reached me and kissed my cheek. 

"Let me wash up and come downstairs." He said.

"All right, don't take too long."

"I won't, baby."

I went back down the stairs to see little Evie in Toby's lab while our boys were sitting across from him, waiting impatiently.

"Did you two wash your hands?" I asked, eyeing them suspiciously.

They shared a look, and I could see Matthew biting his tongue. Our polite and shy little boy. Matthew was all Caleb. The moles decorating his chest and face, those warm eyes, wavy light brown hair, and a smile that made my heart melt.

Matthew was a kind and sensitive soul, but if he were to get angry he'd scream and throw things until either one of us was able to speak to him and calm him down. Colin was all Toby and I mean that in every way.

Rebellious, loud, big blue eyes that could charm me into giving him an extra cookie and curly brown-black hair. He was a handful sometimes while other times he made my cry with how sweet he was or when he told me he loved me. It was a balance.

Colin was six and Matthew was five, and I would have had Evangeline right away, but my mental health needed a break after the back-to-back pregnancies and thirty-hour labors.

Evangeline was three months old, my pretty girl, and she was somehow a combo of all three of us. Very spoiled, giggles at everything, sweet, and our beautiful angel.

With her chubby cheeks and big honey eyes that changed sometimes between hazel, to brown, to light brown. Our Evangeline was by far the most beautiful girl we've ever seen, but then again we were all biased.

"Mommy," Colin whined, and I crossed my arms over my chest.

"Colin. Wash your hands." Toby said strictly, and Colin got up with a huff. "Matthew, did you wash your hands?"

He nodded his head slowly. "Yes, daddy. I did."

"This boy is going to be the death of me. Your poor mother really had to deal with your temperamental ass at six years old, huh?" I mumbled to Toby.