An Unexpected Love

Epilogue: Yea, I will

JAKE'S POV~
"Papa! Papa!" Yells a small voice. I shift  from my sleep and roll over, only to bet met with bright bubbly green eyes. I sit up and stretch my muscles. The little child jumps onto my lap bounced happily singing.

      "It's Christmas! It's Christmas! Wake up sleepy heads!" Screamed Torali. I laughed as Tex groans beside me and turns around. Tori crawls over to Tex's side of the bed and jumps onto him. I burst into hysterics, I couldn't contain the laughter. Tex turns onto his side and is smothered with kisses by Torali.

      "Ok Tori. You can stop now." Tex giggles and she giggles with him. Suddenly the door opens and another small child stands in the doorway. He comes up to me and quietly crawls into my lap.

      "Happy Christmas too." Says the little boy as he moves to go hug Tex. Tex hugs him back and finally sits up.

      "Merry Christmas to you too, Tobias." Tex says as he gets up to get dressed. I tell Tori to go help her brother get dressed so we can go. We're going to Angela's house for Christmas this year. Last year we couldn't because it was the first Christmas with our family together.

We adopted children after college. Tex majored in biology and I in architecture. We worked our butts off through college to get enough money for an apartment. After that we started our life together, just us. Though I thought things were going perfect, I got subtle hints from Tex that he wanted more than 'just us'. He would leave tabs of baby names open on the computer or gawk a toddler clothes in stores. I knew what he wanted but I didn't know how to help. That was, until I found an adoption center two whole towns away.

I drove Tex down there last year to check it out but I never knew we were getting a child that day, let alone two. We were attracted to Tobias and Torali the moment we met them. It was an almost magical feeling to see their faces light up when we told them they were ours. Tex cried the whole ride home as the kids asked him if he was alright. They even have our looks mixed together like they were really our children, not someone else's.

I stop my reminiscing and get the car ready for the trip. Tobias has his car seat as well as Tori. I buckle them up and wait for Tex to get out of the house. He comes out looking gorgeous, like he always does. His hair is still as bouncy and beautiful as ever. His eyes shine in the light as he smiles and nudges me.

      "If you keep staring like that you'll hurt your eyes." He says sassily. I smirk and hug him to my chest. We pull away only to come back together for short chaste kiss. We pull away this time for good but we hear the kids whining behind us.

        "Ewww! So sappy!" Cries out Torali. We just snicker to each other and attack her with small kisses. She squeals and tries to push us away. Suddenly we hear a small sniffle and look to see a teary eyed Tobias.

      "Tobias wants kisses too." He says quietly as he sniffles again. Tex nearly burst into tears as he ran to the other side of the car to kiss and hug Tobias. He giggles softly and finally stops his sniffling. When we were all ready, we drove all the way to Angela's house.

We arrived pretty early to say the least. It was just about 6:00 am when we rung Angela's doorbell. We heard little footsteps as the door swung open. There stood Angela's son, Jackson. He smiled at us brightly and dragged us into the house. Torali and Tobias were practically jumping up and down; they were so excited.

      "Jacky! Where's auntie Angie!" Tori yelled, excited. Jackson beamed and grabbed Torali's hand to take her upstairs. We smiled at each other and watched them run upstairs. Tobias ran from behind us and after them.

"Tobias wants to go too!" He shouted as he chased after them. Tex and I took a seat on the couch and waited for Angela and Shane to come down. We heard groaning, laughter, and shuffling come from upstairs. The stairs creaked as people came down.

Angela yawned as she made her way down the stairs with Shane right behind her. They both came to us with sleepy smiles and sat on the couch next to us. Angela kissed Shane good morning and hugged. I smiled and looked at Tex to do the same. When Angela turns to me and her smile disappears causing me to give her a look.

      "How dare you sick your children on me at 6 o'clock in the morning! I was having a really good dream!" She she growls at me angrily. I just smile and Tex giggles tiredly as he rests his head on my shoulder. Shane slowly makes his way next to Angela and rests his head onto her shoulder. We all looked worn out but the kids were just full of energy. They were practically bouncing of the walls begging to open presents.

      "Come on! Hurry up and open the presents we got you!" Shouted Jackson happily. We carefully took the presents from their little hands and opened them up. Jackson gave us all these little clay pots with our names inscribed inside them. Next was Torali and she all handed us some of the most beautiful flower crowns I've ever seen. They were covered in purple and red flowers. Finally it was Tobias' turn and he quietly reached into his Super Why backpack and pulled out a picture.

"It's a picture of our family." Tobi said quietly. The stick figures were drawn with each one of our features, from my dark hair to Tex's green eyes. He got as much detail as s stick figure could hold. I took hold of the drawing and nearly teared up, it was beautiful. Everyone soon opened their presents until it came to me giving mine to Tex. I had a feeling I had the best gift here.

"So are you gonna give me your gift or did you forget." Tex said with a smirk. I snickered slightly at his mistake and shifted off the couch onto one knee. Tex looked at me confusingly then gasped out loud. I pulled out a red velvet box from behind my back and smiled brightly.

"I've said this so many times ,even today, and I'll say them again, I love you Tex. I've loved you for so many years now, it's like second nature. I've been wanting you from afar in high school then when I finally had you I was finally happy. I was never really happy with my life at home it was plain and almost colorless with the same routine going on. You brightened my world added new colors, new feelings, even new love. I can't possibly ask for anything else in this world but you so I want to ask this as calm as possible without crying. Will you Tex Collins please marry me and stay with me and the kids forever?" I asked letting a couple tears slip through. Tex sat there for a good minute just looking at me with the crazed smile on his face.

"Yea, I will."