Perfectly Knight (Jordan Knight Fanfic, Liadan #4)

Plates and Pick-Ups

-LIA-

Twenty-Four Years Earlier

I chewed my bottom lip as I stared unseeing at the cursor bouncing on the screen in front of me. For the past two hours I'd been trying hard to craft a personal statement to convince law school admissions teams why I was suited for a career in law, but I was having a major mind block. Although I'd studied hard to get good grades and LSAT scores, put in years of volunteer, internship, and work hours in legal settings, and proven even my most skeptical professors wrong to collect five glowing letters of recommendation, I was honestly starting to doubt whether I should apply to law school.

For the first time in my life, studying wasn't the number one priority in my life—all the time I'd spent in the past reading, writing, and working was now preoccupied with feedings, changings, and playtime for my infant twins. I loved every second of being a mom and I wouldn't trade it for the world, but meeting their needs was a 24/7 job in and of itself and I couldn't imagine how I'd ever find the time to take care of them and go to law school. It just didn't seem feasible and writing a paper that said otherwise just felt wrong.

Still all I'd dreamed of since I was a little girl was becoming a lawyer and building a career of my own and I wasn't so sure that I could or should give up that dream. Therefore, despite my struggles, I was trying my best to come up with a statement to submit before the application deadline which was only a week away.

A sigh escaped my lips and I reached over onto my side table to grab my mug and realized that it'd turned cold. I carefully set my laptop aside on the family room's coffee table and gave Radley a gentle pat on the head before I carried my mug to the kitchen to re-warm the hot chocolate and face the clutter of unwashed bottles, pacifiers, and baby bowls and spoons that I'd left behind.

However, much to my pleasant surprise, instead of finding a slew of dishes, I was greeted by a sparkling clean kitchen and the sight of my husband shaking sprinkles on two chocolate cupcakes.

"Okay, Lia, study time's over!" he called aloud as he set the shaker aside before turning around. An adorable surprised smile filled his face when his pretty eyes locked with mine. "Oh, oops, I thought you were still in the family room working on your paper."

"I decided to take a little break and get more hot chocolate," I set my mug down on the countertop. "Looks like you had a different chocolate-y treat in mind, though. Is today something special?" I frowned as I tried my best to run through all of our important dates in my mind, but nothing seemed to be ringing a bell.

"Kinda," He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close to him.

I nuzzled my head into his chest and breathed in the scent of his cologne, "It isn't an anniversary or a birthday, right?"

"No, it isn't anything like that. I didn't really expect for you to remember."

"Well you remembered so I should've remembered," I sighed. "My head has been everywhere with all these applications. I'm honestly kinda of thinking about just calling it quits."

"You can't do that, baby," he said gently. "You've worked your ass off and all those law schools would be crazy not to accept you. You should stick to it, just don't be so hard on yourself. You can't spend every second that the twins are sleeping working. You need some time to rest and have a little fun too."

"Fun?" I asked and he nodded.

"Mmhm," he stroked my cheek. "Today marks exactly a year since we first moved in together, so I picked up a couple of cupcakes and bought you a present to celebrate." he reached over and fetched a wrapped package off of the kitchen table.