Helen.
“Are you broken?” She tried to hold back her laugh, but Luciana was egging her on, snorting out little giggles, so it was no good. Helen burst out laughing again. “How can a person be so incredibly athletic and have no sense of balance?”
I threw my arms out. “Baby, I think I’m done trying to be a skater for you. It’s hopeless.”
She tucked herself against me, petting my chest. “I think you’re right. I don’t want you broken. You’ll be no good to me then. I need you at full power.”
“Gross.” Luciana covered her ears and started humming at top volume. “I can’t hear you. I’m going inside to barf.”
She ran up our long driveway and into the house we’d bought and moved into a year ago, slamming the door on us. Helen and I weren’t her parents, but we were close enough to that role that when we kissed, we grossed her out and she always left the room. At this point, we sometimes did it to drive her crazy. Other times, because we couldn’t help ourselves.
The truth was, Luc was seventeen and still as sweet as she was when I met her at twelve. I was pretty proud to say the worst part of her life was having to witness her sister and brother-in-law kissing every once in a while.
I picked up my skateboard and touched my lips to Helen’s forehead. “Are you disappointed I’m putting this thing into retirement?”
“Nope.” We started up the drive, our arms around each other. “Truthfully, I’d be jealous of you skating while I’m sitting on the bench for the next few months.”
I patted her side and the swell of her belly. “You’ll be the one teaching her to skate. You and Luc. I’ll teach her to ride a bike.”
She gently elbowed my ribs. “You can ride a bike? You don’t fall?”
Tossing the skateboard into the garage, I rounded on my wife and took her in my arms, nuzzling her neck until she was giggling. That’s right. I made Helen Ortega fucking giggle. I did it on the regular too. We’d built the kind of life together that made it easy to relax, breathe, and enjoy every second.
“I seem to remember balancing you on my face last night and no one fell.”
She cupped my jaw and brought my mouth down to hers, giving me a long, slow kiss, her tongue sliding and mingling with mine. Her little belly, round with our daughter, pressed into me. It was a new feeling, but Christ, it was so sexy and sweet at the same time, I found myself constantly taking her into my arms so I could have more of it.
“That was me doing the balancing, Theodore,” she murmured. “Don’t try to take credit for that. I’ve got a baby on board and I managed to take a ride.”
“Really, baby? Trash talk after all the times I made you come?”
She melted into me, head on my shoulder. “Fine. You’re very good at a lot of things, you’re just terrible at skateboarding.”
I ran my nose along her crown and grinned to myself. “I’ll take it.”
After a minute or two, we walked around the side of the house to the back patio, collapsing onto one of our double loungers beside our pool.
Helen and I had gotten married when I graduated from Savage U, but it only took me a year after our showdown with Andrew to get her to agree to wear my ring. Gabe had been pissed Helen and I were engaged before he’d locked down Penelope, but he made it happen, then eventually forgave me and stood beside me as my best man at my wedding.
Helen graduated from Savage U a year early, just like she had planned, got a job as a nurse, and entered her master's program. Now, she worked as a labor and delivery nurse and she absolutely loved it. I didn't know a lot of people who were eager to go to work, but Helen was one of them. The hours were long, and she was on her feet sometimes her whole shift, but there was never a time she dragged ass out the door.
She didn't have to work. Honestly, neither of us did. Madeline McGarvey had left Helen a lot of money. Hells called it “fuck-you money.” In other words, my baby was a millionaire. But she didn’t take having that kind of change for granted. For her, it was room to breathe, and it had made it easy for us to take permanent custody of Luciana as soon as Hells had the money in the bank.
Helen wove her legs with mine and rested her hand on my stomach, sighing. “Tell me again what we have to do.”
I covered her hand with mine, moving her wedding band back and forth with my thumb. “You know what we have to do. You made the list.”
“I know, but I need you to tell me out loud so I’m not overwhelmed by all the words in my notes app. If you tell me in your lovely voice, it won’t sound like so damn much work.”
“Baby,” I chuckled, “remember volunteering our backyard for Asher and Bex’s wedding shower? That was all you. If it’s too much, we’ll figure—”
She covered my mouth with her hand. “Don’t you dare. It’s not too much. It’s the perfectly right amount. We bought this house to hold parties, so we’re going to hold parties, dammit.”
I laughed behind her hand, then I licked it. She snatched it back and tried to snarl, but I kissed it off her.
“We have had parties, and we’ll have more parties, but this one—”
“Shut it, Theodore.” She knocked her head against my shoulder and gave me one of my favorite red-lipped smiles. “I still have four more months of this pregnancy. You can’t treat me like an invalid.”
“But, baby,” bending forward, I lifted her shirt to kiss her belly, “you’re a hot invalid.”
She shoved my forehead. “Stop it and help me plan this party.”
“I thought Grace was planning it.”
“She is, obviously, but it’s at our house, so I have to do things. Plus, you know, she’s busy with Bash and the baby.”
For the first two years of our marriage and a year before that, we’d lived in a rental house halfway between campus and Luciana’s school. We’d been hunting for something perfect, something comfortable, private, roomy, but not a mansion. When we found this place, we knew. It was the first big purchase Helen made with her inheritance—and it’d been a-fucking-lot—but we were both pretty certain we’d be living in this house forever.
Our backyard was what had sold me on the place. It was like an oasis away from everything, with a covered patio, pool with attached hot tub, and a wide, but not overly big, expanse of grass, all surrounded by trees to give us privacy. I wasn’t any kind of landscaper or anything, but I liked to be outdoors, and within a couple days of living here, this patio with my girl snug in my arms had become my favorite place on earth.
We’d had a lot of parties back here. First a housewarming, then birthdays, Grace’s baby shower, our anniversary, and now Asher and Bex’s coed wedding shower. Her friends—who had become mine over the years—were really her family. There wasn’t a lot she wouldn’t do for the people she loved, because that was my little tiger—fierce and protective, with a massive heart.
Luc stuck her head out the patio door. “There’s a party a bunch of people I know are going to tonight. Can I go?”