So fucking cute.
I palmed the top of his head, and he leaned into it as he looked up at me with sleepy eyes. “Goodnight, little man.”
Hand-in-hand, Kallie and I tiptoed out. The second we were out the door, I swept her up. The way she tried to hold in her squeal, this sweet, subdued laughter rolling from her, melted me a little more.
Kid always had me a puddle at her feet.
Always so thoughtful.
So good.
So much like her mom.
Still wondered every damned day how I got this lucky.
“Did you brush your teeth?” I asked.
Her eyes went wide, before she shook her head as if she’d committed some sort of horrible crime. I set her back on her feet. “Run in and get it done.”
“I’ll do it super fast.”
“Not too fast,” I warned as I paused at the bathroom doorway, arms crossed over my chest as I watched her climb up the step stool.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when she slipped.
There was a huge part of me that wanted to swoop in and make it better. Protect her from anything and anyone who could possibly harm her. Freak out and beg her to tell me she was okay.
But I didn’t. I held it in and let her deal with the short fall that clearly hadn’t injured her. Let her learn, because when she climbed up again, she did it more carefully.
Maybe that’s something I learned from my baby brother. You can’t grow wings if you’re forbidden to fly. He’d been right when he said I’d protected and protected and protected until it was suffocating. That sometimes I inhibited rather than sustained.
And God. Only thing in this world I wanted?
For my family to grow. For them to experience life in the best ways possible. With me always standing at their sides rather than in front of them.
But when they needed me? In whatever capacity? I’d be there. Whether with a watching eye or a father’s fury, I’d be there.
Kallie finished, rushed right back out and to her room, hopped into her bed.
I knelt down at her side and listened to this amazing kid sound out the words that she was just learning, the butterfly book little more than a picture book with a couple of small words for her to make out.
“The end!” she said emphatically, all kinds of proud when she close the last page.
“Whoa, you read the whole thing? When’d you get so big?”
“Daddy,” she admonished, “I’m growing and growing. You know in only four months I’m gonna be six and I’ll be in first grade and then I’ll stay at school all, all day.”
I chuckled.
My little hurricane.
I put her book aside and pulled her covers to her chin, dropped a kiss to her nose.
“Goodnight, Little Bug.”
She beamed up at me. “Goodnight, Daddy Bug.”
My heart skipped a wayward beat.
Apparently, I’d gotten a promotion.
“I’ll see you in the morning, sweetheart.”
She clutched the top of her covers, smiling up at me. “’Kay.”
Flipping off her light switch, I left her door open a crack, the way we always did, and headed straight for the stairs. Itching to get to my wife.
I hit the ground floor. At the end of the little hall, I nudged open the swinging door leading to the kitchen.
And there she was, dancing around on bare feet as she wiped down the countertop, singing just below her breath with that amazing voice.
Quietly, I slipped in, edged up behind her and wrapped her in my arms. For a flash of a second, she startled, before she relaxed into my hold.
I leaned closer, my cheek embracing hers before my mouth made a pass down the slope of her neck and back up to her ear. “How many women are in this world? And somehow…somehow I found the one that was meant for me.”
Shea might as well have purred as she leaned back, hair brushing at my chin, face upturned and capturing me in the warmth of those eyes. Words flowed with her undying, beautiful faith. “I never said I didn’t believe in soulmates. Don’t ever forget you’re mine.”