“By the power vested in me by the state of Tennessee, I approve this adoption by Mr. Benjamin Walter Paxton of Angela Lynn Hart, who will now be known as Angela Lynn Paxton. May God always be with your family.”
Before his gavel could even hit the desk, Benji had Angie in his arms and she let out a whoop of excitement, hugging him tightly. Kissing her hard, he squeezed her as the room broke out in applause. Pulling back to look at him, she grinned, her green eyes twinkling as she asked, “So you’re, like, really my dad now, right?”
“Really.”
“And we’re a family, right, Mom?” she asked Lucy as Benji wrapped her up too.
“Yes, honey, we are,” Lucy cried, leaning against her husband.
“Cool,” she decided, and they laughed, probably to keep the tears at bay.
“You know what that means, right?” he asked and Angie beamed.
“We’re going to Disney World!”
“Yup.”
“Yay!” Angie cheered as Benji’s eyes flooded with tears.
Lucy eyed him. “But the real question is are we sleeping in the castle?”
“Pfft. I’m Benji Paxton, the leading scoring defensemen in the league—”
“No, you’re not,” Lucy said.
“On the Assassins?”
“Nope, Jayden is,” Angie said, and he thought that over.
“Fine. Of course we are, because I paid a lot of money to do it,” he decided, and that had Lucy cracking up as Angie wrapped her arms around him, kissing him hard on the cheek. He was grinning from ear to ear as they started toward the back where everyone was waiting. But before they could even get that far, Autumn stopped them.
“Lucy Lane, did you marry this man and not tell me?”
Laughing, Benji looked over at Lucy. She pointed to her mother. “Well, you see…what had happened was… We couldn’t finalize the adoption unless Benji was her stepparent. So we got married,” she said and Autumn’s eyes widened.
“You mean to tell me like you did before, like Jayden, like Jace, you ran off and didn’t give me a wedding? Lucy! What in the world?”
But Lucy held her hands up. “I swear, I am having a big ol’ wedding later. We just wanted to be complete, Mom. You can’t be mad at that, can you?”
Autumn paused, her eyes narrowing, and while Benji knew she was annoyed, she wasn’t mad. She was too happy to be mad. River wrapped his arms around her and beamed at them. “No, sweetheart, we can’t. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” she said, looking up at him. “We’re pretty happy.”
“We are,” he agreed as he looked out at the crowd. Shea and Elli Alder grinned back at him, with Jordie and Kacey Thomas beside them. Everyone he loved was there. His teammates, his family, all of them grinning, so proud and supportive. He couldn’t have gotten through the last couple months without a lot of them—but most of all, he couldn’t have done it without Lucy.
Looking at her, he grinned as her eyes glossed over, and he whispered, “I can’t believe this.”
“I can’t either,” she admitted, going up on her toes and kissing his jaw. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“I love you both!” Angie declared and that had everyone laughing before she wrapped her arms around him, kissing his cheek once more.
And as he held Lucy and Angie in his arms, his heart still beating like mad in his chest, a feeling of wholeness came over him.
Benji Paxton finally had it all.