Page 109 of Anti Player
“Omg,” Ellie gasps from beside me.
Sky squeals from the other side of the room, where she is sitting on Liam’s lap smiling wide. I look over at Mom and she nods to me in a way that says, “Get on with it, Maddie,” which tells me she is in on this thing too. When I look back at Kaleb, he shifts away from me and moves to the floor, where he gets down on one knee. Asher comes and stands beside him, placing hishand on Kaleb’s shoulder, sending the message these boys are a team.
Kaleb’s eyes are filled with so much love and affection when he begins, “Maddie, I never knew this life was possible. I never saw myself settling down or falling in love. Love didn’t exist for me until you came into my life. You showed me what it means to be cared for, you make me feel like I matter. I trust you with everything and I just love you so damn much. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Kaleb smiles, his own gaze filling with tears. “Will you marry me? And will you allow me to adopt Asher? I’d really like to be his father. Really, this is a proposal for both of you.”
Tears that were pricking my eyes fall aimlessly down my cheeks as I lunge into Kaleb’s arms. He falls over with me on top of him on the floor. He’s kissing me in front of this whole crowd.
“Is that a yes?” he asks, and I roll off him.
I nod. “Yes, that’s definitely a yes.” I sit up, feeling slightly winded. “But Asher needs to answer that second part. Do you want Kaleb to be your daddy?”
Asher runs into Kaleb just like I did, colliding with his chest, and Kaleb gathers him up in his arms. He whispers something in Kaleb’s ear as everyone around sits quietly watching.
“What did you say, sweet boy?” I ask my son.
Kaleb whispers something to Asher, and I think he’s asking permission to tell everyone what he said. Asher nods.
“He said he asked Santa if I could be his dad and Santa made his wish come true,” Kaleb shares, and now he’s crying too. I reach over and hug both my guys. We stay hugging for as long as it seems appropriate with a room full of our family and friends watching us. Sky hoots and claps.
When we pull apart, Kaleb places a square-cut diamond on a platinum band on my finger and we kiss chastely. The roombreaks out in applause and everyone comes to us, one by one, hugging and congratulating us.
“I’m so happy for you, Maddie,” Mom says. Her boyfriend, Will, shakes my hand and congratulates me.
Brett comes up to me. “You know you almost make me believe in love.”
I punch my brother in the shoulder, and he laughs.
“You couldn’t have found a better guy,” he says.
“I agree on that,” Henry adds, and he hugs me too. “Kaleb was already family, so now he just has to continue to put up with our crazy.”
We all laugh at that.
“I heard that,” Kaleb says as his friends come up to him and hug him.
“This has been my best Christmas ever,” I tell Kaleb.
“Mine too,” he agrees.
“We’ve done well,” I say to him when I think of both of our pasts.
“We have,” he agrees.
At the end of the night, we thank Skylar and Liam for an evening we will never forget. By the time we get home, Asher is fast asleep and Kaleb carries him up to the apartment and places him in his room. We moved into Kaleb’s apartment shortly after he asked me to move in. He hired a decorator and with Asher’s help they decorated his room. Since Asher loves astronomy, his room is decorated with a blanket covered in planets. He has one dark wall that has the Big Dipper painted on it and his lighting is also in the shape of stars. He said it’s his most favorite room. His words, not mine.
With Asher asleep, Kaleb walks me to our room.
“New York really feels like home. All those people there tonight, they are our family,” I say to him.
“They are good people and I’ve been happy here with them, but my home is where you are,” he declares, gathering me in his arms. “And right now, I want to be inside my home.”
I laugh at his analogy. He laughs too but the laughter doesn’t last long because as he unzips my green and red plaid dress, that I bought specially for Christmas, I remove his ridiculous reindeer sweater. My hands connect with the heat of his skin and my body warms all over. It doesn’t take him long to strip me down and I remove all his clothes including his boxers. When I see his erection standing against his stomach, I lick my lips.
“I love the way you look at me,” he says, and he swipes me off my feet.
I giggle. “I just love you.” I lean in and kiss him, and he lays me on my back on the bed. He’s on me in seconds, kissing me, loving me, making me come undone like only he knows how. And when he comes inside me, and I come undone, both of us moving to the rhythm of our release, I know I am home and that he’s it for me.
Kaleb