Page 245 of Fighting Chance

“Hey, I think she learned some of the cuss words from you.”

“Absolutely not, Ashford. You’ve doled out two hundred bucks to the swear jar and I’ve had to pay one.”

He sighs contentedly as he lowers Emmy to the ice, holding both her hands as she jumps up and down. “Can I pay you to swear? Hearing you say fuck was like music to my ears.”

“AndI’mteaching her to swear?”

I shake my head at him, though I can’t help smiling at the man that I continue to fall in love with more and more every day.

It didn’t take him long to ask me to move in with him. He lasted all of a week after the camping trip before blurting it out over dinner. He was a nervous wreck that night, spilling pasta water, dropping sauce on the floor. I’ve come to realize that Kieran does get nervous, but only for two people.

Emmy and me.

Whereas I get anxious if I wake up in a cold sweat or with aches and pains.

I had another flare-up, seven weeks after going off the birth control, but it was nowhere near as bad as the one prior. It was minor and went away so quickly it made me a little less afraid of them…but I know I’ll always carry some medical anxiety.

I’ve accepted that fact about myself.

Although working on writing has helped tremendously, to have a project to throw my entire focus into on days where I can’t switch my brain off.

Kieran was right, the second I mentioned that I was thinking of writing a children’s book the night we went Trick or Treating, Bella pounced, and we’ve been working together ever since. And yes, we get constant messages from Grayson in the middle of the night cursing both me and Kieran for stealing his girlfriend away from him.

But as Bella says, when inspiration strikes, it strikes hard.

I’ve managed to complete a full draft for my first children’s novel, and in Emmy’s honor, I named the main character after her, a fact which made Emmy teary-eyed when Bella and I showed her.

I’ll cherish the memory of that forever. It was the moment I saw Emmy realize she was loved.

“You coming, sunshine, or are you going to make me wallow in my misery alone?”

“You’ll never be alone, Ashford.”

Taking the hand Kieran holds out for me, his other still locked on Emmy’s, he pulls his two girls close and whispers in my ear, “I hoped every night when you were in Berlin that you’d say those words to me.”

“Your wish came true.”

“And it’s better than I ever dreamed.”