by Bethany-Kris
Gage smirked. “Damn.”
“However, I have something else you might like to doodle on,” Summer suggested.
“Oh, what’s that?”
She winked. “Me.”
Epilogue
One year later …
There were three things Gage learned over the span of a year. Three very important things. One, someone could walk into your life without you ever having known them and it could feel like they hadn’t even missed a single beat of time being there. Two, there actually were things that could come before his work and love of art.
And the third was by far the most important lesson. Never, ever use a condom that had been stuck in your wallet for God knows how long.
Four weeks after Summer moved into Gage’s apartment, she sat her pretty ass up on their kitchen counter and blurted out that she was pregnant like it wasn’t a big deal or something. The day before, she made a trip to the doctor to get a prescription for birth control. Standard procedure was a pregnancy test.
It popped back positive in less than a minute, apparently.
Gage hadn’t known what to say. In fact, he’d let the pasta sauce for the spaghetti he was making burn while he stared at her, terrified and confused. Not once did he question if it was his child or not—of course it was. He couldn’t, however, figure out how it happened at the time.
They’d always been careful, or at least Gage thought so.
That old, familiar Sex Ed lesson came back to haunt Gage. The one where all the boys were told to keep their condoms in a room temperature, dry place, and absolutely not in their wallets. Latex was known to break down in circumstances like that.
Gage couldn’t find it in himself to regret their stupid mistake that night in his truck, though.
Shifting his two month old daughter on his shoulder, Gage went back to smearing the colors he was testing to the canvas. They named her Elizabeth after his deceased mother. It was the easiest and obvious choice. Plus, it fit her well. Elizabeth’s pursed little mouth pressed to his neck, her tiny breaths washing over his skin in huffs.
She was, by far, his princess.
Everything and anything in life that was good, beautiful, and perfect came in the form of his blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter that had a great deal of his facial features, but her mother’s high cheekbones. She didn’t sleep through the night, gave them hell most of the time, and liked to puke on her uncle Jordy at least once a day, but she was still an angel.
Gage didn’t care what anybody said. His daughter was perfection.
He made that.
The best damn thing he ever created was his own flesh and blood.
Gage still wasn’t all too keen on other people’s kids, and he knew he was too young to be a father, but he was hands on and totally devoted to his child. She was there, now, so Gage didn’t dwell on his age, or that they now had a mortgage and would for the next twenty-five years, never mind the fact that he didn’t get as much free time as he used to.
Elizabeth and Summer came first, always. They owned every bit of his heart that beat and bled.
Once Elizabeth and Summer were cleared to fly after the birth, Gage took his tiny family to Saskatchewan to meet Summer’s family for the first time. Her mother and father were the easy ones to get along with, oddly. It was her brother who grilled him like he was a convict on the run.
Gage didn’t mind. Somebody other than him had to look out for Summer, after all.
“I’m liking those pale tints,” Jordy said from the bench seat on the back deck.
“Me, too,” Gage agreed.
“They mix well.”
“Easier to blend in if you screw up, you mean.”
Jordy laughed. “I don’t mess up a lot.”
“More than me, kid.”
Colors were still his life, except now, Gage saw them a little differently. Pastels were like his daughter, soft and innocent. Neon and the brighter ones were his lover, full of spice and life. The darker tints, the ones that colored up their night skies or streaked the ocean with storms were Jordy, like his moods.
Gage was still the basics. Black and white. Always the first colors he started with.
“I’m proud of you,” Gage said quietly.
Jordy cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable. “Thanks.”
The kid graduated top ten in a graduating class of nearly four-hundred students. He earned himself an art scholarship to the University of Saint John in the process. Jordy worked his ass off, kept his nose clean, took responsibility for his screw-ups, and didn’t say a word about it.
Yeah, proud was an understatement.
The last thing Jordy needed was a parent, Gage found. He had those once. They didn’t work for the kid. That didn’t mean Jordy didn’t need support, love, and discipline, because he did. He also got that tenfold from Gage, but more in a big brother sort of way from a guy who refused to take his shit and wasn’t afraid to flatten him on his ass if needed.
Tough love, so to speak.
“How do you think next month is going to go?” Jordy asked.
Gage smiled, feeling no nerves. “Good, I’m getting excited.”
Somewhere along the lines of the last year, Gage asked Summer to marry him. It wasn’t because she was pregnant, or because he thought he had to for the sake of responsibility. He did it because he couldn’t imagine living his life with anybody else, so he wanted everyone to know it, too.
Know that he loved her, so damned much.
Their small, intimate wedding was set for next month. Summer wanted to have it back in Gage’s hometown, and he agreed. It was someone appropriate for them to cement their commitment in the first place they met, after all.
Suddenly, the suckling sensation at Gage’s neck alerted him to his daughter’s desire to feed. Gage shifted her in her swaddling blanket to rest cradled in his arms, looking down on her perfect features. “You’re not going to find what you want on Daddy’s neck, baby girl.”
“Want me to clean up?” Jordy asked.
“Sure, thanks.”
Gage made his way into their three-bedroom home with his crying daughter secured in his arms. Summer always premade bottles so they didn’t have to scramble to put one together. All he needed to do was take it out of the fridge and warm it up.
While he waited for the water to boil, Gage hummed a tune under his breath, rocking Elizabeth to soothe her. He didn’t know Summer had come up behind him until she whistled a sexy, appreciative sound at the sight.
“Nothing like getting to sleep in,” Summer said as Gage turned around. “I know this is your vacation time and all, but you could have woken me up to help with Lizzy this morning. You’re making me feel like a lazy mom, Gage.”
Summer was anything but lazy. She kept their house up, worked until the doctor practically forced her to get off her feet during the pregnancy, and took care of their daughter without complaint. She also understood Gage’s odd moods sometimes, given his artistic drive and desires.
“You looked peaceful,” Gage said, shrugging.
Well, that, and they’d finally gotten the clear from the doctor a week ago for them to resume the physical side of their relationship. Gage was taking full advantage of that, loving her every chance he could, repeatedly. She had to be tired, if they mixed him waking her up plus their daughter getting up a half a dozen times in the night. Six to eight weeks was a hell of a long time when the only thing he wanted to do was bury himself between her thighs for a multitude of reasons.
Summer crossed the distance between them, laying a soft kiss to his cheek. She was wearing his T-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts, giving him the sweetest view of her legs. “Wake me up next time. I missed seeing you paint this morning, didn’t I?”
“I was testing colors, not painting.”
“Your focus is still the same. Outside, right?”
Gage pretended to be offended. “Of course.”
Summer was particular about ensuring he kept his aerosols outside. Espe
cially because of the baby and the fumes.
“She was sleeping on my shoulder, though,” Gage admitted.
“Gage!”
“Well, she cried when I put her down, okay?”
He didn’t like it when Elizabeth cried. Technically, it wasn’t really his fault.
“Let me see her,” Summer demanded.
Gage turned away from her crazy, shielding his daughter. “Summer, she’s fine. Quit it.”
“You’ve got spray paint on your hands again, Gage.”
“I always do!”
Summer huffed, hands on her hips. “You’re insufferable.”
“But you love me.”
“Only a little,” Summer retorted with not a bit of heat in her voice.
It was true though. Spray paint, to Gage, was a lot like Summer. It left imprints everywhere it went, especially on him. Like the colored kisses dotting his fingernails from the after spray, or the smudges marring his skin when he blended.
It was always going to be there. Just like Summer.
Forever.
The End
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