And I’d rather see my family, so we’d left; we went straight to the bar slash restaurant in our stupid expensive dresses with Yuki promising to pay for them when I told her I was worried I’d get it dirty. I’d had fun at the ceremony, but nothing was better than walking into the restaurant and seeing Mr. Young with his arms crossed over his chest, laughing at something Rhodes had said. My perfect Rhodes, who was leaning back against the booth with Azalia standing up and bouncing on his lap while Am stared hard at a table across the room. One quick glance had me recognizing the girl he was staring at. She had been at the ceremony too and won something about fifteen minutes before Yuki had.
I’d gone and given them all kisses and hugs, taking Azalia and play-eating her cheek before my daddy’s girl had reached out for her older brother, who took her without hesitation.
Azalia was a miracle who’d made her tiny, tadpole-sized presence known a little over a year after Rhodes and I had gotten married. My eyes had teared up, his had too, and if I’d thought he’d been protective before, it was nothing compared to after that. I’d thrived on it too.
But focusing back on the present and not on the two-year-old passed out in Am’s arms, I still couldn’t believe that Yuki had won. Actually, I could, but it was still surprising and amazing. She’d thanked me twice in a nervous rush of gratitude onstage, and I’d cheered as loudly as I wanted, annoying the people around me.
She promised to send me a plaque, and I had just the perfect wall to put it on. In our bedroom. Beside the last one she’d given me for that fateful album we’d written together at a low point in both our lives. Yet here we were, better than ever.
It was late as we all got up to leave, and I watched Yuki slide her arm through her dad’s as they exited the restaurant and started the walk a block down back to the hotel. Her bodyguard trailed behind them.
The rest of us followed him. The night was cool, and there were a lot more people than I would’ve expected at nearly midnight on a Sunday, with just about everyone doing a double take at the view of Yuki, obviously recognizing her.
Rhodes squeezed my hand. “I think I saw you when they were showing the nominees and zoomed in on Yuki,” he said.
“Did you see us both staring blankly forward?”
“Oh yeah.”
I laughed.
“I thought that sort of thing was fun?”
“It’s not. It’s so boring. We played rock paper scissors and tic-tac-toe on her phone.” I squeezed his hand. “I brought two granola bars, and she had two packs of gummy bears, and we took turns bending over and eating them so the cameras wouldn’t catch us.”
He laughed so loud before releasing my hand and slipping it over my shoulders, pulling me into him. My favorite position.
“We had to help each other use the bathroom,” I admitted too.
He squeezed me even harder. “That doesn’t sound like fun at all.”
“I’m good never doing it again, that’s for sure,” I said, peeking over my shoulder to find Amos holding his sleepy little sister behind us. He tipped up his chin just like Rhodes did.
He had matured so much over the last few years; he wasn’t as tall as his dad, but I thought he was going to get close. To me, he looked a hell of a lot more like his mom, but when he smirked or rolled his eyes, I swore he was a mirror image of his dad. His Dad Rhodes at least. He’d gotten his laid-back attitude from his Dad Billy, I’d discovered.
Just as I opened my mouth to ask them what they wanted to do tomorrow, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted two familiar figures coming in through the hotel’s other set of automatic doors.
One of them was Kaden.
In a black tuxedo just like the one I’d seen him wearing a hundred times before when he’d leave me in a hotel room. His shirt white, his bowtie still on. And beside him, his mom was there in a stunning gold gown.
She looked pissed. It was funny to see some things hadn’t changed. Wow.
Kaden had managed to stay “relevant” enough to still be invited to awards shows and win sometimes, thanks to whoever he was hiring now. He’d been nominated for something or another tonight but hadn’t won. I hadn’t seen him in person, just the image of him that had appeared on the stage’s massive screen.
Peace like I hadn’t felt in forever filled my heart and, honestly, my whole body.
There was no anger in me. No pain or resentment. Just… indifference.
Like he could sense my gaze on him, Kaden’s eyes moved toward us, and I could tell the moment it landed on the very soft swelling at my stomach. I was four months along now, and the dress did little to hide the second baby we were having. Another little girl. We hadn’t settled on a first name yet, but since Azalia was named after my mom, we were thinking about giving baby number two Yuki’s middle name: Rose.